Equip Shield: The Role of Semipermeable Cultural Isolation in the History of Games and Comics

Abstract

Early in 1997, I began working for Cyberlore Studios, a small independent game developer in Western Massachusetts. Cyberlore had made its name in the mid 1990s on a series of small—though well received— strategy titles, mostly for the publisher Strategic Simulations Inc., one of the earliest publishers of strategy and war games on the personal computer. In 1996, Cyberlore developed Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. The success of Beyond the Dark Portal launched a period of expansion for the company; the tail end of which I caught. My first published title, completed almost three years after I began working for the company, was called Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim: a fantasy themed real-time strategy title. Its continuation nearly a decade later by Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive was facilitated by a technologically driven and fundamental change in the marketplace that frames the body of this chapter.