As the internal lead producer for NHL Hockey Genesis and Madden at Park Place Productions (owned by Knox and myself), let me clarify some things for you all here - read to the end to get the full scoop. I probably wouldn't have written anything here, but seeing my former partner Michael Knox maligned as a "black Bernie Madoff" couldn't be further than the truth.
Due to the success of Monday Night Football on the PC (a game Knox and I created that was more successful than EA's PC version of Madden), Electronic Arts sought out Lyndon and his partner Knox to develop a football game which became the first 3D Madden Football game ever developed. Lyndon originally opposed the idea of a 3D game by his lead programmer, Jim Simmons (a friend of Lyndon's who had never developed a professional software product before), but empowered him to create the display engine if he could meet certain timeline deadlines, while Steve Quinn developed graphics. Lyndon and Knox embedded everything they had learned in developing two previous football games into Madden with countless hours with programmer Simmons describing how to make computer animated objects appear as though they were as smart as humans in determining how to play each of the different positions played by football players in real life. Lyndon credits Electronic Arts' producer Richard Hilleman for his countless hours spent with Simmons bug-testing and refining the game which was developed on the new Sega Genesis platform in record time; 6 months in-time for the product launch.
After Madden Football's success, Lyndon and Knox with programmer Jim Simmons went on to create the first NHL Hockey video game for the Sega Genesis platform. Utilizing green-screen video capturing equipment, Lyndon and his developers went on to create technologies to rotoscope real-life imagery of NHL characters directly into characters which appeared in video games. As a result, Lyndon built the video game industry's first dedicated filming studio (sound stage).
The point here is that both Madden and NHL Hockey, both great versions first on Genesis, we developed by a team. No one person deserves all the credit. For example, on Madden, Lyndon and Knox had previously published 3 football games - and in their wisdom, they recognized Simmon's programming talent and hired him, while teaching Simmons everything about how to create a solid football game - otherwise, there is no way Simmons could have completed the game on a new piece of hardware in 5 1/2 months. Seriously. However, to Simmons credit, Lyndon recognizes his innovation in developing the 3D view - that part was inspired by Lyndon's former boss, Scott Orr. Lastly, Rich Hilleman spent every waking moment near the end to fine-tune the play-ability of the game. So in fairness to the entire team, not a single member could have been omitted without the game turning out so well - that includes Michael Knox, Troy Lyndon, Jim Simmons, Scott Orr and Richard Hilleman, period. On the EA side, there was also the technical expertise of Scott Cronce (now Director, Software Development at Amazon) who supported us in developing one of the first Sega Genesis titles to be released. And I'm sure there were more at EA, including the team that created their awesome development systems.
Now as for NHL Hockey, Lyndon and Knox are to credit for the innovative green-screen techniques they utilized (as do filmmakers today), but remember this was back in 1991. Those innovative techniques combined with specialized code written to assist artists in "roto-scoping" were responsible for the fluid animations which had never been seen before in a sports game. With that said, Simmons is to credit for the awesome physics built into the engine which gave the game such a realistic and great game play feel. But he may not have been able to develop it so quickly without Lyndon input as the developer of Capcom's Hat Trick hockey game, which he brought from the arcade to the C-64 and PC. Scott Orr may also have been involved, as was Hilleman again who worked relentlessly with Simmons in the final days before release to fine-tune the game. So again, without the expertise of every team member, no one can say with assurance that they could have built these rockin games, unless they have an inflated view of their capabilities.
As for Mark Lesser, he was an unknown at this time when the first award-winning games (Madden and NHL Hockey for Genesis and SNES) were developed from 1990 through 1992. It is my understanding that '93 and '94 versions of both games were not new innovative games. However, they were clearly well-done derivative sequels of the originals which faithfully continued the legacy forward.
Perhaps the most evidence we have about the uniqueness of this amazing team becomes clear when the moment EA cut-out Lyndon and Knox in future work, which they did with Lyndon's approval (Knox begrudgingly went along), this same team never worked together, collectively, again - and accordingly, never innovated again in their entire careers to the degree that these two games changed sports simulation games forever.
I am forever grateful for having been on this team. Richard Hilleman deserves the most credit for having brought us all together. Had he recognized the importance of the collective parts, I'm sure there would have been many more hit games thereafter.
Who gets credit? Jim Simmons? Mark Lesser?
in General NHL'94 Discussion
Posted · Edited by smozoma
Delineate quote
As the internal lead producer for NHL Hockey Genesis and Madden at Park Place Productions (owned by Knox and myself), let me clarify some things for you all here - read to the end to get the full scoop. I probably wouldn't have written anything here, but seeing my former partner Michael Knox maligned as a "black Bernie Madoff" couldn't be further than the truth.
Quoted from Wikipedia:
The point here is that both Madden and NHL Hockey, both great versions first on Genesis, we developed by a team. No one person deserves all the credit. For example, on Madden, Lyndon and Knox had previously published 3 football games - and in their wisdom, they recognized Simmon's programming talent and hired him, while teaching Simmons everything about how to create a solid football game - otherwise, there is no way Simmons could have completed the game on a new piece of hardware in 5 1/2 months. Seriously. However, to Simmons credit, Lyndon recognizes his innovation in developing the 3D view - that part was inspired by Lyndon's former boss, Scott Orr. Lastly, Rich Hilleman spent every waking moment near the end to fine-tune the play-ability of the game. So in fairness to the entire team, not a single member could have been omitted without the game turning out so well - that includes Michael Knox, Troy Lyndon, Jim Simmons, Scott Orr and Richard Hilleman, period. On the EA side, there was also the technical expertise of Scott Cronce (now Director, Software Development at Amazon) who supported us in developing one of the first Sega Genesis titles to be released. And I'm sure there were more at EA, including the team that created their awesome development systems.
Now as for NHL Hockey, Lyndon and Knox are to credit for the innovative green-screen techniques they utilized (as do filmmakers today), but remember this was back in 1991. Those innovative techniques combined with specialized code written to assist artists in "roto-scoping" were responsible for the fluid animations which had never been seen before in a sports game. With that said, Simmons is to credit for the awesome physics built into the engine which gave the game such a realistic and great game play feel. But he may not have been able to develop it so quickly without Lyndon input as the developer of Capcom's Hat Trick hockey game, which he brought from the arcade to the C-64 and PC. Scott Orr may also have been involved, as was Hilleman again who worked relentlessly with Simmons in the final days before release to fine-tune the game. So again, without the expertise of every team member, no one can say with assurance that they could have built these rockin games, unless they have an inflated view of their capabilities.
As for Mark Lesser, he was an unknown at this time when the first award-winning games (Madden and NHL Hockey for Genesis and SNES) were developed from 1990 through 1992. It is my understanding that '93 and '94 versions of both games were not new innovative games. However, they were clearly well-done derivative sequels of the originals which faithfully continued the legacy forward.
Perhaps the most evidence we have about the uniqueness of this amazing team becomes clear when the moment EA cut-out Lyndon and Knox in future work, which they did with Lyndon's approval (Knox begrudgingly went along), this same team never worked together, collectively, again - and accordingly, never innovated again in their entire careers to the degree that these two games changed sports simulation games forever.
I am forever grateful for having been on this team. Richard Hilleman deserves the most credit for having brought us all together. Had he recognized the importance of the collective parts, I'm sure there would have been many more hit games thereafter.
Very kindly,
Troy Lyndon