Price: $24.95 - $13.99
(as of Jun 02, 2026 09:49:25 UTC – Details)

Creating Q*bert and Other Classic Video Arcade Games takes you inside the video arcade game industry during the pivotal decades of the 1980s and 1990s. Warren Davis, the creator of the groundbreaking Q*bert, worked as a member of the creative teams who developed some of the most popular video games of all time, including Joust 2, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Revolution X.

In a witty and entertaining narrative, Davis shares insightful stories that offer a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to work as a designer and programmer at the most influential and dominant video arcade game manufacturers of the era, including Gottlieb, Williams/Bally/Midway, and Premiere.

Likewise, the talented artists, designers, creators, and programmers Davis has collaborated with over the years reads like a who’s who of video gaming history: Eugene Jarvis, Tim Skelly, Ed Boon, Jeff Lee, Dave Thiel, John Newcomer, George Petro, Jack Haeger, and Dennis Nordman, among many others.

The impact Davis has had on the video arcade game industry is deep and varied. At Williams, Davis created and maintained the revolutionary digitizing system that allowed actors and other photo-realistic imagery to be utilized in such games as Mortal Kombat, T2, and NBA Jam. When Davis worked on the fabled Us vs. Them, it was the first time a video game integrated a live action story with arcade-style graphics.

On the one-of-a-kind Exterminator, Davis developed a brand new video game hardware system, and created a unique joystick that sensed both omni-directional movement and rotation, a first at that time. For Revolution X, he created a display system that simulated a pseudo-3D environment on 2D hardware, as well as a tool for artists that facilitated the building of virtual worlds and the seamless integration of the artist’s work into game code.

Whether you’re looking for insights into the Golden Age of Arcades, would like to learn how Davis first discovered his design and programming skills as a teenager working with a 1960’s computer called a Monrobot XI, or want to get the inside scoop on what it was like to film the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Aerosmith for Revolution X, Davis’ memoir provides a backstage tour of the arcade and video game industry during its most definitive and influential period.

From the Publisher

This was a wondrous sight to behold. Seeing rows of Q*bert’s being built on the assembly line was surreal for me.

Flyer for Q*bert’s appearance at the November 1982 AMOA show.

A view of our blue screen studio showcasing a mass of video and electronic equipment. (Chris Granner on left, John Vogel on right.)

A rare view of one of WTARG’s control screens, which among other things, allowed a user to turn individual frames on and off while an animation was running to see how the sequence would look with fewer frames. WTARG ran under MS-DOS, a text-based operating system. I converted it into a Windows program after Revolution X was done.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Santa Monica Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 11, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1595801057
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1595801050
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #894,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #129 in Computer & Technology Biographies #156 in Computer & Video Game Design #209 in Digital Video Production (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (86) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });