TITLE
An Interview with Michael Schrage, Rolling Stone’s First Video Game Journalist
AUTHOR
Steve Fulton
PUBLICATION
Game Developer
YEAR
2012
ARTICLE TYPE
Interview
FROM THE ARTICLE
Michael Schrage was one of pioneers of video game journalism. A few months prior to the first Issue of Electronic Games magazine in 1981, Schrage was hired by Rolling Stone magazine to write their technology column. Out of the gates he proceeded to write some of the very first stories about video games and video game culture for the mass market. The guys from Electronic Games had come from the ranks of sci-fi fanzines and comic books and made their magazine into the first real video game publication for fan-boys. At the same time, Computer Gaming world was publishing directly at the war gaming grognard market. However, while most of the mainstream press (and by 1981 Rolling Stone was certainly mainstream) was busy completely ignoring video games, Schrage was writing regular features on the subject. In fact, his first story covered the “military” version of Atari’s Battlezone. Schrage covered Atari through 1982, and saw the company from the inside out. When Atari was on the verge of imploding, Schrage entered the bowels of the company for a watershed piece in June 1982 named “Video Games Go Hollywood” which very well might have been the first real “journalism” applied to the art, science and business of making video games. I was honored in 2008 when Mr. Schrage agreed to an interview about his time with Rolling Stone and beyond.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Atari
GAMES MENTIONED
Battlezone (1980)
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Michael Schrage
TOPICS MENTIONED
Journalism