Julian Rignall is one of the most famous and influential video game journalists of the '80s and '90s, having worked on magazines such as Zzap!64, CVG, Mean Machines and Nintendo Magazine System.
He would later help to establish IGN as one of the leading video game websites in the world, and has also worked for Walmart and GamePro during a career which spans five decades.
Rignall has written a book which chronicles both his life and the video game industry as a whole, Games of a Lifetime, and was kind enough to sit down to speak with us about it.
Time Extension: Why did you feel now was the right time to write this book?
Julian Rignall: Well, if truth be told, I was initially going to release this book a decade ago. Back in 2003, after I’d left IGN and was doing non-gaming work at ad agencies and at Walmart, I started writing anecdotes about my experiences, initially just to keep my writing skills sharp since I wasn’t doing a whole lot of that. So, I wrote on and off for a few years and then as the decade progressed I realized I was heading toward my 30th anniversary working in the games biz and came up with the idea for the book.
However, toward the end of the decade I got a magazine job at Future which kept me very busy and as that 30th anniversary approached I realized there was no way I could get the book finished, so I dialed back the effort a bit and once again worked on it in my spare time.
Fast-forward to 2019, and I suddenly had a lot of spare time on my hands. What with the pandemic shutting everything down, I thought, this is the time to get it done—especially since that 30th anniversary working in the video gaming industry was soon to turn into my 40th. So, basically, I finished up the final few chapters and was soon working with Sam Dyer at Bitmap Books to put it all together.
What was the most challenging part of putting this book together?
Probably just the learning curve of Sam and I working together. I’m very kinetic by nature and bounce around with ideas and feedback, creating a whirlwind of chaos. Meanwhile, Sam is far steadier and more polite than I am, so my breakneck and often raw communication style vs his more considered approach took us both some getting used to.
However, to me, that friction is actually a good thing. We both really care about the things we do, and our sometimes challenging one another’s passions has resulted in a book that combines Sam’s absolutely exceptional, top-class quality and production standards while also maintaining my classic, “entertain and inform” Zzap!/Mean Machines/old school editorial style.
I’m sure people who liked reading my stuff back in the day will instantly recognize and enjoy the words while also appreciating the world-class production values of the book, which I think are peerless in video game publishing. I feel the book represents the best of both design and editorial worlds. And while it wasn’t always easy, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
What part of the process was the most enjoyable?
The writing. There are long stretches of the book that are pretty much verbatim what came out of my head in real-time. That’s always been the way I write my very best stuff; I just get into the zone, and my brain just churns it out. It’s fun because I’m in the moment as I write it, and it feels spontaneous—because it is.
Which era of the book do you look back on with the most fondness?
No single era stands out for me. I’ve had ups and downs throughout my life, and there are many moments from across the 50-or-so years that the book covers that represent both extremely happy as well as terrible memories. That’s life, as far as I’m concerned.
Your career has seen you in many different industries and roles, but many people will associate you first and foremost with physical magazines; what are your thoughts on the rather sorry decline of print media, given how much you did to popularize it with gamers?
Hm. I’m probably going to sound pretty unsympathetic here, but to me, it’s just life. I’m very glad I made mags, and I’m even happier that their readers enjoyed them as much as they did. But then people stopped buying them and there was no demand for them anymore, and they’ve largely gone away except for the few specialists who still make them for the limited audience who still want them.
Mags are great, and I certainly enjoyed reading them, but they’re also a part of history now. Something to look back on and be appreciated.
When you were a youngster, could you ever have guessed you'd be where you are today, penning your memories down for thousands of followers and fans?
I don’t think I’d ever have been able to guess my life path, but as a writer, I always thought I’d be writing something about that path, assuming it was worth writing about. And here we are! I just hope people think that path is worth reading about.
You've seen the games industry change in truly dramatic ways; do you think it's in the best possible health today, and where do you think video games are headed in the next few years?
I think the thing that people overlook about video game history is that at any time in any given era, there were supremely healthy as well as supremely unhealthy aspects to it. I mean, people piss and moan about how live service games are killing the industry, but at the same time, we see well over 10,000 games released on Steam in a year.
We’re spoiled for choice, but actually finding those games is hard. We have huge hits generating enormous amounts of money and massive failures devastating people’s lives. It’s always been like that, even in the very earliest days. The scale might have been different, but the issues have always been there.
And like it always does, the industry will stumble on, and people will love stuff and hate stuff, but for the most part, I think it’ll all be fine.
Could we see more books from you in the future?
Yeah. I’ve got an absolutely killer idea for my next book that could be both cool and potentially very meaningful. Watch this space!