Behind the effort to honor forgotten game industry figures
Erik Johnson didn’t know his grandma, was a game industry icon. But most of the video game industry didn’t know either.
Mabel Addis, (Johnson’s “gaga", as he puts it) created The Sumerian Game with IBM in 1964, and in doing so, became the first narrative designer. She also created one of the first educational video games, and one of the first with a strong roleplaying component to the play experience. Johnson most recently accepted the Pioneer Award on behalf of his grandma at the 2023 Game Developers Choice Awards. Until this year’s Game Developers Conference, he had no idea how significant Addis’ contributions were to the game industry.
“You don’t realize how much is devoted to something,” he said in a recent conversation. “You see these conferences and lines wrapped about the building; your whole world opens up to a thing you had no idea about.”
Addis’ absence of industry recognition, and eventual elevation, is similar to Jerry Lawson, credited with inventing the cartridge. Lawson first attended GDC in 2011 as an invited guest from the International Game Developer's Association; he passed away several months later. Since then, he's become a prominent icon in the game design history.
After Lawson's passing, numerous foundations have been established in his name. Including the IGDA Foundations’ Jerry A. Lawson award for Achievement in Game Development and the Blacks in Gaming Awards’ Jerry Lawson Lifetime Achievement Award. Jerry was most recently celebrated publicly in a Google Doodle last December.
There are many reasons why Addis and Lawson deserve these accolades. However, it does raise important questions about how the game industry remembers its greatest contributors. Why did it take so long to acknowledge their work?
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