Joel Billings is back for one final time (at least for this interview series!) to tell us about the decline and fall of his one great company. Why isn't SSI with us today? Then there's the great What-ifs--What if Trip Hawkins had been at the meeting with EA? What if SSI had held off just a bit longer before selling out to Mindscape? Enjoy!

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This week we take a look at Mail Order Monsters, the 8-bit classic designed by Paul Reiche III, Evan Robinson, and Nicky Robinson. If you think Pokémon was an original concept, check out this 1985 action strategy game from Electronic Arts. Design and evolve your corral of monsters, then pit them against the computer or friends on your Commodore 64 or Atari 400/800. It's loads of fun, but it ain't easy! Download the mp3 audio here or at iTunes.

Hi, folks. I'm back this week with a video about one of my favorite two-player games, Free Fall Associates' Archon (1983).

Also: Check out Bill's amazing response video that shows the original packaging and much more!

Ozark Softscape's Dan(i) Bunten-coded 8-bit multiplayer masterpiece, M.U.L.E., is now available in an updated, online playable version. The best part? This has the official blessing of the Bunten family. Fans of this site probably need no introduction to this semi-real-time economic strategy game, but for the rest of you, now is a great time to see what all the fuss is about. Check it out here. There are clients for Windows, Mac, and even Linux. The full game is free!

In this week's Matt Chat, I look at The Sims, one of the many games given its own chapter in our book Vintage Games. I enjoyed reviewing the game and hope you'll like the video! As usual, please rate it, subscribe to my channel, leave a comment, etc. It's a lot of work making these, so please let me know if you find it worthwhile.

Welcome to the weekend with Matt Chat #4: M.U.L.E.! So, leave those multiple-use labor elements alone for awhile and check out my new YouTube video!

Battlecast Primetime: These sportscasters, er, gamecasters deliver colorful C&C commentary.

In South Korea, Starcraft became a national obsession, spawning a following comparable to professional sports with star players, matches played in stadiums with play by plays, and even little Zergling sneakers. But what about in the USA? Can EA try to make Command and Conquer as popular in the US as Blizzard did with Starcraft in Korea? EA's new online show, Battlecast Primetime, isn't a bad start.

The first episode runs around an hour and covers an online match of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars with play by play from no less than 4 commentators, features an interview with actor Joe Kucan (Kane from the C&C series), a preview of the upcoming expansion pack, and no less than 5 commercial breaks for other EA products. The commercials are short at least and the Simpsons game looks surprisingly promising. Players can submit recordings of online matches for consideration for future episodes of the show.

Sony's PSPFor $20, Electronic Arts plans to release the following games on one UMD disc for the PSP: B.O.B., Road Rash II, Budokan, Road Rash III, Desert Strike, Syndicate, Jungle Strike, Ultima: The Black Gate, Haunting Starring Polterguy, Virtual Pinball, Mutant League Football, Wing Commander, Road Rash, and Wing Commander: Secret Missions.

The BBC has a small report about how the modern game industry is burning out talent. Of course, this is something we've all heard before, particularly surrounding the EASPOUSE public relations nightmare EA suffered back in 04. They actually followed up on EASPOUSE, who has now changed her tune about EA.