3 results
8 - Interview with Harmonix
- Edited by Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Kurt Squire, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Sasha Barab, Arizona State University
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- Book:
- Games, Learning, and Society
- Published online:
- 05 August 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 June 2012, pp 108-115
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Summary
The following interview between Kurt Squire and Greg LoPiccolo of Harmonix Games (on June 22, 2010) tries to get at how Harmonix thinks about designing games to elicit particularly musical experiences. Harmonix, developers of FreQuency, Amplitude, Karaoke Revolution, Guitar Hero I and II, and now the Rock Band series, is known for its pioneering work in rhythm action games, taking them from a niche genre to broad mainstream success. Sarah Chu, who transcribed and cleaned up the transcripts, contributed interview questions as well.
Kurt Squire: Can you talk a little bit about the game design philosophy at Harmonix and a little about how you think about game design?
Greg LoPiccolo: Well, the company charter from day one was to use technology to provide nonmusicians with the tremendous experience of creating music. Most of the people here are musicians or frustrated musicians or some version of that. There’s a strong consensus here that if you have proi ciency in an instrument, performing music is one of the great joys in life. It is enormously fun and rewarding, but this experience is denied to most people because the learning curve is so steep. It really requires multiple years of focus, dedication, and time to get good enough on a traditional instrument to really express yourself. So, broadly conceived, the ambition here has always been to try to use technology to bring more people into that experience. Harmonix was not originally games-specii c. It wasn’t until maybe about four or five years ago that we realized that games are an appropriate platform to bring this vision to life.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALLAN MELTZER
- Interviewed by Bennett T. McCallum
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- Journal:
- Macroeconomic Dynamics / Volume 2 / Issue 2 / June 1998
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 June 1998, pp. 238-283
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Allan Meltzer's career in economics has featured outstanding contributions in an astonishingly wide range of activities. As the basis of all of these, of course, lies his work in economic research. Perhaps most well known is Allan's long line of papers in monetary economics, many written together with Karl Brunner, which helped to establish the broad and widely accepted approach once known as monetarism. But several other areas have, at different times, attracted his main research efforts; among these are business-cycle analysis, financial intermediation, analytical political economy, and the history of economic thought. Recently, he has become deeply immersed in a major historical project — the writing of an extensive history of the Federal Reserve System and its monetary policymaking. A second type of outstanding accomplishment has been Allan Meltzer's work as a conference-series creator and organizer. In the 1970's, he and Karl Brunner founded the Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, which has been unusually fruitful as an incubator of new ideas and talent. Together, Brunner and Meltzer also founded the Interlaken Seminar on Analysis and Ideology, which for many years brought together economists, political philosophers, and other social scientists. Allan was a major contributor to Brunner's organization of the Konstanz Seminar on Monetary Theory and Policy — still a creative force in European economics — and with colleagues he created and ran the Carnegie Mellon Conference on Political Economy from 1979 to 1990.
As if all this were not enough for three or four normal beings, Allan and Karl created the Shadow Open Market Committee. At its inception this was a unique institution, but it has since served as a model for other groups designed to provide policy analysis for a wider public audience. In terms of that latter objective, Allan has been and continues to be one of the economists most frequently sought out and quoted in the national and international press. He maintains an amazingly fresh and extensive store of knowledge about economic and social affairs the world over, one that he shares generously with other scholars.
Allan Meltzer has not spent much time in full-time governmental positions, but has served extensively as a consultant or advisor to the U.S. Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisors, as well as official agencies in several other nations, including most notably the Bank of Japan. Also he has for several years spent a good bit of time at the American Enterprise Institute. For over 40 years, however, his principal professional home has been the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University.
From the foregoing account, it will be obvious that Allan Meltzer is equipped with an enormous supply of energy and enthusiasm, as well as analytical ability. A closely related characteristic, familiar to all those who are lucky enough to spend time with him, is an unfailing attitude of optimism and cheerfulness.
My interview with Allan took place on May 14, 1997, in his office, with its pleasant corner location in the new wing of GSIA's building. We talked in the afternoon and continued somewhat longer than intended because there was so much of interest to discuss. Even after 16 years of having nearby offices and multiple conversations — on days when we both are in Pittsburgh — I found it instructive and enjoyable to learn more about Allan Meltzer's remarkable career. The interview was taped, transcribed, and edited lightly.
AN INTERVIEW WITH WASSILY LEONTIEF
- Interviewed by Duncan K. Foley
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- Journal:
- Macroeconomic Dynamics / Volume 2 / Issue 1 / March 1998
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 March 1998, pp. 116-140
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Wassily Leontief is one of the central creators and shapers of twentieth-century economics. He invented input-output theory and the techniques for constructing input-output tables from economic and technological data and was responsible for making input-output tables the most powerful and widely used tool of structural economic analysis. The theory of input-output matrices played an important role in the clarification of general equilibrium theory in the 1940's and 1950's as well. Leontief has also made fundamental and seminal contributions to the theories of demand, international trade, and economic dynamics. His research interests include monetary economics, population, econometric method, environmental economics, distribution, disarmament, induced technical change, international capital movements, growth, economic planning, and the Soviet and other socialist economies. Leontief has played a vigorous part in formulating national and international policies addressing technology, trade, population, arms control, and the environment. He has also been a well-informed and influential critic of contemporary economic method, theory, and practice. Leontief received the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 1973.
I met Wassily Leontief on April 14, 1997, at his apartment high above Washington Square Park in New York City. Leontief reclined on a sofa in the living room, with Mrs. Leontief going about her business in the background, occasionally asking after Leontief's comfort. Leontief's voice on the tape ranges from an assertive forte to a whispery piano. He is by turns animated, thoughtful, puzzled, inspiring, and charming. A chiming clock marking the passage of quarter-hours and characteristic New York street noise occasionally obscure his words on the tape. I have edited the transcript for continuity and clarity.