Brad Fregger, the games producer, trainer and marketer responsible for Computer Card Solitaire, Shanghai, and Jack Nicklaus 4 Golf, has a new book out with the somewhat lengthy title Lucky That Way: Siezing the Moment While Creating the Games Millions Play. The book is described by the publishers as an inside look at the stories behind the creation of some of the most successful computer games in the world. Fregger, now in his 50s, started out at Atari Corp, creating the training organization at a time when the company went from $350m to $2bn in annual sales. The book describes how one of the fastest growing companies in history crashed and brought the entire video game industry down with it. Fregger later went on to be director of entertainment software for Activision Inc, where he was in charge of the team responsible for the 10 million selling Shanghai, and following that he produced Computer Card Solitaire – said to be the most played computer game in the world – in 1987. The book retells such chestnuts as how Bill Gates won MS- DOS for Microsoft, but also reveals how Novato, California-based Broderbund Software Inc, the developer of Myst which was acquired last year by The Learning Company Inc, rejected the Tetris game, only to see it picked up by a small publisher and become a huge success. Fregger is now vice president of product development at mysterious Austin, Texas-based start-up Dryken Technologies Inc (not to be confused with the medical industry data mining company of the same name), which promises to reveal more details about its internet commerce activities this June.
