Danielle Bunten Berry
| Danielle Bunten Berry | |
|---|---|
Danielle Bunten Berry
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| Born |
Daniel Paul Bunten February 19, 1949 St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| Died | July 3, 1998 (aged 49) Little Rock, Arkansas, United States |
| Other names | Dan Bunten |
| Occupation | Game designer, programmer |
| Known for | Designer of M.U.L.E. and The Seven Cities of Gold |
| Awards | AIAS Hall of Fame Award (2007) |
Danielle Bunten Berry (February 19, 1949 – July 3, 1998), born Daniel Paul Bunten, and also known as Dan Bunten, was an American game designer and programmer, known for the 1983 game M.U.L.E. (one of the first influential multiplayer games), and 1984's The Seven Cities of Gold.
In 1998 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association. And in 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Bunten to be inducted into their Hall of Fame.
Bunten was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, as a junior in high school. She acquired a degree in industrial engineering in 1974 and started programming text-based video games as a hobby. In 1978, Bunten sold a real-time auction game for the Apple II titled Wheeler Dealers to a Canadian software company, Speakeasy Software. This early multiplayer game required a custom controller, raising its price to USD$35 in an era of $15 games sold in plastic bags. It sold only 50 copies.
After three titles for SSI, Bunten, who by then had founded a software company called Ozark Softscape, caught the attention of Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins. M.U.L.E. was Bunten's first game for EA, originally published for the Atari 8-bit family because the Atari 800 had four controller ports. Bunten later ported it to the Commodore 64. While its sales — 30,000 units — were not high, the game developed a cult following and was widely pirated. The game setting was inspired by the novel Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein. See http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/BERRY.HTM
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