Richard Moss

Freelance Writer and Journalist

Writer, journalist, and storyteller who explores the future — and the past — of innovation, video games, and technology.

Has a passion for in-depth storytelling and an insatiable curiosity about how things work. Also skilled in audio/podcast editing and production, photography, interviewing. Holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Melbourne.

Author of The Secret History of Mac Gaming, published by Unbound. Info: http://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com

Journalism beats: video games, technology, science, innovation, AI, VR, AR, games and tech history, game development.

Always eager to discuss new writing and editing opportunities—freelance, contract, or staff. Contact via Twitter or email rich.c.moss at gmail.com.

Based in Melbourne, Australia.

Portfolio below is a selection of features and in-depth reporting. You can see a more all-inclusive portfolio at richardmoss.contently.com

Portfolio

Long-Form Features

Gamasutra
The state of the VR industry: devs weigh in

Virtual reality has had a shaky 18 months. After years of hype about the world-changing potential of its second coming (following a dud first wave in the 1990s), its poster child headset the Oculus Rift launched to a lukewarm reception.

Ars Technica
01/08/2018
"The least-worst idea we had"-The creation of the Age of Empires empire

Not much about Age of Empires isn't epic. Over the last 20 years, these epoch-spanning games have starred more than 50 historical civilizations, sales have surpassed more than 20 million units, and a core fanbase of hundreds of thousands has put hours upon hours into playing one series entry or another on a weekly basis.

Polygon
10/03/2018
Assassin's Creed: An oral history

It's perhaps fitting that a game with the tagline "nothing is true; everything is permitted" emerged from creative director Patrice Désilets bending the rules. Assassin's Creed began life as a Prince of Persia game, expanded and reimagined for a new generation of consoles.

Gamasutra
How bad crediting hurts the game industry and muddles history

You'd think that game credits would be simple. It's just a list of names and roles, after all. How hard can that be to get right? But credits are rarely simple, because neither is game development. And yet credits are an invaluable, underappreciated aspect of game making.

Samsung NEXT
11/27/2018
The future of AI-generated characters

AI-generated and AI-driven characters may still be in their infancy, with years of development yet ahead before they reach maturity, but already they are making a mark on our lives, and their use is rapidly rising. They help us get around town, run our smart homes, file our appointments, chat with us on website support ...

Eurogamer
The fans who would fix Tomb Raider's most broken adventure

The Angel of Darkness very nearly killed Tomb Raider. It effectively condemned the long-running studio behind one of gaming's most lucrative series to an inelegant demise. It went through three years of development hell before it was rushed out unfinished in 2003, to the eternal mockery of an industry weary from grandiose promises after five prior games that all looked, sounded and played much the same.

Usgamer
The Quest for an African RPG

A rookie team of Cameroonian developers is adding a touch of Africa to the action-RPG genre with a title more than 10 years in the making.

Usgamer
10/02/2014
Grand Theft Auto V's Virtual War Correspondents

Grand Theft Auto Online is a war zone, only there's no sides and no chance of eventual peace. The streets of Los Santos are filled not with hopeful young starlets or happy-go-lucky tourists but with cold-hearted killers who'd happily turn on their friends and comrades if they ever ran out of police, civilians, and other human players to mow down.

Polygon
02/13/2014
How passion killed and revived a 20-year-old indie game

The 20-year journey of an Amiga indie born of passion, destroyed by love and reborn as 1993: Space Machine. Shenandoah: Daughter of the Stars was supposed to be released in 1993. Developed for the Amiga by four Swedish teenagers working out of a bedroom, it had a UK distributor, a working demo and coverage in popular game magazines.

Polygon
01/16/2014
The healing power of video games

Steven Gonzalez was just 12 years old when doctors diagnosed him with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare form of cancer that causes anemia, frequent infections and pain. Told he had a 2 percent chance of survival and torn away from his friends to the harsh confines of a hospital, Gonzalez turned to video games for comfort.

Edge-online
Life after death: meet the people ensuring that yesterday's systems will never be forgotten |...

For James 'Shamus' Hammons, Doom and a limbless, white-gloved cartoon mascot were all it took to ignite a longstanding obsession with Atari's Jaguar. Back in the early '90s, he felt he couldn't abandon his Atari ST for IBM PC-style computing simply to play id Software's genre-defining FPS, but then the news came that Doom would hit his favourite company's new 64bit console.

Eurogamer
The life of a porting house

It's a strange life, porting video games from one platform to another - seldom making something of your own. But that's what Aspyr Media has been doing for roughly 17 years.

The Magazine
12/19/2013
Bit by Bit

A filmmaker spends excruciating years on a pixellated animated film to bring it to fruition.

Eurogamer
10/03/2013
Keeping the game alive

The story of the fans who never stopped playing Championship Manager 01/02.

The Magazine
09/26/2013
Impermanent Games

Australia’s and New Zealand’s early video-game history may already be lost.

The Magazine
07/04/2013
Carriage Return

In Melbourne, Australia, a man who can repair almost any typewriter nears retirement.

Other Features

GameDaily.biz
02/01/2019
Surviving The Discoverability Crisis: Developers Can't Wait For Others To Promote Them

GameDaily talks with Nick Suttner about the constantly shifting game market and why indies need to find their champions. One of the most important things that Nick Suttner needs every game developer (indies especially) to understand is that it's people - not companies but rather individual champions in different parts of the industry - that make games succeed.

Gizmag
09/15/2014
Ideum experiments with tangible interface on projected capacitive touch tables

Multi-touch hardware and software company Ideum is exploring a potential future for the workplace in which traditional desks give way to projected capacitive touch (PCT) tables that you use with both hand gestures and tangible objects. The project is called the Dynamic Desktop, and it's an idea that creative director and CEO Jim Spadaccini believes will work on any PCT screen.

Eurogamer
Premier Manager 2, the last of the old school management games

Oh how I miss the days of five-hour seasons and having the power to select and arrange advertising boards. Even when they took themselves way too seriously, like with The Manager and the Premier Manager series, football management games used to have a wonderful innocence to them that the latest Sports Interactive fare lacks.

Gizmag
07/15/2014
Smartphone sensor generates crowdsourced pollution maps

Fine dust pollution triggers all manner of health problems, but accurately tracking its concentration across cities and regions takes considerable manpower. That could get a whole lot easier with a sensor that attaches to a smartphone and measures particulate matter (fine dust) levels in the air, which is under development at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Gizmag
KOR-FX haptic vest brings games closer to your chest

That pounding in your chest when the action gets really intense in a video game or movie takes on a new dimension with the KOR-FX 4DFX, an adjustable and lightweight vest that translates audio into subtle vibrations that are meant to help you feel where explosions occur and gunshots comes from - or simply to better enjoy your favorite music.

Archive.vg
10/29/2012
Fear of the Fun Way

How a simple video-game puzzle taught me to face my fear of crowds.