TRANSITIONS

BILL KUNKEL

(1950-2011)

He was known as "The Game Doctor," and he had a sense of style. His real name was Bill Kunkel; and he, along with Arnie Katz and Joyce Worle-Katz, invented video game journalism. The team of Katz, Kunkel, and Worley came up with such classic terms as "side-scrolling." They launched the first widely-recognized video game magazine, Electronic Games. They ran the game awards for the Consumer Electronics Show before E3 was created.

Anybody..., everybody who covers video games now is standing on their shoulders.

Bill was the colorful writer in the pack, the brash, sometimes arrogant, more confrontational reporter who took shots when needed. If Arnie Katz was the Tim Russert in the group, Bill was the Howard Cosell. The man had style. He called it like he saw it. Joyce was the Brokaw.

In 1999, the Classic Gaming Expo gave Bill its Lifetime Achievement Award. Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario and Zelda) and Toru Iwatani (creator of Pac-Man) would not have been any more deserving of the award than the pioneering Game Doctor.

The video games world has lost a legend.