End of Silence

I present to you, Austin’s fifth gift to the world: Gaming.

Austin was home to two well known gaming franchises in the early 1980’s. Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, founded Origin Systems here in Austin and produced the Ultima titles and the Wing Commander series. Origin was bought by Electronic Arts in 1992, one of many local gaming companies to be acquired in the last 10 years. Digital Anvil, an Origin spinoff, was acquired by Microsoft in 2000. The Austin Chronicle’s Marc Savlov wrote a great round-up article on the Austin game development scene in November of 2004.

Steve Jackson Games was founded in Austin in 1980. They’re famous for their role playing and strategy games like Car Wars and current hit, Munchkin. The company started a support BBS (that’s Bulletin Board Service for all you kids out there) for their games in 1986, which eventually morphed into one of Austin’s early internet service providers. A secret service raid on the aforementioned service in 1990 was a catalyst for the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Those buying modern gaming systems from Alienware now have a connection to Austin since Dell acquired them. You might have heard of Dell. They’re in a neck-and-neck battle with HP for bragging rights as the largest computer vendor in the world. They’ve cooled off a bit in the last several years, but they were on fire on the 90’s. AMD, the computer chip maker, also has a major presence here in Austin.

Lastly, an IBM processor design team here in Austin played a major role in designing the cell processor that’s currently shipping in the new Playstation 3 console that’s so desirable, people are willing to shoot each other for the privilege of paying $600 for it.

Austin’s also home to the Austin Game Conference, which was recently acquired by CMP Media.

When you unwrap that new game this holiday season, there’s a pretty good chance that it somehow has ties to Austin’s gaming and technology industry.

4th Gift: SXSW
3rd Gift: Alamo Drafthouse
2nd Gift: Whole Foods
1st Gift: Slacker

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Whole Foods Market, the granddaddy of natural/organic food markets, first opened in Austin on September 20, 1980 on Lamar at 10th Street with 19 employees. That location is now occupied by a used CD store, Cheapo Discs. I remember going to Whole Foods on lunch and dinner breaks from the Sound Warehouse at 11th and Lamar, which is now a Whole Earth Provision, in the late 80’s/early 90’s. To me, a kid from Dallas, it was quintessential Austin hippie and one of the things I loved about the city. I remember really liking that they gave tortilla chips and salsa with their sandwiches. Mmmmm…salsa.

In some ways, the growth of Whole Foods has mirrored Austin’s own growth over the past 25 years, struggling to maintain a balance between staying true to the original spirit and rapid expansion and growth. The company has experienced explosive growth over the last 10 years, coinciding with a rise in interest in natural or organic foods. According to their website, their stock has split three times since going public on January 23, 1992 and they’ve grown to 187 locations in the U.S. and U.K. with 39,000 employees.

The 80,000 sq. ft. landmark store and new corporate headquarters opened on March 3, 2005 across the street from the location they’d occupied since 1995. If you’ve never been, it’s quite an impressive sight to behold. I’ve gotten lost in the walk-in beer cooler more than once, only to become entranced by the chocolate fountain. That store is more of a destination and meeting place than a place you’d want to shop regularly.

One of the founders of Whole Foods, John Mackey, maintains a blog on the Whole Foods website. He’s recently used it as a forum for debate with Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan, who Mackey believes unfairly characterized Whole Foods in his section on Industrialized or Big Organic. There’s quite a comment thread there and lots of information, Pollan’s responses are here and here. Having read Pollan’s book, I agree with Mackey that it doesn’t paint a flattering picture and he’s using the power of blogging to try and correct the perception created by the book. It’s a lot to read, but worth checking out.

Look for our third and fourth gifts today as we catch up and then fall in step with our Metroblogging brethren for the rest of the week.

1st Gift: Slacker

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The WorldChanging Book Tour is coming to Austin this Wednesday, November 29th at 7pm at BookPeople.

Their mission statement does a pretty good job of describing what they’re about:

Worldchanging was founded on the idea that real solutions already exist for building the future we want. It’s just a matter of grabbing hold and getting moving.

Austin’s own Jon Lebkowsky is one of the contributors to the project and blogged about the book back in October. There’s a reception after the BookPeople event next door at the new REI location. Alex Steffen, WorldChanging ring leader, and Bruce Sterling, itinerant Austinite, author and WorldChanging ally, gave a keynote conversation at SXSW 2005.

So get down there Wednesday night and pick one up as a holiday gift!