Video Game Scholar, Patrick Hickey Jr., to Speak at Borough Con This Friday

Author/Professor Patrick Hickey, Jr. will discuss the industry and his anthology, "For The Love of Games: Cult and Classic Game Developers Discuss Projects That Influenced And Entertained Millions," at Borough Con, May 26 at 2:30 p.m. at St. John's University, 8000 Utopia Pkwy, Queens, NY.

Book contains over 60 interviews with some of the greatest minds in the video game industry, interviewed by Award-Winning journalist and former NBC Editor and Examiner National Video Games scribe Patrick Hickey Jr.

Who wrote "Romeo & Juliet? Who first sang "Thriller"? Who played Captain America in the last Avengers flick? All of these questions are basic pop culture knowledge that everyone, regardless of their geekdom, knows. But who are the minds behind some of the most influential video games of all-time? Don't know, right? Don't use Google, either!

But here's the bigger question: Why aren't their names enshrined in our memories, too? Why aren't these men and women's names just as synonymous in pop culture lore as those in music, film and literature?

"For The Love of Games: Cult and Classic Game Developers Discuss Projects That Influenced And Entertained Millions" is the first video game book of its kind to get access to some of the most iconic and unique video game developers from the past 40 years, from the Atari 2600 to the PlayStation 4 and even failed consoles the likes of the Ouya and NEMO.

Didn't know those consoles existed? It's just another reason to read this behind the scenes look at the industry, which also features all-new exclusive interviews with everyone from Yars' Revenge creator Howard Scott Warshaw to NBA Jam mastermind Mark Turmell and Mortal Combat co-creator John Tobias.

Written by award-winning journalist and educator Patrick Hickey Jr., the book contains profiles of 36 of the coolest video games ever created.

"We know so much about video games, but we know so little about the amazing people that made them," Hickey said. "That was the main reason I decided to write this book. Imagine 36 episodes of VH1's Behind the Music. That's what this book is- an unaltered, behind-the-scenes look at some of the coolest, infamous and unique games ever made."

Seeing a problem that desperately needed to fixed, Hickey reached out to some of the most iconic video game developers David Crane (Pitfall), Garry Kitchen (Donkey Kong) and Rob Fulop (Night Trap, Missile Command) and many more- the end result was a passion project that would finally give the greatest minds in video games their due.

"We all carry such fond nostalgia for the things that delighted us in our younger years," Fulop said. "This lack of portability to the future is not true with the written work, with a song, a television show, or a movie. One can read Tom Sawyer as a kid, and your kid can read the exact same book. Or see the Wizard of Oz, my daughter is just as frightened by the Wicked Witch of the West as I was 50 years ago. I Love Lucy is just as funny as when my parents enjoyed it 50 plus years ago. And my daughter can still enjoy all of these things in their original form. Yet she can't play Dogz. At least not without a serious amount of effort on my part. And that's just sort of sad, the fact that interactive entertainment is linked to a specific technology, which is always obsoleting itself, remains an often overlooked black mark in the development of the entire genre of interactive games."

However, while classic developers have their say in the book, developers from the modern era were thrilled to be a part of the project as well.

"It's great to be part of a book that taps into such a varied history of gaming. Some of these games have been a direct influence on me and can be used to map my years growing up in life." -Mike Skupa, Developer Bully, Sleeping Dogs

"For The Love of Games" is currently scheduled for a late 2017/early 2018 release.

For more on the book, head to McFarlandBooks.com, or follow the author on his social media accounts: Facebook: www.facebook.com/Patrickhickeyjr, Twitter: @ReviewFix, Instagram: www.instagram.com/patrickhickeyjr and Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-hickey-jr-b00b0634.

About Patrick Hickey Jr:

Over the past 12 years, award-winning editor and writer Patrick Hickey Jr. has interviewed some of the biggest names in sports, including David Wright, Martin Brodeur and Zach Parise, Negro League Legend Buck O'Neil and MLB Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Mike Schmidt.

Hickey's passions also transcend sports. He's interviewed Tony Award Nominee and musician Adam Pascal, actors Channing Tatum, Paul Walker and Philip Seymour Hoffman, while conducting one on ones with Eisner Award-nominated comic book writer and artist David Mack, Voice-actor Dana Snyder, known for his role as Master Shake on Aqua Teen Hunger Force as well as Pro Wrestling Legends Daniel Bryan, Paul Heyman, Harley Race, The Ultimate Warrior, Bob Backlund, DDP and Dolph Ziggler.

He has also proven himself as a music journalist, racking up interviews with Guns and Roses Drummer Steven Adler, Pantera's Rex Brown and Creed's Mark Tremonti.

Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. He has had his work published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, Bay Currents Newspaper, where he served as the paper's Sports Editor, the Brooklyn Papers, the Wave of Long Island, Brooklyn Free Press, Blasting News, Tri-Games.net, The Lo-Down, the Brooklyn View, NYSportsday.com, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com,GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, BBallCentral.com, PlayLikeAGirlSports.com,NYCityWatch.org, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.

Hickey is also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media. While at NBC, from 2012-2014, he covered two Super Bowls, two Olympic games, two seasons of Saturday Night Live and had a fantasy football column that ran for the entire 2013 season. He also covered the launch of several video games from Diablo III, Pokemon X & Y, Grand Theft Auto iV, the entire EA Sports series, Sonic Lost World, Epic Mickey, Disney Infinity, God of War Ascension and The Last of Us.

Hickey is currently a full-time Lecturer of English and Assistant Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com and the New York Islanders correspondent for TheHockeyWriters.com.

About McFarland & Company:

As a leading independent publisher of academic and nonfiction books, meeting high library standards has always been a major focus, and many McFarland books have received awards from the library-oriented (Choice Outstanding Academic Title and ALA Outstanding Reference Work) to the specialized (Hugo, Edgar, Stoker, USCF Chess Book of the Year). McFarland is recognized for noteworthy books about pop culture, sports, military, transportation, body & mind, literature, history and medieval studies, among other topics. We're located in a beautiful Appalachian mountain town (Jefferson, North Carolina), where we offer about 6000 books in print, offer about 4000 ebooks through online booksellers, operate our own printing facility, and employ 55 people.