Howell Ivy

This is They Create Worlds, episode 263, Howl Ivy.

One, two, three, four! If anybody

wants to find me I'll be in the last place you would look In a place where people used to be A land that's called reality You'll find me there

Welcome to They Create Worlds.

I'm Jeffrey, and I'm joined by my co-host, Alex.

Hello.

We join you once again to look into the life, the legend, the personality that is Hal Ivey.

That's right.

Not the legend he should be, quite frankly.

Hal Ivey is one of the most innovative people who ever worked in the space of coin-operated video games, as I think will become clear as we continue through this episode.

He really should be mentioned in the same breath as people like Yu Suzuki in terms of arcade innovation, coin-op innovation, who, of course, he then later worked with at Sega, incidentally.

There are a couple of reasons that he's not.

First of all, most of his most formative work was done in the 1970s, in the very beginning of coin-op.

Anything pre-Golden Age, so-called Golden Age, before Space Invaders, is largely forgotten these days.

because it was not as well-documented at the time, there was not as much nostalgia for it, people weren't remembering it.

So a lot of his greatest innovations happened way back in the day when people weren't paying attention.

The other problem being that he worked at two smaller companies in the industry, Ram Tech and Exidy, which never really blew up all of that big.

They had the occasional hit, but they never became huge companies with huge franchises, and so a lot of that work gets overlooked.

I had the privilege of interviewing Hal on a couple of different occasions, roughly 10 years apart, just on his career in the industry.

And I had the privilege of meeting him.

I invited him to the Smithsonian event that we did for Space War as part of the Video Game Pioneers Archive.

And he came out and participated in that evening.

And we had a chance to meet and chat, which was wonderful as well.

Hal sadly just passed away May 22nd of 2026.

So about two months before this recording.

That's what led me to want to do an episode about his life, because if he's known at all, he's known for Death Race, which is notable because of the controversy around it, but none of the controversy was him.

So the thing he's known for is not anywhere near the most notable achievement he ever had in the industry.

Now, we've talked about some of his games already in Ram Tech and Exidy episodes that we've already done, but I just really wanted to bring him and his work into more focus, not just at those companies, but also some of what he accomplished at Sega afterwards as an executive, because he is truly one of the most innovative people in this industry, and he deserves more recognition for that.

RIP Hal Ivey, and hopefully we can do some justice to your legacy in this episode.

This is They Create Worlds, episode 263, Howl Ivy.

One, two, three, four! If anybody

wants to find me I'll be in the last place you would look In a place where people used to be A land that's called reality You'll find me there

Welcome to They Create Worlds.

I'm Jeffrey, and I'm joined by my co-host, Alex.

Hello.

We join you once again to look into the life, the legend, the personality that is Hal Ivey.

That's right.

Not the legend he should be, quite frankly.

Hal Ivey is one of the most innovative people who ever worked in the space of coin-operated video games, as I think will become clear as we continue through this episode.

He really should be mentioned in the same breath as people like Yu Suzuki in terms of arcade innovation, coin-op innovation, who, of course, he then later worked with at Sega, incidentally.

There are a couple of reasons that he's not.

First of all, most of his most formative work was done in the 1970s, in the very beginning of coin-op.

Anything pre-Golden Age, so-called Golden Age, before Space Invaders, is largely forgotten these days.

because it was not as well-documented at the time, there was not as much nostalgia for it, people weren't remembering it.

So a lot of his greatest innovations happened way back in the day when people weren't paying attention.

The other problem being that he worked at two smaller companies in the industry, Ram Tech and Exidy, which never really blew up all of that big.

They had the occasional hit, but they never became huge companies with huge franchises, and so a lot of that work gets overlooked.

I had the privilege of interviewing Hal on a couple of different occasions, roughly 10 years apart, just on his career in the industry.

And I had the privilege of meeting him.

I invited him to the Smithsonian event that we did for Space War as part of the Video Game Pioneers Archive.

And he came out and participated in that evening.

And we had a chance to meet and chat, which was wonderful as well.

Hal sadly just passed away May 22nd of 2026.

So about two months before this recording.

That's what led me to want to do an episode about his life, because if he's known at all, he's known for Death Race, which is notable because of the controversy around it, but none of the controversy was him.

So the thing he's known for is not anywhere near the most notable achievement he ever had in the industry.

Now, we've talked about some of his games already in Ram Tech and Exidy episodes that we've already done, but I just really wanted to bring him and his work into more focus, not just at those companies, but also some of what he accomplished at Sega afterwards as an executive, because he is truly one of the most innovative people in this industry, and he deserves more recognition for that.

RIP Hal Ivey, and hopefully we can do some justice to your legacy in this episode.