2473 Ron Clark

Details

• Card ID:
  2473 Ron Clark
• First Name:
  Ron
• Last Name:
  Clark
• Tags: Game Designer Sponsored by Eric Tessler Superstars of 2016
• Other Notes:

  Card #2473, featuring Ron Clark -- the founder of Entertainment Sciences -- was presented (along with an award) at the  Arcade Expo 2.0 Trading Card Award Ceremonies, at John Week's amazing Museum of Pinball, in Banning, California, January 16, 2016.

  RON CLARK was a pioneer in computer-aided design (CAD). In the early 1980s, he made the determination that the video game industry was ‘low-tech.’ He noticed that many of the manufacturers came from electro-mechanical backgrounds and were not equipped to realize the full potential of computer hardware. Ron envisioned the video game industry as an entertainment industry and decided that he could make a difference. In 1982, Ron Clark and Joel Heinrich (formerly of MicroPin) formed Entertainment Sciences. Instead of hardware that was designed and used for one game cycle, Ron envisioned a system that would be a re-usable programmable ‘game-theater.’ To realize his vision, Ron and Joel hired Ulrich Neumann (formerly of Sega/Gremlin) to design the system that would become the Real-time Imagine Processor 2000 (RIP2000). With the RIP2000 designed, Ron hired Rob Patton (formerly of Cinematronics) to design games for the high-resolution system. Entertainment Sciences’ first game, Bouncer, was well received by the trade magazines, and was the first video game to utilize digitized hand-drawn cells by Disney animator, Lars-Arne Hult. Despite the positive reviews, the cost of hardware was a major problem. Entertainment Sciences made two games during their existence: Bouncer and Turbo Sub. Atari and Sente expressed interest in licensing the games, but both ultimately developed multi-game systems that heavily borrowed from the RIP2000 design. With the video game crash of the mid-80s, Entertainment Sciences closed its doors. Today there are several Turbo Sub games in private collections, but so far a surviving Bouncer game remains elusive. After Entertainment Sciences, Ron continued pioneering new technology and currently resides in San Diego. To learn more about Entertainment Sciences and their games visit www.turbosub.com. The production of this trading card was made possible through a financial grant generously donated by Eric Tessler, of La Habra, CA.