The Video Game Newsroom Time Machine is a weekly retro gaming podcast in which we travel back in time to see what was making headlines 40, 30, and 20 years ago in the arcade, video game, and computer gaming business and interview industry veterans.
We try to put those events into historical context to understand how the industry of today came to be.
It's fun and educational! (in case you need to justify listening to it to a significant other)
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Apr 15, 2026
For computer gamers in the 1980s and 90s, few companies were more ever-present than Ocean, a powerhouse in publishing, through their massive ad campaigns and amazing film licenses and coin-op conversions.
Our guest today, Gary Bracey, was the VP of Development at Ocean
and oversaw the production of many a classic, such as Batman, Green
Beret and Robocop, to say nothing of being their in-house go-to guy
for judging film licenses.
Gary tells us about life in the Ocean dungeon, the amazing
youngsters that coded the titles and what it took to get them to
market.
Recorded: May 2025
Video Version: https://www.patreon.com/c/VGNRTM
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Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybracey/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Projects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_Software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Software
https://www.mobygames.com/game/31581/miami-vice/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/33164/street-hawk/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/48091/knight-rider/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/6233/f29-retaliator/
https://www.mobygames.com/company/84/digital-image-design-ltd/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/13812/head-over-heels/
Robocop ad on UK VHS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGLskD5sFHA
Robocop ad in Spectrum game:
https://www.indieretronews.com/2016/05/zx-spectrum-classics-robocop-retro.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/99v8l/new_zealand_story_the_1988_arcade_game/
https://www.mobygames.com/person/14498/dawn-drake/
Copyright Karl Kuras