Ed Fries ( "freeze") is an American video game programmer and entrepreneur who was the vice president of game publishing at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

during much of the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

's life-cycle.

Early life

Fries fell in love with games while playing

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

s in the early 1980s. Both of his parents were engineers, and he sees in his love for games something similar to his father's love for airplanes while working at

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

. As a teen he programmed a clone of ''

Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and manufactured by Sega. In North America, it was released by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct a series of frogs to their homes by crossing a busy road and a hazardous rive ...

'' for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

which was distributed through

bulletin board systems A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such a ...

. It was seen by someone from game publisher Romox who offered him a job, and the game was published as ''The Princess and the Frog'' in 1982. Fries wrote two other games for Romox: ''Ant-Eater'' (similar to ''

Dig Dug is a maze game, maze arcade game developed by Namco in 1981 and released in 1982, distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. The player controls Dig Dug to defeat all enemies per stage, by either inflating them to bursting or crushing them unde ...

'') and ''Sea Chase''. ''Ant-Eater'' was reviewed by ''

C&VG ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') was a UK-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot website ...

'', who gave it a 7/10 for "getting started," and graphics, a 4/10 for value, and a 7/10 for playability. Fries co-founded Tom & Ed’s Bogus Software with Tom Saxton. They developed the original ''Fish!'' screensaver, which was later adapted by

Berkeley Systems Berkeley Systems was a San Francisco Bay Area software company co-founded in 1987 by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. It made money early on by performing contract work for the National Institutes of Health, specifically in making modifications to the ...

into the popular series of ''Aquatic Realm'' / ''Fish!'' '' After Dark'' screensaver modules.

Microsoft

After earning a B.S. in Computer Science from

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech and formerly New Mexico School of Mines) is a public university in Socorro, New Mexico. It offers over 30 bachelor of science degrees in technology, the sciences, engineering, man ...

in 1986 Fries returned to the Seattle area to join

productivity software Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings, ...

. He has referred to this time as being like ''

Ender's Game ''Ender's Game'' is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind after two conflicts with an insectoid alien species they dub ...

'' and says "We were recruited as children to fight in their wars,

Excel ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...

and

Word A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...

vs WordPerfect." In the late 1990s he led the team that created the first version of the

game console. He was a prime evangelist of the platform to game developers and had an important role in the acquisition of developers

Bungie Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington. It is a studio owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones (progr ...

Ensemble Studios Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by M ...

and Rare.

After Microsoft

Fries left Microsoft in January 2004. He consulted with a

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

, FireAnt, that was later sold to

Sony Online Entertainment Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...

. He was also involved with several startups including

Ageia Ageia, founded in 2002, was a fabless semiconductor company. In 2004, Ageia acquired NovodeX, the company who created PhysX – a Physics Processing Unit chip capable of performing game physics calculations much faster than general purpose CPUs ...

, which aims to bring the first "physics accelerator" chip for games to market, and

Emotiv Systems Emotiv Systems is an Australian electronics innovation company developing technologies to evolve human computer interaction incorporating non-conscious cues into the human-computer dialog to emulate human to human interaction. Developing brain� ...

, a company building an

EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...

based game controller. Fries is currently working on bringing his favorite game,

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

, to three-dimensional life with his startup company, Figure Prints. The company makes 3D models of a player's characters using a fleet of Z Corporation printers. Within the first 12 hours of his company going live, over 4,000 people had requested an order for a model. Fries explains in an interview that each model can take about one week to complete. In July 2010, Fries released an

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...

game inspired by the ''

Halo Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to: * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Video games * ''Halo'' (franch ...

'' series, called '' Halo 2600''. Since 2012 until 2015 he was an advisor for the

Ouya The Ouya ( ), stylized as OUYA, is an Android-based microconsole developed by Ouya Inc. Julie Uhrman founded the project in 2012, bringing in designer Yves Béhar to collaborate on its design and Muffi Ghadiali as VP of Product Management to p ...

, an Android-based game console, as well as advisor for

Animoca Brands Animoca Brands (Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd) is a Hong Kong-based game software company and venture capital company founded in 2014 by Yat Siu. It was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from 23 January 2015 to 9 March 2020. Nota ...

and numerous other brands.

References

External links

Video interview with Fries
(bottom page) at Kikizo

at ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', via the Wayback Machine
Bio of Fries
at

, via the Wayback Machine
Interview with Fries
at Wowinsider.com
Video interview with Fries
at

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fries, Ed Microsoft employees Video game businesspeople Living people American video game programmers 1948 births