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The games we love reveal something true about who we are, and about the world that made them. They Create Worlds is a podcast about the people, technology, and forces that built the video game industry.
Through video game history, the show looks at how culture, business, and technology shaped what we play, tracing the choices and circumstances that led to the games so many people around the world enjoy.
Each episode digs into where games came from, who made them, and why they were made the way they were. Business decisions, technological shifts, and creative choices all shaped what ended up on screen, and the show covers all of it together, not just one piece in isolation.
Hosted by Alex Smith and Jeffrey Daum, They Create Worlds grew out of long conversations about the strange corners of the industry and the patterns that only show up when you look across companies, platforms, and decades. That conversational feel remains, built on careful research, clear structure and editing that makes even the deepest topics easy to listen to.
History turns out to be less settled than it looks. New documents surface, memories conflict, and the clean stories about why things happened the way they did rarely survive contact with the evidence. The show digs into all of that, following the creative and business forces that pushed and pulled on each other, and uncovering the human stories that lie beneath the games so many people around the world enjoy.
New episodes are released twice a month.
Episodes
Sunday Mar 15, 2026
Sunday Mar 15, 2026
TCW Podcast Episode 254 - The Elder Scrolls: Arena & Daggerfall
Bethesda Softworks, founded in 1985 by Christopher Weaver with sports titles like Gridiron and Wayne Gretzky Hockey along with licenses like The Terminator, pivoted to RPGs. Demo scene legend Julian LeFay hired Vijay Lakshman as designer and buffer to management so LeFay could focus on games. Together they birthed The Elder Scrolls: Arena, a gladiator combat simulator that morphed, nine months into a 13-month development cycle, into a first-person 3D epic inspired by Ultima Underworld. Arena evolved from a combat management game to a full RPG with a procedurally generated world, unique races like Argonians and Khajiit, and a plot to topple the wizard Tharn. With the second game, LeFay, challenged by Sandy Petersen's claim that CRPGs could never match tabletop RPGs, made Daggerfall a massive world the size of Great Britain: 15,000 cities, towns, and dungeons; 44 regions; 100 factions; skill leveling based on what players actually did; and reputation grinds to unlock quests and plot. Ted Peterson, who took over lead design after Lakshman left, wove a complex plot with gray themes, diverse motivations, and moral quandaries into a simulator packed with layered systems rather than pure RPG simplicity. It sold out the initial run, hit 700,000 units, and became Bethesda's best game yet, bringing fresh air to a fallow RPG era!
TCW 156 - Madden for Some Football: https://www.theycreateworlds.com/episodes/TCW156
Gridiron (Amiga): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0q7sc_T3FU
Wayne Gretzky Hockey (NES): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Apj9IRcpQ
Tell Me Your Name (Russia Heat): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYpcZ2NfMYU
(Explicit) Sodan & Magician 42 - TechTech (Amiga): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB5CujcTN8A
Terminator 2029 (PC/DOS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-PBi-N1hQo
Flesh+Blood (Trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVyLe-k16gw
Jason And The Argonauts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq4requMqvY
Khajit/Khajiit Has Wares: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/khajiit-khajiit-has-wares
Ultima Underworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee4PUcpGSn8
The Elder Scrolls: Arena (Box Art): https://bigboxcollection.com/TESArena.3DBox
The Elder Scrolls: Arena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjEn6ETA7EM
What Do You Do With a B.A. in English? (Avenue Q): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYenQEjvlD0
Walk Across the Entire Map in Dragonfall Unity (Timelapse 512x): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xTvdK88cww
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpX5y6jiafg
New episodes are on the 1st and 15th of every month!
TCW Email: feedback@theycreateworlds.com
BlueSky: @theycreateworlds.bsky.social
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theycreateworlds
Alex's Video Game History Blog: http://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com
Alex's book: http://bit.ly/TCWBOOK1
Intro Music: Josh Woodward - Airplane Mode - Music - "Airplane Mode" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/AirplaneMode
Outro Music: RoleMusic - Bacterial Love: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Rolemusic/Pop_Singles_Compilation_2014/01_rolemusic_-_bacterial_love
Copyright: Attribution: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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