Our first game, we found out Disney wanted to do a game that was celebrating Mickey Mouse’s 65th anniversary. So me and a design partner at the time, kind of said, hey, yeah, we’re just testers, but let’s put something together. And we pitched Disney, and we got the game for Sony. That pitch/approval process repeated itself and it was kind of like working up through the ranks, even though there were never any actual designers at Sony. That was never a position at Sony for many, many years.
But that was the work we did as we kind of worked up through this sort of parallel path of sort of the producing path. It really was testing, to assistant producing, to producing, and ultimately by that time, the Playstation had come into production. The idea that, hey, designers are actually something games need had begun to permeate the industry. And so eventually, we just became designers, and directors, and things like that. So it was just sort of a very organic process. We started doing game design and creation probably the first week I started at Sony. But it was never like someone came to us and said, hey, we want you to be a designer. You just had that opportunity. Because, my bosses, and they’re still the same bosses I had back then, have always been really good about letting you come in and giving you enough rope to either hang yourself or climb a tree.
Let’s backtrack a little bit to your pre-professional life. What was the first console you remember getting? And can you walk us through the various consoles you owned and highlight the games that you loved on them?
I have such nostalgic memories for my gaming youth. I’d love to go back sometimes and visit. The first one we had was I think it was called a Telstar, which was this triangular device. The device was a triangle, and on one side there was a steering wheel, on one side of the triangle there was a gun, and on the other side were little knobs. And they released these triangle shaped cartridges. And sort of all the carts were built on using those three various [inaudible] the wheel. And that was the first one. It was very rudimentary. I don’t know where my dad thought to pick it up. I never asked for it. That was the first console I had. The first video game I remember playing was kind of a black and white gunslinger game that I found in Florida by the swimming pool when we went on vacation.
So, those are my two earliest gaming memories. Obviously the minute I got that gunslinger game, all the great things about Florida went away. I didn’t care about going in the pool or going to the beach. I just wanted to play that game the entire vacation. And from there my dad for my birthday brought home an Atari 2600 which I have vivid memories of that night, and the party we had. My sister got me this amazing game that I still love called Flag Capture, which was kind of an early Mine Sweeper game. And I got Superman, and I got Combat, and I got Space Invaders. I’m looking at them right now. I got them off Amazon a few years ago. And those wonderful old Atari 2600 catalogs that shipped with every game! They showed what games were coming soon and what games were available and I absolutely hate that our industry has its back on that promo.