Programmer Joe

Have you ever seen Bull Durham? If not, watch this clip:

 
Over the past eleven years I have worked with many great people on many great projects.  While there has been plenty for those teams to be proud of, I have never worked on a hit.  I have never worked on a game with a marketing budget to speak of. I have never worked on a game with a 90+ Metacritic rating. I have never worked somewhere that could really afford to push a game back just to make sure it was right before it came out. In other words, I have never been to The Majors.

Well that is all about to change:  tomorrow is my first day at Valve Software as a programmer on Team Fortress 2.

I am excited to be going to Valve for many reasons.  I love their games. I am hugely impressed by their consistently high level of quality. I am excited to work with a whole new pile of very smart people. I am excited to learn how their freaky “we don’t have managers, or pure designers, or even job descriptions, really” development process works. I love their dedication to playtesting and really taking playtest feedback to heart.  This is a big opportunity to learn from people who have built some of the best games out there.

My career is about to take a big step forward. I am excited, nervous, and more than a little intimidated. I feel like I’m finally going to the show.

Two of the posts from this blog are now up at Industry Broadcast in audio form.  I’m thrilled to be among the people contributing content to the site.   The original posts are How to Improve Developer Efficiency and Why Stage-Gates are Wrong for Games.

Give them a listen!

This is my presentation from LOGIN 2009 titled “What Augmented Reality Means for Game Developers.” It is more or less aimed at game developers, but is really just where I see AR going in general. The presentation itself is 50 minutes long followed by 20 minutes of Q&A.

It is also my first attempt to post a SlideCast, so if something in there is messed up, let me know.

You can download the slides from SlideShare, and the audio can be found here. My own audio came through fine, but next time I think I need to figure out a way to mic the audience.