There are few leaders in the industry whose CV even comes close to Rod Fergusson, who currently serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Diablo franchise. With credits including Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Shadow Complex, Infinity Blade, Bulletstorm, BioShock Infinite, Microsoft Train Simulator and now Diablo, few producers have had a lead role in as many big name franchises as Rod…
After two years I was forced to hand in my employee badge for Pandemic Studios, a broken man. I was taking 4 vicodin a day to dull the pain of a herniated disc in my lower back. Wrist braces adorned both my arms to help control the repetitive stress injury induced by long days of playing Star Wars: Battlefront and typing. The herniated disc – acquired on a rare crunch time day off as I […]
On the first day of GDC, I was introduced to a designer from a venture funded, Bay Area mobile/social start-up interested in BioWare Social. I recognized the studio name from one of the dueling sets of recruiting billboards adorning the 101-N, and its top performing iPhone App. When I asked why she wanted to change companies, she said “All we do is make clones, and I’m better than that.” “No one’s better than cloning,” I […]
On Sunday, I moderated a panel at the 2012 Flash Games Summit on the life of flash developers. I was joined by some of my favorite developers: Andrew Sega (Mytheria/Armor Wars), Dan Stradwick (Monsters’ Den) and Sean McGee (Thing Thing Arena/Endless Zombie Rampage). During the panel, and in discussions throughout the day, feature creep, difficulty finishing games and not knowing when a game was complete were frequent topics. For instance, Dan has been working on […]
Scrum is a project development framework frequently used in software development and specifically game development. It is an agile development method with a strong focus on visibility, accountability, team dynamics, quick pivots and finishing demoable product. It has been an essential tool at BioWare San Francisco for managing the breakneck pace of live game development, and has been transformative in my own time serving as a game producer. There are numerous resources throughout the web […]