The Big News
Well, here it is Wednesday, Oct 8 (by a few minutes) and I suppose it's time to let the cat out of the bag, mainly because keeping it in the bag is somewhat exhausting. :-)
Starting Wednesday, October 15, 2003, I'll be an employee of Aspyr Media, working as a senior programmer something-or-other in their Mac/PC Development group. In other words, doing the exact same thing I was at Westlake, and working once again under Glenda Adams. :-)
It's both a hard move to make and an easy one. I've worked at Westlake since May of 99, and it's been the one job I've truly loved. I loved the work, and the people were all great. In many ways, it was a lot like working for a very loving family. I'm really going to miss that and working alongside Ken and Phil and the rest of the Westlake gang. It also means that I won't get to work with MacSoft any more, and I'll miss that too. They're truly a first-class, professional organization, and Peter Tamte and Al Schilling of MacSoft have always treated me fairly, and I respect them immensely for that.
But now I get to earn a nice, regular salary (instead of the current milestone stuff) and I get excellent benefits. I also get to work on some very exciting (and as of yet, unannounced) projects. I get to team up with Glenda and a few other familiar faces. And I still get to work from home. Woo-hoo! But what does this mean for the Mac gamer?
As far as I can figure it (and I've done a lot of figuring), this should mean nothing but good things. Being on salary at Aspyr means that patches, the odd large project, and everything else that didn't easily fit into the Westlake milestone payment scheme can be done much easier. I don't have to skip working on a new game to do a patch and have to worry about not getting paid in time. If Aspyr wanted us to work on, say, writing an installer that didn't suck, we could. If they wanted to throw a few of us on the task of reverse-engineering DirectPlay (legal issues aside), they could. If they wanted us to design a new killer porting framework based on the latest and greatest Mac technologies, they could. I have the opportunity to stretch my legs with non-Mac titles if the mood strikes me (and honestly, I don't think it will, but it's nice to have options). There's a degree of freedom that I'm really quite excited about, and did I mention the exciting unannounced projects? :-)
There's more news along this front in the near future, so keep your eyes and ears open. Some pretty cool things are going to be happening!
Comments
Congrats, Brad!
With you working at Aspyr I'm sure the quality of the products ending up in my room will be top-notch!
I hope you'll do many new, fun and exciting things at Aspyr. Again, congratulations!
Heh, I had just finished my comment in Karma, asking where the update is and voila, there ya go ;)
Best regards,
Arthur
Posted by: Arthur Langereis | October 8, 2003 01:11 AM
Congrats and good luck with your future endeavors at Aspyr, Brad!
Sounds like an exciting new opportunity. I wish you all the luck in the world.
Regards,
Alex
Posted by: Alex Lawrence-Richards | October 8, 2003 08:16 AM
Congratulations! That is big news indeed. Here's to many more years of success in your new environment.
Posted by: Jean-Luc Dinsdale | October 8, 2003 09:00 AM
This is exciting news - I've always thoght it would be a great idea for Mac game publishers to have in-house coders for for the very reasons you cite, especially the post release patching and support that so many gamers complain about. Gee, maybe that OS X version of Alpha Centauri could go gold, heh heh. Congratulations.
Posted by: Joe Bookman | October 8, 2003 09:17 AM
"If they wanted to throw a few of us on the task of reverse-engineering DirectPlay (legal issues aside), they could."
HA! I think that's a rather dangerous thing to say, don't you? ;)
Anyway, congrats, sounds like lots of fun. I'd be jealous if you were the only one with a shiny new Mac game programming job...
::whistles innocently::
Posted by: Jeff Rehbein | October 8, 2003 09:54 AM
Congratulations! It sounds like a terrific career move, especially for having less stress and more fun.
Posted by: Brian Kendig | October 8, 2003 10:47 AM
I remember reading that Contraband's Bill "Burger" Heineman rev-enged it some time ago, at least for TCP/IP ethernet communications. Wonder if he got it fully working.
Oh, and why are the comments sorted by reverse date? It's somewhat awkward reading upwards. :)
Best, Arthur
Posted by: Arthur Langereis | October 8, 2003 11:31 AM
Now I'm glad I didn't try to apply for that job. No way I could compete with The Brad(tm)!
Good luck to you and Mark K, and keep up the good work. Hope to beta test for you again soon (I'm already on Aspyr's list of testers.)
Posted by: Matt Diamond | October 8, 2003 11:47 AM
Wow. That's huge.
I guess hirings like this illustrate how little talent there is to go around in the Mac game porting niche. If all that programmers can do is a) swap companies or b) leave for the PC (see Meggs), is it even possible for the market to grow? We have a finite number of programmers to go around versus a library of PC games that's expanding weekly.
Or am I living in an old paradigm? Have we all given up on the hope of getting more games ported?
Posted by: Dan Daranciang | October 8, 2003 12:02 PM
Hi Dan,
You bring up a good point. There is actually an infusion of new blood into the pool every so often. Westlake hired a guy by the name of Michael Marks not too long ago, and he's working on his first Mac game port (although definitely not his first Mac program). Ryan Gordon has also recently added Mac porter to his list of skills that most prominently includes Linux porting. And of course the Omni Group added quite a bit to the community with the advent of OSX.
We're also seeing some movement inside PC companies to develop directly - Bioware did this (with arguable success) with Neverwinter Nights, and now the guys working on the Savage RTS have decided to give the Mac a try.
The thing is, I want to believe that the "talent pool" for developing Mac games is growing, although I honestly don't have hard data to say for sure. It does seem, at the very least, that it's not shrinking, and that's good news in itself.
Arthur - the reverse-comments thing bugs me too. I'll have to investigate MovableType's options; maybe it can be changed.
Posted by: Brad Oliver | October 8, 2003 12:15 PM
"We shall watch your career with great interest."
Just don't turn to the "dark side" like did, ehhh.
Posted by: spazdog | October 8, 2003 12:35 PM
Congratulations, Brad! I hope your new job goes well. The only thing I'm a bit concerned, but I haven't seen yet is... What's going to happen to Civ 3, now that you're not at Westlake anymore?
Thanks for all the help you've given through the years. I'll be here to cheer you on.
Ben.
Posted by: Ben Yoshino | October 8, 2003 01:10 PM
Grats, Brad!
So Aspyr gets some new "in-house" programmers that work in house... in another state. Oh, the irony!
Well, at least I can still bug you about JKII and Alice patches ;)
Ciao!
Posted by: A.J. Santa Ana | October 8, 2003 04:39 PM
Congrats, Brad! Glad to see you're getting more stability in your income. This will also hopefully mean more freetime for yourself with a more solidified schedule.
Posted by: Vanish | October 10, 2003 07:35 AM
Brad, thank you for all your extra hours fixing bugs, sending betas etc... Good luck with the new job!
Posted by: dekay | October 15, 2003 10:07 AM