Apple and Me
It's now official: I've accepted a job at Apple to work on the OpenGL team, and I'll be leaving Aspyr. I'll be starting my new job on July 16th. It's both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Looking back on it, almost everyone who I worked with at Westlake back in 1999 is still around and doing Mac game ports. Glenda works for Aspyr now, as does Duane Johnson, Mark Krenek and John Butler. Phil Sulak and Ken Cobb went to MacSoft but we still keep in touch. I've worked indirectly with Mike and Ted at Aspyr since around that same time as well, and of course directly when I moved to Aspyr in 2003.
This is a boring way to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed working with these folks all these years, and that leaving Aspyr for Apple is one of the hardest decisions I've had to make. How do you leave a job you like with people you enjoy?
It boils down to the lure of the so-called "Mothership". I've been an Apple fan for nearly as long as I've known about computers, so there's a bit of fantasy fulfillment in making this change. I'm not as confident as the people who hired me that I'm qualified, but I'm willing to give it a shot. If it doesn't work out or I turn out to be the "Special Olympics" member of the OpenGL team, my pride is such that I'd have no hesitation begging Glenda or Mark for my old job back at Aspyr. :-)
The downside to taking this job is I'll have to relocate from Phoenix to Cupertino. No sugarcoating it - that's going to really suck. In fact, when I first started talking with Apple early this year, I didn't think anything would even come of this because of that (and my piss-poor interview). But here I am, obsessing over relocating with Beth and working out the grueling details of selling our house and getting everything to San Jose and into a place that's ready for 2 dogs, 2 cats and a ton of our junk. Clearly sacrifices will have to be made and junk eliminated.
And as God is my witness, I'll make sure the Universal Binary KOTOR patch has been approved by our Support team for release by the time I leave in 2 weeks. ;-)
Comments
First thing you should do is fix all the bugs you filed personally, and then the bugs for all the games you worked on.
Going to be a heck of a switch from game programming to system programming.
Posted by: Jon | June 28, 2007 04:16 PM
Oh, and make your page wider. It's like 500 px wide.
Posted by: Jon | June 28, 2007 04:18 PM
Congratulations Brad! I also have to admit that even though I am in bioscience, I have a secret desire to somehow work for the Mothership...
Posted by: BWJones | June 28, 2007 06:17 PM
Oh, and does this mean your blog is going to be updated even less often?
J/K
Posted by: Jon | June 28, 2007 09:13 PM
I love the first comment here; it'll be fun to see you fixing the bugs you filed personally :D
In all seriousness, congratulations and, as they say in Japan, good ruck!
Posted by: Richard Bannister | June 29, 2007 12:01 AM
Also, does this mean we can expect MAME for iPhone? :)
Posted by: Richard Bannister | June 29, 2007 12:03 AM
Congratulations on the new job Brad, I'm certain it will definitely work out for you - Apple only hires talented people ;-)
Best wishes to you and your family for the future.
All the best from the Macologist & True Combat: Elite team :-)
Posted by: Jason Harris | June 29, 2007 01:25 AM
Congratulations!
Posted by: Max | June 29, 2007 02:18 AM
Grats on the new job, Brad! Too bad you miss out on the free iPhone ;)
Posted by: a2daj | June 29, 2007 03:02 AM
Congratulations, Brad! Now you can bask in Steve's Reality Distortion Field at close range. (And with the cost of living up there... you're probably going to need it.)
Posted by: Nathan Strum | June 29, 2007 03:26 AM
Great news, Brad. They couldn't have picked a better guy for the job, and I'm sure you'll make a difference.
Good luck to you, Beth, the dogs and cats, ... and the junk ... in San Jose.
Posted by: AlanH | June 29, 2007 04:55 AM
Congrats Brad. I'm going to miss you on the Inside Mac Games Forums. Now you can continue bringing us great games, only in a completely different way, from the inside out. I hope this is an indiction that Apple is taking games more seriously and they don't just want you to patch OpenGL so they can put Final Cut Studio on the iPhone!
Posted by: the Battle Cat | June 29, 2007 07:26 AM
Congrats, and good luck.
Keep porting good things to MacGamer'z !
Posted by: DjFou | June 29, 2007 08:01 AM
Wow! The OpenGL team has gotten at least two really talented people in the last year. I hope this means good things for them.
Good luck!
Posted by: Matt Diamond | June 29, 2007 04:38 PM
Brad,
Congratulations. Glad you to see you are at Apple. Will need a tour the next time I visit. Having you working on Open GL can only mean a promising future.
Keep in touch
James Robrahn
Posted by: James Robrahn | June 29, 2007 08:38 PM
Brad, Congratulations moving to the mothership.. god as my witness if you get that patch out for me... I'll e-mail Apple weekly starting in November telling them how awesome OpenGL is all of a sudden, and that whoever they hired is a genius that needs to be promoted his Steveness' right hand!
<3 I'm very excited! I even made a stupid heart.... that tell you how excited I am?!
Posted by: Michael Bennett | June 30, 2007 02:10 AM
Congrats on the new job Brad.
Can you comment on this thread on the Bioware forums stating that there will be no Universal patch for KotOR:
http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=565137&forum=27&sp=0
Also I've loaded saved games at various points in the game on my MacBook Pro. So far I can't seem to find a spot that is unplayable. This is with all settings set
Posted by: Fabio Rojas | July 2, 2007 05:40 PM
San Jose sucks major! Heck Burbank is better!
but then again Apple is really cool...
Posted by: Greg | July 2, 2007 08:37 PM
(disclaimer: I'm nothing to do with Aspyr)
Fabio:
1. The later source is almost always more likely to be correct, because the situation (or expected outcome) may have changed. < (6 June) vs. < (28 June) leaves Brad's entry above with the "last word" so far.
2. People operating in customer support are often (sometimes necessarily) misinformed; even when they're not, part of their job is to manage customers' expectations and take huge efforts to avoid suggesting that something will happen when it might not. Phrases like "we do not currently expect..." and "there is no ETA..." can be either outright denials or conditional agreement, and that's deliberately ambiguous.
I'm sure it's possible at this point that a KOTOR patch Just Won't Happen, because if that were otherwise it would already be through QA. But let's wait and see: keeping asking about it, at this point, is unlikely to change the outcome.
Posted by: Jim Driscoll | July 2, 2007 10:49 PM
July 16th! Dang, looks like you miss out on the free iPhone then :)
Best of luck with the Apple adventure!
Posted by: Proud | July 3, 2007 01:31 PM
Regarding the KOTOR patch, disregard what you've heard on the BIoware forums. That's second-hand news at best.
The KOTOR patch did go through QA once about a month or two ago and it had problems on Nvidia hardware and a bug causing crashes on dual cores, both of which I've since fixed. So it's going through QA again and if all goes well, will be done before I leave Aspyr.
Hope that helps.
Posted by: Brad Oliver | July 5, 2007 02:08 PM
Congratulations Brad.
What can I say, you've always been such an important part of the Mac gaming world for me. From your work on MacMAME through to your involvement with Wetslake ad then Aspyr to help bring great games to the platform.
All I can hope is that it works out well for you at the Mothership and you can continue to use your passion for the platform to make things more enjoyable for the rest of us :)
Posted by: Ben B | July 7, 2007 04:33 AM
KoToR? UB?
*waves hand*
Finally buy this game I must, hrm? Shop Aspyr I will.
Posted by: Obiter | July 9, 2007 08:48 PM
Thanks for the KoToR Patch! You kept word and you probably have a lot to do right now. All the best with your new job! May the force be with you.
Posted by: ifab | July 13, 2007 09:53 AM
Thanks for the patch too. Any more specific information on what it fixes for PPC machines?
BTW, there are still some sound bugs in Leopard, though not the same ones there were before.
Posted by: Jon | July 13, 2007 03:28 PM
Brad, seriously dude, you rock. You have just made my day. Thanks for keeping your word. I just moved myself, I know how much it can suck and how hectic it is. But you were probably the only one who cared about this patch getting finished, and I'm sure glad you did.
Posted by: cobrien44 | July 13, 2007 04:17 PM
Thanx for your efforts on MacMAME! You might be interested to see the video I put on youtube recently "1980's Classic Arcade Games at Cedar Point '07" at: http://tinyurl.com/348mgg
Posted by: Marinox420 | November 26, 2007 12:20 PM