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Aside

Glad to See Phil Harrison Agrees With Me Nine Years Later

In 1999, myself and my partners started GarageGames with the goal of democratizing development, and brought a low cost game engine to market. We started calling shareware authors Indies, and changed the landscape of Indie and low end development.

Yesterday, Phil Harrison, former Sony Worldwide Studios President, and now president of Atari, gave a keynote address at the Unite conference in Denmark where he is espousing his vision of “democratizing game development” via the inexpensive game engine Unity.

Unity is a good engine and there are some good tidbits of info in his presentation, but we have been using these talking points for a long time.

Welcome aboard, Phil.

-Jeff Tunnell, Game Maker
Make It Big In Games

October 22, 2008
  • http://www.redthumbgames.com joshuadallman

    Hahaha thanks for the laugh of the day! Visionaries are rarely recognized by the mainstream. Ralph Nader predicted the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie May 8 years ago. Seems like the mainstream is always a decade behind. Here's the the next leading edge!

  • http://www.redthumbgames.com joshuadallman

    Hahaha thanks for the laugh of the day! Visionaries are rarely recognized by the mainstream. Ralph Nader predicted the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie May 8 years ago. Seems like the mainstream is always a decade behind. Here's the the next leading edge!

    • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

      Thanks for the support, but… Ralph Nader?? :D

  • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

    Thanks for the support, but… Ralph Nader?? :D

  • http://www.instantaction.com Brett Seyler

    Jeff,

    I recently dug through a bunch of your old interviews from back in 2001, 2002-3 cataloging the history of Torque and GG in general. It's really shocking to see how early and how unconditionally you were out there declaring that “this is way it's going to be.” As much as I always knew you were ahead of the curve, your ideas are still driving GG in almost every mission we're focused on today. Great to see we're not alone in the space anymore, but also a little strange not get any credit for having defined years prior either. We'll have to work on that whole “getting credit” thing for you :) Great post.

  • http://www.instantaction.com Brett Seyler

    Jeff,

    I recently dug through a bunch of your old interviews from back in 2001, 2002-3 cataloging the history of Torque and GG in general. It's really shocking to see how early and how unconditionally you were out there declaring that “this is way it's going to be.” As much as I always knew you were ahead of the curve, your ideas are still driving GG in almost every mission we're focused on today. Great to see we're not alone in the space anymore, but also a little strange not get any credit for having defined years prior either. We'll have to work on that whole “getting credit” thing for you :) Great post.

    • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

      It is important that GarageGames continues to lead the way for Indies and game development. One of the most important things GG contributed to the industry was its leadership and advocacy for Indies. Unity has good tech, but they don't have the “cause”. Maybe the cause is now the norm, and it does not matter any more, but I hope not.

  • http://www.makeitbigingames.com Jeff Tunnell

    It is important that GarageGames continues to lead the way for Indies and game development. One of the most important things GG contributed to the industry was its leadership and advocacy for Indies. Unity has good tech, but they don't have the “cause”. Maybe the cause is now the norm, and it does not matter any more, but I hope not.

  • JeremyAlessi

    LOL, I thought the same thing when I read that earlier today. I just keep saying I was an indie before it was cool. As it relates to you well it's just a straight slap in the face.

    You all started Garage Games the same year that the IGF was initiated. It was those two elements that attracted me to the independent space. I entered the 2002-2003 competition with True-Vol … ugh what a mess that was ;)

    Timing is such a key element in all that we do. When a newcomer enters the game development arena they're usually intent on copying that which inspired them. Unfortunately, this isn't thinking ahead of the curve or even with the curve. A good developer hopefully graduates to thinking with the curve and has some success. Of course there are times when developers think way ahead of the curve which can be disastrous.

    Look at Ken Kutaragi. The guy's a genius no doubt. Circa 1995 when he created the Playstation he had just the right technology to place ahead of the curve for a victory. Fast forward 10 years to the Playstation 3. Again he was trying to place ahead of the curve but this time he found little success. Instead Nintendo came along with hardware which wasn't ahead of the curve at all but rather outside the curve.

    I guess the point is that game development isn't a 1/4 mile drag race. It's not even a road course with standard turns. Instead it's more like San Francisco Rush. There are straights, turns, and shortcuts in every direction.

  • JeremyAlessi

    LOL, I thought the same thing when I read that earlier today. I just keep saying I was an indie before it was cool. As it relates to you well it's just a straight slap in the face.

    You all started Garage Games the same year that the IGF was initiated. It was those two elements that attracted me to the independent space. I entered the 2002-2003 competition with True-Vol … ugh what a mess that was ;)

    Timing is such a key element in all that we do. When a newcomer enters the game development arena they're usually intent on copying that which inspired them. Unfortunately, this isn't thinking ahead of the curve or even with the curve. A good developer hopefully graduates to thinking with the curve and has some success. Of course there are times when developers think way ahead of the curve which can be disastrous.

    Look at Ken Kutaragi. The guy's a genius no doubt. Circa 1995 when he created the Playstation he had just the right technology to place ahead of the curve for a victory. Fast forward 10 years to the Playstation 3. Again he was trying to place ahead of the curve but this time he found little success. Instead Nintendo came along with hardware which wasn't ahead of the curve at all but rather outside the curve.

    I guess the point is that game development isn't a 1/4 mile drag race. It's not even a road course with standard turns. Instead it's more like San Francisco Rush. There are straights, turns, and shortcuts in every direction.