Robin Walker (game designer)
| Robin Walker | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1976 (age 47–48)[1] |
| Nationality | Australia |
| Occupation | Video game designer |
Robin Walker is an Australian video game designer best known for co-developing Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2.
Career
Together with John Cook and Ian Caughley, Walker started working on Team Fortress as a mod for id Software's QuakeWorld in 1996. Due to the popularity of the product, the team was hired by the then-small Valve Corporation to work on Team Fortress Classic and later on Team Fortress 2.[2][3]
Walker has played development roles in various Valve games, including Half-Life 2 and Dota 2.[4][5] More recently, Walker has been focused on the collision of economics and game design, in an attempt to transform Team Fortress 2 from a Triple A retail product into a free-to-play, microtransaction-based game.[6]
Influences and philosophy
Walker has stated to use Team Fortress 2 updates to research what additional features are and aren't popular. The results of which, he has used for the development of Dota 2,[5] as well as for later Team Fortress 2 updates. Walker also stated that he cannot guarantee that he would keep working on Team Fortress indefinitely, and that at some point, he will move on to a new project.[7]
Walker believes in the importance of communication between players and developers of modern PC games, stating that "[b]eing close to your customers - being able to talk directly to your customers - is valuable." In his experience, successful multiplayer games "innovate in gameplay both on release, but also over time post-release, and that those innovations are significant and of interest to customers."[8]
Walker is notably not worried about video game piracy, stating that to fight piracy, he is "looking at the things that pirates are providing and asking [himself] how [he] can provide something better than that." By releasing frequent updates of his games after launch, he constantly improves on his games in a way that pirates could not keep up with.[8][9] Walker is a supporter of the free-to-play model, as he says that the model supports a wider variety of customers, including those with "very little money," and that such a variety of players results in greater opportunities for richer experiences.[10][11]
References
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