Robin Walker (game designer)

Robin Walker
Born 1976 (age 40–41)[1]
Nationality Australia
Occupation Video game designer

Robin Walker is an Australian video game designer best known for co-developing Team Fortress Classic 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 started 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 2 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

  1. ↑ Dodson, Joe (2007-10-13). "By Design - Half-Life 2: Orange Box". GameSpot. Retrieved 2014-12-16.
  2. ↑ Steinkuehler, Constance; Squire, Kurt; Barab, Sasha (2012-06-11). Games, Learning, and Society: Learning and Meaning in the Digital Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 70. ISBN 052119623X. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  3. ↑ Dafnis, Jason (2014-10-31). "Ten Games That Came Back From (Development) Hell". Game Informer. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  4. ↑ Wyman, Michael Thornton (2012-11-12). "Half-Life 2". Making Great Games: An Insider's Guide to Designing and Developing the World's Greatest Games. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1136132376. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  5. 1 2 Peel, Jeremy (2013-01-15). "Some Team Fortress 2 updates "largely about gathering data" for Dota 2". PCGamesN. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  6. ↑ "Putting the Community in Charge; From control to collaboration - how and why to let your customers build your products". Reflections|Projections. 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  7. ↑ Sonntag, Lawrence (2010-08-20). "Valve’s Robin Walker talks Team Fortress 2". Indie Gaming Daily. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  8. 1 2 Remo, Chris (2008-06-05). "In-Depth: Valve On Team Fortress 2 - Devs As Service Providers". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  9. ↑ "How to Beat Pirates Transcript". OnTheMedia. 2011-04-08. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  10. ↑ Crossley, Rob (2011-06-24). "Valve explains to Develop why it relaunched Team Fortress 2 as free-to-play forever". Develop. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  11. ↑ Luton, Will (2012-11-12). "Economics how the money works". Free-to-Play: Making Money From Games You Give Away. New Riders. ISBN 0133411249. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
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