Every week, we ask some of the best game development minds five questions in a feature we are calling Develop:Five. This week, Mark Sorrell from Rovio answers our five question blog feature.
1. What’s your earliest memory of playing video games?
Playing Superman on the Atari VCS when I was about four in 1980ish. It was the first game I played where you could walk off the side of the screen and it didn't loop or block you, there was actually another part of the world to explore. Which at the time was basically witchcraft.
2. What are you most excited or annoyed about in the games industry today?
In truth, there is no one stand out moment. Develop has been more like a clock, parcelling out my time in the industry, allowing me to see how things have changed, how I've changed, how the industry has changed, and how it hasn't, catch up with old acquaintances and meet new ones. For me it's less an instrument of change and more a device to measure it.
I know you want me to say Tetsuya Mizuguchi but the real answer is the ten minutes directly after I've finished my talk. The buzz when you come off stage is _the_100_emoji_
I have no idea what his English is like because my Japanese is non-existent, but presuming we could actually communicate, Yasumi Matsuno, the game director of Final Fantasy 12, which for me is the most forward thinking and visionary game ever made. I want to know how he managed to believe in his vision so completely.
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| Mark Sorrell is Head of Studio at Rovio's London Studio, a new venture set-up to build mobile F2P MMO games. Over the last two years, Mark has helped Rovio complete the transition to a true F2P company, as Vice President, Product. This comes after a career spent making games for unusual platforms, customers and business models. |
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