You’d never know this from his boyish good looks, but Gas Powered Games founder Chris Taylor has been in game development for more than two decades. Starting way back in 1988, someone thought it would be funny to hire a Canadian guy to work on baseball games. Since then, Taylor has made a huge name for himself with games like Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege, and Supreme Commander.
Chris and his team are busy working on Supreme Commander 2, but he generously gave me some time to answer a few questions. Talking about the changes he’s seen in 21 years in the business, Taylor said:
Well, our target market has changed. The whole business has opened up to include many new types of players. It used to be 18-35 yr. old males, and now the rest of the world is playing games. This is a very good thing, but it also means that we have to think differently about what gaming is. We also play online now more than ever, but not in a competitive way, it’s actually about playing together, which I think is a great change. We also play on more devices than ever, and are focusing less and less about technology whizbang, and more on the actual gameplay, characters and story. And I guess I would be insane not to mention the increase in computing power, and visuals. I started out on a TRS-80 with 128×48 pixels, that were black and white no less…
My full interview Grandmaster Sexay Chris Taylor will run on Monday. Be sure to come back and check it out!
