Today was my first day as Google’s developer advocate for games. After doing consulting for the better part of three years (outside of some time helping spin up GreenScreen Interactive), the decision to go back to full-time work was not one I took lightly. Especially since it meant trading my 15 minute walk to the office for a one hour drive hahaha! But this was an opportunity I was extremely interested in from the moment I first talked with folks at Google.
Those of you who know me know that I’ve always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development. I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to create, and simpler to distribute. These are goals that may never be completely achieved, but by continually striving for them we learn what needs to be done to encourage more voices, and to accelerate the growth of the art form.
I’ve always felt that Google thinks of web developers the way I think of game developers. Aside from being extremely committed to open source, Google creates many of its products with open APIs, so they can be easily extended by developers to add functionality. And the company really does encourage its internal developers to spend 20% of their time working on their own ideas. Some great products have come out of the passions of developers working during their 20% time! The idea of Google leveraging its strengths in web technology, bringing tools and services to massive numbers of people around the world, plus its over-arching friendliness toward developers – that gets me extremely excited about what it can do with the game developer community.
Over the years I’ve seen Google ship products that seemed very useful for game developers, like Google SketchUp and 3D Warehouse. I always wondered why they didn’t dive into games further – or, perhaps they were, and they were doing it in secret! 🙂 Google Lively was probably the closest thing to a game that they produced. When I started hearing about their work on O3D, I began to get very curious about what Google was planning.
Clearly there are a number of initiatives going on at Google that can relate to games in some way. Those of you who attended GDC for example saw a massive push for games for Android, with Google giving away perhaps thousands of Android devices. Now seemed like the perfect time to join Google!
My first day today was filled with meetings, something I don’t expect will change for a few weeks at least. 🙂 I don’t have too much to say about what I’m working on… yet. But I’m awfully excited about the direction we’ll be going, and am looking forward to sharing it with you all when the time is right.
Comments
23 responses to “Joining Google”
Thanks for posting this Mark. As somebody who is in the games business and a huge fan of Google I am always interested in how two of my passions can be combined into something great.
I hope you continue posting on this topic. It will be interesting to hear about Google’s passion for games. Question for you, my understanding is that Google places a lot of value on engineering (knowing programming languages, having more than one CS degree, etc). Was there a ‘barrier to entry’ that you needed to overcome to get hired there?
Thanks!
Robert.
Aw. My beloved Sims Carnival was ahead of its time. I am still proud that we made a product that enabled my 12 year old nephew to make his first game. Wishing you all success, Mark.
Good luck with this new venture, Mark. PLEASE make sure that Google gives the GPU some love 🙂
Congrats Mark!
Hey Robert! I learned that apparently only 0.3% of people who apply to Google wind up working here. So you bet, there was a barrier to entry 🙂 Admittedly we went down a slightly different path, but I must say that Google vets its potential employees extraordinarily well, in terms of technology of course but also in terms of self-motivation and leadership. I was pretty impressed (though at the time of the interviews I was more like “holy smokes”.) hhhahaahah 🙂
David: Absolutely! 🙂
Hi Mark,
congratulations on your new job at Google. We Android game developers hope you will help us make Android a superb gaming platform. I know you are probably busy with a lot of job setup stuff. But if you ever find the time in the coming months please check out the following thread on the android development mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/2982cb49db054ec7/e4bb1a131f2b87a0?lnk=gst&q=mark+deloura#e4bb1a131f2b87a0. I don’t expect an immediate reply of course, but it would be nice if you’d brake the current habit of Google to only sparesly communicate with the developer community.
We are looking forward to all the great stuff you’ll work on in the near future helping us making better games.
Ciao,
Mario
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] partnering with game teams to publish premiere games? Mark is talking about his move over at his blog, and seems excited about the potential to engage in the games business as a representative of […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] DeLoura posted on his blog about being hired a couple days ago, there’s not much specific information about what he’ll be doing. He […]
[…] DeLoura posted on his blog about being hired a couple days ago, there’s not much specific information about what he’ll be doing. He […]
first of all, congratulations! what an exciting combination: google + games.
this is a little out of left field (and a little out of character for me), but i had to post a comment because i ended up on this page after a light went off in my head about 10 minutes ago as i pondered the future of games … “you know who should be into games… google”. 5 seconds later i was here.
the timing is inspiring to me — i have dabbled with what *i* would call “games” (ok, maybe “collaborative art experiments” to others) on the internet for over 15 years. i have lately been pondering how to overlap these with all the myriad of APIs and “platforms” (in the widest sense of the term). i have been relishing the quick growth of html5.
and now, i secretly (oops, except i am posting it here!) imagine a world where google opens up hooks into some sort of social/collaborative/meta gaming world. so much of the internet is already a big game, right?
best of luck to you, and i hope to run into you (or your team, or your work, etc.) in the very near future.
-jon / sito.org
[…] him a truckload of game consulting experience, and had a few interesting comments about the new job on his blog: "Over the years I've seen Google ship products that seemed very useful for game developers, like […]
Mark,
Congrats on the position. I am a game developer hobbyist with a full time job. The barriers you talk about here are exactly some of the limitations that I run in to when trying to pursue my passion for game design.
Ideas come easy for me, but the current generation of tools are either out of my budget, are beyond my technical abilities, or have a learning curve beyond my time constraints. A few exceptions exist to this including YoYo Games GameMaker, Unreal Development Kit, and a handful of mod tools for existing games (example: valve hammer editor).
Luckily for me, a close friend of mine is an avid programmer who has the technical skills that I lack. The problem we often run into is this: When I find a toolset that is high enough level that I feel I can properly express my ideas with, he is generally frustrated by how limited the tools are in their potential for extendibility. Likewise, when he stumbles upon a toolset that he really finds to be powerful in its ability to be extended, I generally find it too low level for my abilities.
What we have always dreamt of is a collaborative real-time development environment that could properly leverage my creative abilities and his technical skills. Eskil Steenberg has created some exciting tools in this vein around his newly released MMO “love”. I have a lot of respect for his vision and can hardly believe his drive as a lone developer. I hope to see the barriers for this industry drop low enough that there is more room for 1-3 people development teams.
I would be surprised if I was alone in this conundrum. I hope this helps to give you a view of some of the trails of game developer hobbyists so Google may better facilitate our processes.
Congrats Mark, good to see you as Google’s game developers advocate. I never had the opportunity to work with you while working at Ubisoft.
For my part, I’m using google technologies a bit everywhere in my indie developer pipeline but there are things that can be improved in my opinion and I’d like to share them with you :
Mobile (Android):
– It needs a native Sound API. Then get the great people of FMOD support the platform.
– Marketplace must improve it’s payment solution so that people that work on Android can make money right away, that’s the key to developer support, especially indies. (A solution is on it’s way I heard)
Web:
– Native client is a great initiative, OpenGL ES 1.1 or 2.0 support should be a high priority. So that native client app development, looks a lot like iPhone and Android native development.
– WebGL vs O3D fight, I think WebGL should be a priority, I think monolithic engine have never been a good solution in an emerging tech segment (3d on the web).
I wish you good luck with your new job.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need details.
Thanks,
Laurent,
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]
[…] always been a huge advocate for lowering the barrier to entry for game development,” reads Deloura’s blog. “I want games easier to make, less expensive and time-consuming to […]