This past Monday, I left Google. There are a lot of very interesting things going on at Google right now, and I enjoyed working with many of the people there, but it was not the perfect fit for me. I’m looking forward to my next adventure.
One of those things Google is working on that I do think is particularly great is Native Client. Opening up the web so that you can readily use languages other than HTML/JS and ActionScript is a really big deal. I hope that other browser providers will also adopt Native Client – it is open source after all! The web feels like it is blossoming open with this next wave of technologies, moving past its history as a markup language wrapped around text and toward a fully interactive platform for applications.
For game developers, I’m looking forward to the day where we see more games running in the cloud, like Farmville and World of Warcraft do now, and it is easy for developers to create clients on multiple platforms so I can bring my game with me no matter where I am. As game developers we’ve talked about the idea of making multiple-platform game access simpler for a long time – trans-platform play where the experiences may be different, as opposed to cross-platform play where the experiences are the same – and it should be easier for developers to create clients for web, mobile and desktop without needing to write them in completely different languages or using vastly different SDKs. Microsoft is closest to this with XNA and Silverlight across multiple platforms; Apple’s SDKs across iPhone, iPad and Mac OSX are pretty cleverly designed as well; and Google is approaching it with Android NDK and Chrome Native Client. The increasing use of web services can abstract away a lot of the need for platform-specific SDK features, but there’s still a lot of work to do all around. Games aren’t getting cheaper to make, that’s for sure, and it’s important that technically complex features are still easily available to independent developers working alone.
Game engines and middleware are only getting better and better, and make increasing sense to use to bridge all these gaps. But the costs can be difficult to bear for indies, and there are also the different market systems, social graphs, and platform tech requirements to deal with… it’s clear there are still a lot of problems for the game industry to solve to make things easier for small developers. Which is good, because we all don’t like being bored. 🙂 I’m going to continue studying and talking about the game technology space in this blog and occasionally on my Gamasutra expert blog, as always.
Lastly I want to apologize to those of you I haven’t kept in good touch with these past few months. A lot of people reached out to me during my time at Google, and I’ve been pretty lousy at replying back or staying in touch due to how busy I was. Sorry about that! I’ve found that increasingly my inbox overwhelms my ability to get work done, so I hope to do more tweeting and blogging in the future to help with that, a lesson I’ve learned from the very wise and public Robert Scoble.
I’m looking forward to sharing with you what I’m up to next!
Comments
54 responses to “Moving on from Google”
Wow, congrats Mark. I am sure you left for something even bigger, so I’m not all the more curious! Keep us posted.
rather, “now” all the more curious!
Wow indeed, Mark! I think your thoughts (here and in other posts) are bullseye-correct as usual for the future and potential of games, so I’m excited to see what you move onto too. Looking forward to more tweets. 🙂
Good luck! This is clearly Google’s loss 😉 let me know if there’s anything I can do to help…
[…] a blog post announcing his resignation that took place monday, DeLoura wrote, “there are a lot of very interesting things going on at […]
Mark – Sorry to hear it was not your perfect fit. From the tech side of things it must have been a great experience although I’m sure that the change from what you were used to was quite hard. I hope that you have something good and fun planned next. I understood how busy you were/are and I look forward to speaking soon in real time once again. I miss those days.
4 month is a short stay. My guess would be you are joining Unity 3D.
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You’ll be sorely missed, Mark–keep in touch!
[…] he has announced on his blog today, DeLoura left Google on Monday. “There are a lot of very interesting things […]
[…] announcing his departure, DeLoura wrote in a blog post about the progress Games at Google has shown to date in building apps in the browser and enabling […]
[…] 但是这位曾在育碧、索尼和任天堂任过职的大牛仅仅在四个月后的今天就离开了Google，他在个人博客宣布了这一决定，他说： 现在的Google有好多有意思的事情，我很享受在那里与大家共事的感觉，但我觉得并不是最适合我的。 […]
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Nice working with you Mark…best of everything!
[…] announcing his departure, DeLoura wrote in a blog post about the progress Games at Google has shown to date in building apps in the browser and enabling […]
Enjoy working with you, I wish you the best!
[…] he has announced on his blog today, DeLoura left Google on Monday. “There are a lot of very interesting things […]
Good luck Mark! Can’t wait to see what’s next. 🙂
Mark, Looking forward to hearing about your next gig.
[…] over four months, industry veteran Mark DeLoura left Google this past Monday. He announced on his blog today that he had parted ways with Google, explaining that he “enjoyed working with many of […]
[…] over four months, industry veteran Mark DeLoura left Google this past Monday. He announced on his blog today that he had parted ways with Google, explaining that he “enjoyed working with many of […]
[…] here’s what DeLoura said in his farewell blog post today about the future of video games: “Games aren’t getting cheaper to make, […]
[…] over four months, industry veteran Mark DeLoura left Google this past Monday. He announced on his blog today that he had parted ways with Google, explaining that he “enjoyed working with many of […]
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[…] over four months, industry veteran Mark DeLoura left Google this past Monday. He announced on his blog today that he had parted ways with Google, explaining that he “enjoyed working with many of […]
[…] here’s what DeLoura said in his farewell blog post today about the future of video games: “Games aren’t getting cheaper to make, […]
Don’t be evil, Mark. Interested to see where you land.
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Enjoy your “downtime”, Mark. Looking forward to seeing where you land next!
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[…] over four months, industry veteran Mark DeLoura left Google this past Monday. He announced on his blog today that he had parted ways with Google, explaining that he “enjoyed working with many of […]
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[…] a blog post announcing his resignation that took place monday, DeLoura wrote, “there are a lot of very interesting things going on at […]
Mark, if you’re interested in multi-platform SDKs for native apps, in the vein of NaCl and Android NDK, you should take a look at Airplay SDK:
http://www.airplaysdk.com
Used by many of the world’s leading games publishers to go widely across smartphone/tablet devices, for good reason…
Interested in your thoughts.
All the best,
Tim
[…] Mark DeLoura Leaves Google – Google may be getting into social gaming with Slide’s aquisition, but one of its main games guys is rolling out. As of last Monday, Mark DeLoura has left Google, as noted on Satori.org. […]
[…] Mark DeLoura Leaves Google – Google may be getting into social gaming with Slide’s aquisition, but one of its main games guys is rolling out. As of last Monday, Mark DeLoura has left Google, as noted on Satori.org. […]
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[…] Mark DeLoura Leaves Google – Google may be getting into social gaming with Slide’s aquisition, but one of its main games guys is rolling out. As of last Monday, Mark DeLoura has left Google, as noted on Satori.org. […]
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