Our Where are They Now feature this week welcomes Graeme Devine, probably best known to Shackers as founder of 7th Guest developer Trilobyte, innovator in the field of video compression, a programmer at id on Quake III Arena, and champion of the Mac as a gaming platform. Devine, now 46, lives in Santa Cruz with his wife, Lori, and daughter, Roque.
In an upcoming interview later today, developer and former IGDA chairman Graeme Devine said he is frustrated with the "metrics and monetization strategies" that companies are using in games today. He also hinted at a new adventure game to break that mold.
Shacknews was founded in 1996 back when PC gaming, especially the first-person shooter, was just a toddler. By the late '90s and early '00s, Shackers were following .plan files to keep up with their favorite developers and studios. Unfortunately, for every id, Valve, Firaxis, BioWare and Blizzard success story, there were twice as many Ion Storms, Rituals, 3D Realms, Origins, and Cavedogs that made great games, but couldn't survive. As the companies passed on or got gobbled up by publishers, the big name developers that Shackers followed moved on, worked on new games or went on to other careers.
This regular feature will take a brief look at some of the names that we followed back then to find out what they are doing now. First up: Levelord, Richard Gray, the popular level designer from 3D Realms (see picture above) and later Ritual Entertainment. His floating platform deathmatch map, Edge of Oblivion (aka HIPDM1), and the Behind Zee Bookcase Spry level from SiN are still regarded as classics. Gray is now 54 and still lives in Dallas.
"Now that is an excellent choice. I will have to look him up. "
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