Robin Walker (game designer)

Robin Walker (born 1975) is an Australian video game designer best known for co-developing Quake Team Fortress, Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life: Alyx.

Robin Walker
Walker in 2013
Born1975 or 1976 (age 47–48)[1]
NationalityAustralian
Alma materRMIT
OccupationVideo game designer

Career
Walker at Steam Dev Days 2014

Walker attended RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

Together with John Cook and Ian Caughley, Walker started working on Team Fortress as a mod for id Software's QuakeWorld in 1996. Due to the popularity of the product, the team was hired by the then-small Valve to work on Team Fortress Classic and later on Team Fortress 2.[2][3]

Walker has played development roles in various Valve games, including Half-Life 2 and Dota 2.[4][5] More recently, Walker has been focused on the collision of economics and game design, in an attempt to transform Team Fortress 2 into a free-to-play, microtransaction-based game.[6] Walker worked on Valve's flagship virtual reality game, Half-Life: Alyx, released on March 23, 2020.[7]

Influences and philosophy

Walker used Team Fortress 2 updates to research what additional features are and aren't popular. The results of which he has used for the development of Dota 2,[5] as well as for later Team Fortress 2 updates. Walker also stated that he cannot guarantee that he would keep working on Team Fortress 2 indefinitely and that at some point, he will move on to a new project.[8]

Walker believes in the importance of communication between players and developers of modern PC games, stating that "being close to your customers – being able to talk directly to your customers – is valuable." In his experience, successful multiplayer games "innovate in gameplay both on release, but also over time post-release, and that those innovations are significant and of interest to customers."[9]

Walker is notably not worried about video game piracy, stating that to fight piracy, he is "looking at the things that pirates are providing and asking [himself] how [he] can provide something better than that." By releasing frequent updates of his games after launch, he constantly improves on his games in a way that pirates could not keep up with.[9][10] Walker is a supporter of the free-to-play model, as he says that the model supports a wider variety of customers, including those with "very little money," and that such a variety of players results in greater opportunities for richer experiences.[11][12]

Selected credits
YearGame title
1996Team Fortress (Quake modification)
1998 Half-Life
1999Team Fortress Classic
2000Counter-Strike
2000Gunman Chronicles
2004Half-Life 2
2005Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
2006Half-Life 2: Episode One
2007Half-Life 2: Episode Two
2007Portal
2007Team Fortress 2
2008Left 4 Dead
2013Dota 2
2020Half-Life: Alyx

References
  1. Dodson, Joe (13 October 2007). "By Design – Half-Life 2: Orange Box". GameSpot. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  2. Steinkuehler, Constance; Squire, Kurt; Barab, Sasha (11 June 2012). Games, Learning, and Society: Learning and Meaning in the Digital Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0521196239. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  3. Dafnis, Jason (31 October 2014). "Ten Games That Came Back From (Development) Hell". Game Informer. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  4. Wyman, Michael Thornton (12 November 2012). "Half-Life 2". Making Great Games: An Insider's Guide to Designing and Developing the World's Greatest Games. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1136132377. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  5. Peel, Jeremy (15 January 2013). "Some Team Fortress 2 updates "largely about gathering data" for Dota 2". PCGamesN. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  6. "Putting the Community in Charge; From control to collaboration – how and why to let your customers build your products". Reflections|Projections. 12 October 2013. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  7. Kim, Matt (21 November 2019). "Half-Life: Alyx Is 'About the Same Length as Half-Life 2'". IGN. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  8. Sonntag, Lawrence (20 August 2010). "Valve's Robin Walker talks Team Fortress 2". Indie Gaming Daily. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  9. Remo, Chris (5 June 2008). "In-Depth: Valve On Team Fortress 2 – Devs As Service Providers". Gamasutra. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  10. "How to Beat Pirates Transcript". OnTheMedia. 8 April 2011. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  11. Crossley, Rob (24 June 2011). "Valve explains to Develop why it relaunched Team Fortress 2 as free-to-play forever". MCV. Develop. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  12. Luton, Will (12 November 2012). "Economics how the money works". Free-to-Play: Making Money From Games You Give Away. New Riders. ISBN 978-0133411249. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
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