Less than Famous Firsts: Your Favorite Developers’ Early Efforts

They may be big now, but today’s superstars of game development certainly came from humble roots.

By: Todd Ciolek
October 12, 2011

Everyone starts somewhere in the game industry. Few would-be auteurs are handed their own big-budget projects without first doing time in smaller roles. Of course, some of those smaller roles are part of major games. Many of today’s best-known game developers began their careers on important ground: Doublefine founder Tim Schafer’s first gigs came with such acclaimed LucasArts adventures games as Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island, while Deus Ex and Thief producer Warren Spector jumped into game development by working on the Wing Commander and Ultima series.

Other major talents from today’s game industry started off with humbler attempts. Their first games didn’t change the market or spawn successful franchises, and some of them were clearly planned as disposable pieces of a popular license or an ongoing series. Yet in each of these seemingly minor titles, there’s a hint or two of what their designers would accomplish years down the road.