Erik & Doug Interview
A couple quick, lighthearted, interviews with Doug Lombardi and Erik Johnson; two guys who are very involved with the community.
— The PF Staff
Straight up, these interviews have no monumental information in them, our goal was simply to get a little humor
and background in with a couple members of Valve who are the people who operate with the community. Enjoy
the quick Q & A Sessions with Erik Johnson and Doug Lombardi:
 Erik Johnson
PlanetFortress: How did you end up at Valve?
Erik Johnson: I worked at Sierra for a few years before coming over to Valve to help
with testing and shipping Half-Life. After spending about 7 months working
on getting Half-Life out the door, I stayed here at Valve.
PlanetFortress: What is your main role at the office?
Erik Johnson: For the most part I work on making sure everything is
working smoothly to get projects completed and out the door. What this
means is that I spend most of my time trying to think of how to murder
Robin's new inflatable kangaroo.
PlanetFortress: What is the best part of your day?
Erik Johnson: Right now the play tests we are having daily is definitely
the most rewarding. We're about ready to release a bunch of new content
that is all coming together at once, and it's great watching it all come
together. Getting ten to fifteen people together in a room and talking
through the events, problems, and opinions of the previous hour's play
is how we make our games better.
PlanetFortress: What are two things you'd like to change about the TF Community?
Erik Johnson: I'd love to see more user (non-Valve) maps running on TFC servers, since
there are some excellent user maps that aren't getting the coverage they
deserve. Hopefully we will be able to solve this distribution problem some
time in the future.
PlanetFortress: How do you get even with Robin after he thrashes everyone at Soul Caliber?
Erik Johnson: Please refer to the second question. I'm working on it.
PlanetFortress: Do you approve of Doug Lombardi's "duck and to the right" move? Does it
bother you when he randomly does it in the office?
Erik Johnson: I can't say that I approve of it, but he's got a very consistent strategy.
The last one was more of an inside joke about Doug Lombardi's Hw Combat strategy -- though roumer has
it this maneuver extends beyond the office setting. -- yeah, I'll just leave that one alone.
Doug Lombardi
PlanetFortress: How did you end up at Valve?
Doug Lombardi: In 1977, my uncle Nick gave the kids in my family an
Odyssey 2000 for Christmas. Then, in 1978...(laughs).
OK, let's try the shorter version of the story. After a short career in
the music industry, I made the transition to editorial work covering
games and technology. After a stint at Imagine and then CNET, I found
myself at Sierra as the senior product manager on Valve's account, among
other things. After a few years there, a few other companies started
approaching me and that got me thinking about what was next. I sat down
to discuss this with Gabe, and he convinced me to join Valve.
PlanetFortress: And you do all the PR work?
Doug Lombardi:
The moniker these days is Director of Marketing and 3rd
Party Relations. On a day-to-day basis, that means taking care of
anything from managing relationships with outside groups such as
Gearbox, working on PR items, coordinating the creation of box and ad
art, etc.
PlanetFortress: What is the favorite part of your day?
Doug Lombardi:
Getting the email from Robin saying he won't be in today.
Seriously, there are so many cool things about working at Valve that
it's hard to pick just one thing as my favorite. For example, someone
will grab me in the hallway and say, "Hey, look at what we are doing
here," and then show you some amazing new bit they've just got up and
running. Then there is the email that says, "The play test server is
up!" Recently, I've been getting calls from all kinds of major media
outlets wanting to write about CS and other HL mods. After years of
working with the mod teams, those calls are really satisfying.
PlanetFortress: Is there anything you would like to change about your daily dealings?
Doug Lombardi: I would like to clone myself.
When did these interviews happen? Have you been hiding under a rock? PlanetFortress visited Valve Software
just recently, and we've been kicking out some daily content as a result, get all caught up to speed at
the Valve Trip Index Page!
|
RSS Feeds
