What was your first memory of a videogame?

Oh I would have to cheat to answer that question by sorting all my favorite arcade machines from my youth in the MAME emulator by date of creation. The result of this gives the Atari Asteroids arcade machine from 1979. The true "from top of my head" answer on the other hand, gives a mixture of home videogame systems. I didn’t own any of them, but was a huge admirer of the technology. I remember being very impressed by a simple "PONG" like videogame (self soldered electric device with all game logic in hardware) and used every chance I had to get my hands on an Atari VCS 2600.


There’s always something that makes you say: “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life”. What made you realize that?

Not one single moment. My school newly introduced computer classes in the early 80s and it was a very easy way to get good grades. Later I wrote a little "Time Pilot" clone for the TI-99/4a and greatly enjoyed playing my little creation. So my hobby slowly grew into my school life and later into a job.


If you had to create “the ultimate game” what would it be?

Probably just the "ultimate" version of what we do already - the PERFECT space simulation game. You can go everywhere, be everybody, do everything and always have a lot of fun. Sounds simple enough to do, right? Well, we are on the job…stay tuned ;-)


You’re leaving for a space trip and you have to bring only one game and one videogame character with you, it would be…

One game for all eternity? Probably something simple, like a good chess computer then. As for the character I would probably choose Lara Croft. Not a big fan of Tomb Raider, but definitely prefer Lara over the likes of Sonic or Mario ;-)


If you had one tip to give to someone who wants to start working in the industry, what would it be?

Dare to be innovative.


One silly personal factoid about you?

I just returned to playing "Donkey Kong" again after watching "The King of Kong", just to find out that I cannot even beat the scores of my childhood, not to mention those shown in the movie.


What are you playing now?

WipeOut HD, Guitar Hero World Tour…oh and Donkey Kong of course.


On which project are you working now and what can you tell us about it?

See above. The ultimate space simulation game ;-)