Robin Walker (born 1975/1976) is an Australian

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

best known for co-developing '' Quake Team Fortress'', '' Team Fortress Classic'', ''

Team Fortress 2 ''Team Fortress 2'' is a 2007 multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 ''Team Fortress'' mod for '' Quake'' and its 1999 remake, ''Team Fortress Classic''. The game was rel ...

'', and '' Half-Life: Alyx''.

Career

Walker attended

RMIT University RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public university, public research university in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering cla ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, Australia. Together with John Cook and

Ian Caughley Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John (given name), John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a ...

, Walker started working on ''Team Fortress'' as a mod for

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

's ''

QuakeWorld ''Quake'' is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the ''Quake'' series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux in 1996, followed by Mac OS and Seg ...

'' in 1996. Due to the popularity of the product, the team was hired by the then-small

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

to work on '' Team Fortress Classic'' and later on ''

''. Walker has played development roles in various Valve games, including ''

Half-Life 2 ''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half-Life 2'' combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and a ...

'' and ''

Dota 2 ''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota ...

''. 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 Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...

microtransaction Microtransactions, often abbreviated as mtx, are a business model where users can purchase virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransact ...

-based game. Walker worked on Valve's flagship

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

game, '' Half-Life: Alyx'', released on March 23, 2020.

Influences and philosophy

Walker has started to use ''Team Fortress 2''

updates Update(s) or Updated may refer to: Music * ''Update'' (Anouk album), 2004 * ''Update'' (Berlin Jazz Orchestra album), 2004 * ''Update'' (Jane Zhang album), 2007 * ''Update'' (Mal Waldron album), 1987 * ''Update'' (Yandel album), 2017 * ''Up ...

to research what additional features are and aren't popular. The results of which he has used for the development of ''Dota 2'', 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. Walker believes in the importance of communication between players and developers of modern PC games, stating that " ing close to your customers – being able to talk directly to your customers – is valuable." In his experience, successful

multiplayer games A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (suc ...

"innovate in gameplay both on release, but also over time post-release, and that those innovations are significant and of interest to customers." Walker is notably not worried about

video game piracy Video game piracy is the unauthorized copying and distributing of video game software, and is a form of copyright infringement. It is often cited as a major problem that video game publishers face when distributing their products, due to the eas ...

, stating that to fight piracy, he is "looking at the things that pirates are providing and asking imselfhow ecan 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. Walker is a supporter of the

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.

Selected credits

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Robin Living people Valve Corporation people Video game designers Video game producers 1976 births