Tag: 4Q Interview »

Steve Robert, producer of Electronic Art's Skate It, released May 10, 2010, is a former pro-skater who helmed the development and creation of the game's port to the iPhone. I sat down for a phone interview with Steve and spoke at length about the game and its subsequent port from the Nintendo DS to the iPhone. Steve provided us with much insight on the game's development and how it came to fruition on the iPhone.

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Jason (148apps) - First of all, thanks for putting time aside from your busy schedule to talk with me. I'm stoked to be speaking with you. For people who aren't familiar with you, what's your background and how did you get involved in skating?

Steve Robert (EA) - Well, I grew up in Huntington Beach, CA, which is a coastal town in Southern, CA and, probably as early as 6th grade I got immersed in the culture of skateboarding. It was a very popular hobby in my neighborhood and I had a bunch of good friends who were all into skateboarding. We kept pushing each other to learn and get better and then it sort of evolved as some of my friends, like Jason Lee, who's a good friend of mine, went on to become a famous actor, was the first of us to go on and get sponsored and turn pro. I skated with him all the time and he got me sponsored by the same company he was. From then on, I started entering amateur contests and then we shot a video in 1989 called Rubbish Heap and everything just unfolded from there. I was attracted to the culture and it was fun learning tricks and being competitive with my friends and progressing in the sport.

Jason (148apps) - It's easy to hit a plateau if you don't have people around you who you can learn from.

Steve Robert (EA) - Yeah, absolutely. I think being surrounded by people like Jason Lee, Ed Templeton, Mark Gonzalez and the older, big pros, they all came from Huntington Beach and we would all gather at night at Huntington Beach High School or these schools you see in all the videos, while others were out partying, we would be spending our nights skating at the schools together and you just kind of get obsessed with it. It was everything I did until I graduated high school, it's all I really cared about. Skating was just kind of a sub-culture because it wasn't as mainstream back then, as it is now.

Jason (148apps) - How did you come to get involved in developing Skate It?

Steve Robert (EA) - Well, I've been working in video games since 1997. I slowly got out of skateboarding and went to college. When I graduated from college, I got my first job at Interplay in 1997. I found it interesting because the culture was very similar to skating in many ways. It's obviously less physically active, but the people were the same.

Hit the jump for more with Skate It Producer Steve Robert.

If you have been waiting for your iPhone and your real life to collide, the time has come. Sure, we've had some augmented reality and social gaming apps come out in the past year, but none have put anything solid in my hands. On March 1, DreamWalk will become the first app of its kind, using the iPhone as a treasure map of sorts to put you on a quest to win real world prizes. Sometimes when I wake up I feel like a pirate, but never have I come so close! Today I talk to Joseph Russell, CEO of DreamWalk about this very exciting project.

After the surprising success of Rasta Monkey, the #1 hanging game in the App Store, Nitako went on to make Eco Punk, the only game I know of that lets you "take the role of the insane blood-thirsty eco-friendly, skating punk bunny". Being the "investigative" journalist that I am, I reached out to Noam Abta to really find out what in the world is going on at the Nitako studios, and who would win a battle of environmental superstars.

Touch Pets Dogs is ngmoco:)'s newest causual app, has been causing quite a stir in the app world. Being one of the first "pay to play more" apps, the iTunes reviews have been quite mixes, with half being extremely positive siting the great gameplay and half hating it because of the game imposed limited playtime. Being the big app at the moment, we sent some questions to Andrew Stern of Stumptown Game Machine, who worked with ngmoco:) to create Touch Pets Dogs. Being the previous creator of Vitual Dogz, Catz, Babyz, and now Touch Pets Dogs, Andrew may be the top virtual animal mind in the world.