Devinoch Speaks

[Mahdi]

So this funny email shows up and it's this funny little man asking about my past. I figure I can indulge him a little bit. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Cliff Hicks, but a lot of people know me better as Devinoch (even if they can't pronounce it - DEV-inn-OCK if you want to do it the easy way) and a surprising number of people remember me from my time at Westwood Studios.

To tell you how I got from here to there's a relatively simple story. In the spring of 2001, Gamecenter closed down its doors and I, a gaming journalist with about a year's worth of experience under his belt, was without a job and in the Bay Area. About two weeks after that, I and another guy who'd be laid off from GC, flew down and interviewed for a PR manager position (which went to Michael Shelling, who became a good friend of mine), heard nothing back and then thought nothing of it. Then, one week before E3 2001, I had two offers simultaneously -- I could go and do QA for LucasArts or I could move to Las Vegas and work for Westwood Studios as a Community Manager.

Needless to say, I took the Westwood job, and the week after E3, I was moving into an apartment and getting a desk just across from Chris "Delphi" Rubyor. The day I showed up, there was a gold master copy of Emperor: Battle For Dune sitting on my desk. The first few days at work, I was pretty much just playing Emperor and reading up on the forums, learning to get a handle on this thing. (I'd never been a Community Manager before, so it was one of those things I had to learn fast.) About a day before the game hit shelves, I walked into the office of Chris Longpre (the executive producer of the game) and said "What would it take to get a map editor?" He explained to me that the tool they'd used to make the game wasn't very user friendly and would probably only cause problems. Two weeks later, I walked back into his office and said "How unfriendly?" About a month or so later, we put the map editor out there, and while it wasn't the easiest of tools to use, the community did embrace it and lots of maps hit the net.

I liked Emperor. It had a definite sense of character and persona to it, and some absolutely great music on the soundtrack. (It's still on my iPod even today.) The game did well enough, but not great, and after a while, I moved on to Command & Conquer: Renegade. After that game shipped, a few months later we had begun work on a sequel. (Hell, I was even working with a second title in addition to my first - Asset Manager - essentially doing an Assistant Producer's job.) But the word came down from above that the sequel was not green-lit, and not long after, the majority of the Renegade team was let go, but I was kept on staff.

About a month later, I took work at Maxis as the Community Manager on The Sims and Sim City, moving back up to the Bay Area and leaving my time in Las Vegas behind me. Not too much further past that, I saw the news of Westwood being closed down and it made me sad. I still remember the incredibly bizarre offices we had (it was a converted jet repair shop, or so I was told) with the weird walkways, the offices in the middle of open spaces and the second building connected to the main one. I still remember playing poker with Dwight and Paul (the two sound geniuses), Ted (my boss), Thilo (who did a lot of everything) and, most especially, Joe Kucan. (That's right, I regularly played poker at lunch with Kane himself, and let me tell you, he's good...)

I was pleased as punch to see the news about Petroglyph, and I'm glad those guys are still out there, kicking ass and taking names. Since leaving Maxis, I've worked at Konami (doing QA and localization), Gamespot (where I was for almost two years) to landing my current gig as the Community Manager over at IMVU.com in November of '06. I've also got a novel I'm shopping around trying to find a publisher for, and am working on a couple of other novels, both of which are completely unrelated to the first. So I'm out of games for the time being, but in this industry, never tell anyone you won't do anything. Videogaming is like the mafia -- just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Will I be back? I don't know, I just don't know. Never say never, I suppose. I'm not afraid of the future, though, because as they say, "fear is the mindkiller."

Good luck, guys. Hope your world is half as interesting as mine.

[Edric O]

Very insightful, good to see old Devinoch is still out there and hasn't forgotten Emperor. :) Congrats for tracking him down.

On a somewhat related note, I've always wanted to ask Joe Kucan how often he gets stopped by people on the street yelling "KANE LIVES!" or somesuch.

[D2k Sardaukar]

Nice story. Makes gamemakers more, ...uh, down to earth you could say. I think these topics/articles keep the Dune society going, would love to see more of them.

On a somewhat related note, I've always wanted to ask Joe Kucan how often he gets stopped by people on the street yelling "KANE LIVES!" or somesuch.

Hahaha, guess at first it will be funny for Kane himself, but if hundreds of people do it, it must get boring.