We caught up with Hawk this weekend at the Spike TV VGAs to talk about his response to Ride's reception and future Tony Hawk's Pro Skater plans.

"I feel like the device is a flagship for other games," Hawk said. "I think we can do another skate game, I think we can do other board-type games, surfing, snowboarding." Hawk and company have hinted at such things in the past, speaking about his appreciation of Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer.

"That really was the master plan," he said of increased Ride board controller support. "I didn't think it was some gimmick that people were going to have to buy again next year."

Hawk, who says he typically plays his latest game on "confident" difficulty, didn't have much to say about a return to traditional controls for the Pro Skate franchise, but did talk about one of his goals for the current implementation.

"I think it could maybe be a bridge for people who were intimidated to try skating in the first place," he said. "They could get on this and realize maybe they do have a sense of balance they didn't know and that that will inspire them to try the real thing. I could only hope."

GameSpot reports that the majority of those sales were to Wii gamers, with 67,000 copies of Tony Hawk Ride and the accompanying skateboard sold to the peripheral comfortable Nintendo fan base. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers snapped up the rest, with the 360 version outselling the PS3 version almost two-to-one.

That's behind Activision's other recent controller-dependent, high ticket game, DJ Hero, which debuted with 123,000 units sold in the U.S. in October.

That's potentially disappointing for Activision, which went back to the drawing board after the previous entry in the series Tony Hawk's Proving Ground saw middling reviews—some of the lowest in the series—and hefty competition from EA's Skate. Metacritic scores aside, Proving Ground at least went on to sell more than a million units in the U.S. across the five platforms it was released on.

Tony Hawk may be "proud" of Ride, but it appears that U.S. video game consumers (and critics) may have a harder time getting on board.

Under 114,000 ride Tony Hawk in November [GameSpot]

But don't tell Tony Hawk that!

The skater is standing by Robomodo's game, both on the grounds that he was involved in it, and that everyone reviewing the game and thinking it's complete rubbish simply weren't willing to give it a chance.

"They were ready to discredit it before they even tried it, and if it didn't play exactly how they imagined it... then they passed it off" Hawk told the Sudbury Star.

"I don't agree with people who say the board's not responsive," he continues. "I think that they're just not giving it a fair shake. And I think a lot of them came into it with an attitude that it's going to suck."

"I know that (RIDE) is super fun, and I think there's a misconception that I just stick my name on a game," he said. "I brought this idea to Activision, and I saw it through, I've been playing it every step of the way and I am very proud of it."

Hey, least there's one satisfied customer!

Hawk defends RIDE [Sudbury Star]

Tony Hawk Ride is the latest installment of the storied Tony Hawk skateboarding video game franchise, given new life by developer Robomodo with the inclusion of a plastic skateboard controller. How could such a concept fail? Read on.

Giant Bomb
There's a good idea at the center of Tony Hawk: RIDE. Attempting to make some sort of peripheral-based skateboarding game is a neat idea, and one that, if the peripheral were robust enough, could result in some sort of faux-skating experience that approximates the real thing in a way that's accessible to non-skaters without being completely offensive to anyone who's ever pulled an ollie. But everything about Tony Hawk: RIDE, from the game's structure to the skateboard hardware itself, is an absolute mess that feels incapable of pleasing anyone, regardless of his or her skill level.

Games Radar
Instead of using a huge piece of expensive plastic to enhance what could have been a pretty awesome Tony Hawk game, the development team chose to tailor the entire game around a huge piece of expensive plastic. The result is a gimmicky-as-hell title that's certainly not a step forward for the franchise, as much as it tries to be. The sturdy, wheel-less skateboard peripheral that serves as the sole means of input for Ride is a deceptive beast. It's hefty, looks sleek, and just feels right – at least before you sync it up and start trying to "skate" on it.

IGN
The more you play, the more you'll also begin to notice that the physics and collision detection aren't up to speed – I once watched my skater go straight through the wall of a half-pipe and then fall through the world. Other times you'll watch your skater's head slide right through a cement wall. The camera has plenty of difficulties, too, once you take the game off of the casual rails. Ride simply lacks the polish that is necessary to match the hardcore controls. All of these things are problems that would absolutely not fly in past Tony Hawk games, and they're more than enough to make any serious gamer walk away.

Game Informer
Totally rad skaters can use the hardcore mode, which ditches the rails and lets you skate your heart out. Developer Robomodo added the ability to loosen or tighten the steering, but in the end, trying to skate a planned line requires so much focus and concentration you'd be hard-pressed to find some fun along the way. Instead, the reward is usually a quick, painful faceplant into a wall.

GameZone
What makes this game so dynamic is obviously the controller. It gives the game a brand new vibe and feel and elevates the enter genre. In 2009, Activision introduced a couple of new controllers – one for DJ Hero and the board for RIDE. Of the two, the board will have the biggest impact and may well become a staple for other games to build off. But more importantly, the board takes the Tony Hawk franchise to a new audience – the entire family. This is no longer about fast fingers on a controller, but it is a decent workout (you may break a sweat playing the game and you will feel it in your legs) but this is a game that will appeal to the younger members of the family as well as the older ones.

Kotaku
During one of my play sessions with Tony Hawk: Ride, my girlfriend looked up from her random knitting and said, "It's a pity you can't play it with the regular controller. It looks fun." For me, that simple statement sums up everything that is wrong with the game. Ride is a game built completely around a plastic skateboard controller that doesn't come close to getting the job done. Since the board is required to play, it drags everything else down with it-the integrity of the Tony Hawk franchise included.

Just going to sit here quietly, rocking back and forth

Losing ground to EA's Skate franchise, Activision tapped developer Robomodo to help take the Tony Hawk franchise in a whole new direction, eschewing standard controllers for a new plastic skateboard peripheral, attempting to bank on the success of peripheral-dependent titles like Guitar Hero. In Tony Hawk: Ride, players stand atop the included skateboard peripheral, tilting and raising the board to pull off tricks as high-tech sensors track the board's movement.

It's definitely a bold move, but as any skater can tell you, bold moves have a nasty habit of ending in a face-plant.

Loved
The Novelty: The concept behind Tony Hawk: Ride is certainly an intriguing one. A skateboarding game that uses a plastic skateboard controller had my attention from the moment it was first announced, and I have to admit that at first I was a charmed by the novelty of the whole thing. When you first get on the board and finish calibrating everything there are moments of giddy enjoyment. They quickly fade, but I'm giving Robomodo credit for at least trying.

The Board As An Object To Stand On: A plastic controller with delicate innards that can handle close to 300 pounds of frustrated man jumping up and down on it without shattering into a million pieces is a worthy piece of plastic indeed. I've broken real skateboards doing less.

Hated
The Board As A Game Controller: While it's great for standing on and looking vaguely ridiculous, the Tony Hawk: Ride controller falls short when it comes to actually controlling the game. At times it seems too sensitive, while other times it doesn't feel sensitive enough. In the game's "casual" difficulty, which guides you along on rails with diverging paths, one doesn't have to worry about steering, instead focusing on performing tricks using a combination of tilting, lifting, and turning the board. At no point in the Road Trip career mode did I truly feel as if I were in control of what I was doing, attempting to do one thing and doing something completely different instead. I particularly had difficulty getting the game to decide whether it wanted to ollie or manual.

Switching from "casual" to "confident" takes you off of the rails, giving you full control of your movement, which is great if you want to ride around in circles while the camera breaks. It takes a great deal of patience to master movement... unfortunately much more patience than I possess. Adjusting the sensitivity of the board helped, but not enough to make "confident" difficulty entertaining. It feels to me as if the game was designed with casual play in mind, with not as much fine-tuning done for the more advanced modes.

Another point against the board that must be mentioned is the fact that while it features many of the controls of your standard Xbox 360 controller, many of them simply don't work at various points in the game, requiring the use of a normal controller to navigate menus. Why would you go to the trouble of adding all of those buttons if you couldn't use them? It makes no sense.

A Visual Throwback: While previous entries in the Tony Hawk series gave you interesting places to skate, Ride's levels are mainly linear, meaning there isn't that much to see. The visuals are drab and uninspired, which wouldn't have been as much of an issue if the gameplay fell into place, but here we are. It's a definite step backwards for the series, but the board probably won't register that step anyway.

Loading Time: The only thing worse than looking silly trying to control your skater as he or she speeds through the various courses in Ride is standing still for ridiculously long periods of time, staring at the loading screen. It doesn't help that between each new course or new challenge you have to not only wait while the game loads but also indicate your riding stance (goofy or regular), over and over again. It's frustration on top of more frustration, with a side of frustration.

Glitching Is Not A Skateboarding Term: Little graphical and gameplay glitches abound in the game. Oftentimes my skater would clip right through obstacles, or drop from seemingly solid ramps to the ground below. Furthering the feeling that the game was designed with the casual on-rails gameplay in mind, the graphical hiccups only intensify when you take the training wheels off, not aided in the least by the aforementioned camera.

All The Small Things: On top of the big issues I've detailed here, there are a bunch of other nits I have to pick that didn't warrant a full Hated paragraph on their own. Issues like tutorials that don't quite tutor; online multiplayer that consists of playing alone and comparing scores after the fact; and an overall lack of information provided in the menus and navigation. It's hard to care about unlocking new gear when the game won't tell you what that gear is.

During one of my play sessions with Tony Hawk: Ride, my girlfriend looked up from her random knitting and said, "It's a pity you can't play it with the regular controller. It looks fun." For me, that simple statement sums up everything that is wrong with the game. Ride is a game built completely around a plastic skateboard controller that doesn't come close to getting the job done. Since the board is required to play, it drags everything else down with it—the integrity of the Tony Hawk franchise included.

Tony Hawk: Ride was developed by Robomodo and published by Activision for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 17th. A Wii version of the game was developed by Buzz Monkey. Retails for $119.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played through the Road Trip mode on the Xbox 360 version on casual difficulty. Played through first stage on confident before giving up out of frustration.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

And we love it! Sure, with wires, wood and buttons all over the place it doesn't have as compact a final form as the retail model, but it's dirty, raw and practical. Which seems to fit with the whole skateboarding thing a lot better than a lump of plastic with lasers.

In Pictures: How the RIDE team built a board [Develop]

Not only is it informative, giving curious Tony Hawk Ride investors a 20-plus minute video preview of the game, Jeff Gerstmann fans get a crystal clear look at the man's choice in footwear. The Giant Bomb gang push the Ride board to its technical limits, make accurate comparisons to Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, help explain the difference between "casual" and "competent" skating, and illustrate just how well the sensor-laden board works in the real world.

Do stick around for the exciting conclusion, which totally shreds! You will believe a Gerstmann can fly.

Quick Look: Tony Hawk RIDE [Giant Bomb]

Speaking with Develop, Michicich was asked whether Robomodo - the developers behind Tony Hawk: Ride - had any other ideas for games using the board. To which Michicich replied "That's really difficult to answer because we're kind of, ah, [pause], we're kind of, [pause], we're doing a game with Activision and we're not allowed to talk about it right now".

That's a yes, then.

The obvious answer is "snowboard game", but we're hoping for "hoverboard game" instead.

Tony Hawk Ride team hint at boarding other genres [Develop]

Or, so the above video, a Tony Hawk Ride "love story" would lead us to believe. Just a warning that there is some raw, uncensored skateboard riding on Xbox 360 controller action—and vice versa—in this here video plus some rather graphic birth footage. It's more instructional than overtly sexual, but you might want to shoo the lil' controllers and boards out of the room before watching.

The lucky three are the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. If you live in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Belgium, Switzerland or Mexico (or anywhere in between), sorry, you're shit out of luck.

Tacky plastic peripherals are expensive and difficult to manufacture, and like Rock Band's staggered release a few year's back, seems there just aren't enough of them to go around on launch day.

One thing we're unsure of; whether Canadians are included in the "United States" statement. We'd like to think so, but then, you can't be sure. We'll look into it.

Not being known to be exceptionally skilled at video games, I play them anyway. But having limited athletic skill and no ability to roller-skate, I've never tried to skateboard more than a foot.

Who better to try out the new Tony Hawk game played with a skateboard peripheral last night at an Activision event in Manhattan?

Eagerly in the evening yesterday, I stood on a prototype Tony Hawk Ride skateboard, one that runs on 2 AA batteries and has had its 300-pound weight limit tested successfully by a guy at E3 who one of the game reps on hand guessed, must have weight 350. Two of me would have barely busted the limit.

I tried the same stuff Crecente tried during his E3 Tony Hawk Ride preview and had a similar reaction. Jumps — ollies — were easy to learn and execute with an abrupt back-foot tilt of the board and then a quick leveling off. That smacks the board's underside back onto the ground, under your weight, so plan to have mercy on the people downstairs by playing this on a carpet. Like Crecente, I had more trouble executing mid-air tricks, which are activated by moves of your feet, bends of your ankles or hand-gestures (grabs, if you want) toward sensors on the board. At its most basic, one can twist that board for tricks. I just wiggled my ankles in what must amount to button-mashing in Ride. Tricks happened. Well, the first time I tried, tricks didn't happen. I lost my balance and had to step off.

Josh Tsui, president of Ride's development studio, Robomodo, told me that he plays on a hard surface without any trouble. The board holds up. The floor holds up. He pulled off lots of tricks, but he made me feel like I was standing too close. Not his fault. This game requires the personal space of a Wii Tennis match. Tsui told me that was one reason Robomodo scrapped a prototyped two-board multiplayer mode: Too many cases of bodies in near collision. Multiplayer in Ride is done hotseat style, up to six gamers getting summoned for their try on the board.

One note about the game's difficulty. When I played the skate-park level available at yesterday's demo, I first played it on "casual." This kept my rider funneled down a linear path. I controlled his momentum, minimal steering and tricks, but I could not freely roam the level. I could, at at least one fork, chose from a trio of options about where I wanted to go next in the skate park. When the difficulty was raised to "confident," I could free-roam the level.

Tony Hawk Ride is slated for release this fall on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. And the final board will run on 4 AA batteries. I stood on it. It's a better, firmer build.

Robomodo president Josh Tsui tells IndustryGamers that the developer, who took the reins of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise from Neversoft, is working sequel planning into its current schedule. Tsui also sees the Ride controller as "almost like a platform unto itself." Sound familiar?

Tsui says the board has "an immense amount of flexibility behind it," envisioning that the peripheral... sorry, the platform can be used for more than just skateboarding. Like... hoverboarding?! Will we finally get a worthwhile video game adaptation of Back to the Future II?

Interview: Robomodo on Reinventing Tony Hawk [Industry Gamers]

Tsui was at this week's IGDA demo night in Chicago, Tsui showed off the board controller to the crowd, explaining how the original prototype design set the company back abot $3,000 to make. After getting Activision on board (harhar), Tony Hawk started helping out with product testing, eventually cracking an early prototype trying to perform an ollie.

The most interesting thing to come out of the presentation, it seems was not that Tsui envisions the skateboard being used for other games, we reported that a month or so back, but which types of games it might be used for.

Tsui mentioned that there are plenty of no-brainers, like surfing and snowboarding, but that there are also opportunities for Silver Surfer and Hobgoblin games in the future.

[Thanks news ninja AJ]

Instead of overhauling the graphics, or coming up with some new gameplay mode, Activision decided to turn it into a motion-sensing game complete with its own plastic peripheral.

Will Tony Hawk Ride be worth filling a bit more closet space with yet another controller?

What Is It?
This complete overhaul of the storied Tony Hawk franchise ditches the controller for a motion-sensing skateboard that has you shifting your weight and waving your hands to skate and perform tricks.

What We Saw
I played through an early practice session several times and tried pulling some tricks in a halfpipe.

How Far Along Is It?
The board I used was the final version and the game is due out this fall.

What Needs Improvement?
Light Sensor Sensitivity: The board uses four light sensors to detect movement, one each on the front, back and sides. The idea is that you wave your hand or foot in front of the sensor and it translates that into a grab. When I played it the sensor didn't really work unless I really reached down, something that the developers told me they were still looking to tweak. It would be much more fun, and playable, if a gamer could just wave their hand to the side, instead of bending down and waving.

Tricks: While riding the board and steering felt natural and relatively easy to do, things started to get a little sketchy when I started pulling tricks. Doing manuals, flips and grinds all require a gamer to physically shift the board around. You have to lean back on the board and do a wheelie to do a wheelie. If you want to do a flip you have to make the same motion, but slap the board back down. Shifting the board in either direction while doing a manual also pulled off tricks.

I was able to do all of these, but about half the time would lose my center of balance and eventually have to step off the board. This isn't an issue of me falling, just not being able to sustain gameplay, which in many ways is a bigger issue. Perhaps tweaking the sensitivity, or teaching gamers to be a bit more subtle in their movements would fix the issue.

Learning Curve: The basics are very easy in Ride, the tricks not so much. Dropping in to play with the game for ten minutes or so makes it hard to judge what the final experience will be like, but I suspect one of the biggest issues Ride is going to have is a fairly steep learning curve. The developers are going to need to build in a lot of carrots to keep players trying until they get it right.

What Should Stay The Same?
Concept: The idea of playing a skateboarding game with your feet, not your thumbs is a great idea. Taking the over-the-top arcade games of the 80s and 90s and turning them into a (hopefully) affordable home game is fantastic on paper.

Turns: Straight skating is a pleasure on the Ride board. You get started by pretending to kick off with your foot and then just lean into the turns. The board does a phenomenal job of translating shifting weight into movement and makes it feel like you're really skateboarding.

Board Design: It may look fragile or unsteady, but the board design for Ride is very solid. The controller is a tad smaller than a standard board and curves up on the front and back to make tricking easier. The bottom of the plastic board is broken down into flat sections instead of being a smooth curve. The very bottom is completely flat and when you shift to the side you move from the bottom flat section to a side flat section. This makes balancing much easier than if the bottom of the board was smooth.

The board feels solid enough to stand up to years of abuse and the top has a rubber coating.

Final Thoughts
Tony Hawk Ride is a great concept, I'm not yet convinced it's a great game. So far I've really only had enough time with it to get an inkling of the controller and how well it translates movement into gameplay. It would take much more time for me to be able to tell if Ride is something I can adjust to and feel fully comfortable with.

And that's not even addressing the game itself. Even with the neatest technology, the coolest new concept, you need to have a fun game and really we haven't had a chance to dive into Ride yet.

What will make or break this game is how a person will feel both physically and emotionally after playing it for a few hours non-stop.

This year developers unveiled games that have players using a faux turntable to pretend to be a DJ and another that has them ride a plastic skateboard in a new Tony Hawk game. And both Microsoft and Sony are rumored to be working on motion controls for their consoles.

"Peripherals can make the experience of playing video games even more immersive," said Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs. "Instead of simply pressing buttons to control the action, players feel like they are inside the game itself."

Over the past few years Nintendo has introduced plenty of peripherals, from the Wii Wheel to the Wii Zapper and Balance Board.

"All of these peripherals have helped make video games more accessible to new players while providing new challenges for veteran players," Kaigler said.

This holiday ten-year-old skating franchise Tony Hawk will get an overhaul with motion controls of its own.

Gamers will play Tony Hawk: Ride on the Playstation 3, Wii or Xbox 360 by standing on a plastic skateboard and rocking back and forth as if they were on the real thing. No other controller is necessary.

"This is the game I've always wanted to make," said Tony Hawk, who has been directly involved with development of the project. "Playing on the board is unlike any other game, and I'm excited for everyone to have the chance to feel what it's really like to experience the true feeling of skateboarding."

The wireless board gamers stand on features two accelerometers and four motion sensors, located on the front, back and sides of the board. The bottom of the board is curved on the sides, front and back to make it easier to rock, but still flat on the very bottom so players don't need to balance when not turning.

Josh Tsui, president of Tony Hawk: Ride developer Robomodo , said the idea for the game was inspired by arcade games like Top Skater that had similar real board controls.

"We came from an arcade background and we felt that if we could bring the arcade experience to the home and do it cheaply, and safely it would be a home run," he said in a phone interview.

But, he added, it was games like Guitar Hero that allowed developers to start experimenting with new controllers.

"It opened the doors for people who aren't into games as much," he said. "I know a lot of people who play Guitar Hero who didn't play video games that much. They didn't want to figure out the controls."

The same was true for most arcade games, Tsui points out, the barrier for playing a game in an arcade was much lower than with typical modern console games.

"I don't like having to relearn a control mechanic for every game that comes out," he said.

Ride will feature three difficulty setting. When you are playing at the hardest setting it is targeted toward the hardcore gamer, there is a lot of motion, Tsui said.

Players will have to wave their hands or feet over the sensors to do tricks. The easier difficulties are more geared toward novice gamers.

The team at Robomodo have been working on the game for about a year and a half, he said. And now that they've gotten the sensors in the three-and-a-half pound board tuned, they're looking at how it may be used for future non-skateboarding games.

"We started out with skateboarding because it's easy to understand," he said. "But there are a lot of games we realize could be used on the board. We were surprised at some of the ideas we listed out ."

Now the team has a "huge list" of potential future games for the board.

And that will be key to Ride's success, said Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

"I think the problem with all peripherals is that you have to make them reusable," he said. "They must be acceptable to be used with more than the original game."

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Turns out that was...well, mostly correct. Speaking with the Great Falls Tribune, Neversoft founder Joel Jewett says that the next Tony Hawk will indeed be the first main entry in the franchise to be developed outside of Neversoft.

It's probably best for the franchise ... it's time for someone else to add fresh ideas to it.

That doesn't confirm whether Neversoft let go of the reigns or were booted off, but the end result is the same; the next Tony Hawk should be a different affair.

No confirmation that Robomodo are indeed the team taking over, but since their company page still says they're working on "a high-profile extreme sports title for Activision Blizzard", it looks likely.

Founder of Guitar Hero III developer credits Great Falls for successes [greatfallstribune]

The 45-person studio was founded by four former Midway Games employees and a former EA Chicago employee.

“At Robomodo we are dedicated to ‘doing it right’, from the way we approach game design and art, to the methods we use to manage our projects,” said Josh Tsui, Director of Robomodo. “Our culture is focused on enabling game designers and artists to innovate, while providing them with proper management oversight and technology support. Activision has embraced our vision and agreed to give us a shot with one of their IPs. We are fortunate to be working with the largest publisher worldwide, and we are looking forward to collaborating with their team on one of their upcoming games.”

Robomodo Game Development Studio Lands Activision Publishing Deal
Independent Chicago-Based Game Development Studio Creating AAA Game for World’s Most Profitable Pure Play Video Game Publisher

Chicago, IL (September 30, 2008) — Robomodo officially launched today as a new game developer dedicated to producing top-tier products for current and next generation console platforms. The company, based in Chicago and formed in January of 2008, has recently entered into a development agreement to work on a title that will be published by Activision Publishing, Inc. on multiple platforms. Robomodo’s team has a strong track record for marrying solid game design with an innovative artistic style. This team of 45 is looking to expand over the next year in order to support game development for established series, and eventually for its own IP, for multiple platforms, including PS3, Xbox360, Wii, PC, and handhelds.

Robomodo was founded by five partners – Joshua Tsui (Director), David Michicich (CEO and Creative Director), Nick Ehrlich (COO and Director of Project Management), Peter Sauerbrei (CTO) and Richard Ho (Motion Director). Four of the five partners (Josh, David, Rich, and Nick) first worked together in the early 90’s at Midway Games on titles that included the Mortal Kombat series. Josh, David, and Peter went on to work at EA Chicago in 2005 and started Robomodo upon EA’s closure of its Chicago office.

“At Robomodo we are dedicated to ‘doing it right’, from the way we approach game design and art, to the methods we use to manage our projects,” said Josh Tsui, Director of Robomodo. “Our culture is focused on enabling game designers and artists to innovate, while providing them with proper management oversight and technology support. Activision has embraced our vision and agreed to give us a shot with one of their IPs. We are fortunate to be working with the largest publisher worldwide, and we are looking forward to collaborating with their team on one of their upcoming games.”

Robomodo’s team members have substantial experience working together on building and reinvigorating AAA titles. The company’s engineering team is very well versed in creating and working with new technology that exploits the capabilities of current generation console hardware, and the art and design teams have had great success on delivering a fulfilling game play experience.

Tsui, who has 15 years of AAA game production experience, has directed and managed large teams for publishers such as Electronic Arts, Microsoft, THQ and Midway Games. Michicich, a 14-year veteran game developer, served as Mortal Kombat’s Art Director and brought his next-gen experience to the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Fight Night Round 3, as the project's Technical Art Director at EA.

Ehrlich has 15 years of project management experience in the industry and helped ship two successful AAA titles for the Microsoft Xbox: Tao Feng, Fist of the Lotus, published by Microsoft Games, and Wrestlemania 21, published by THQ.

Sauerbrei has worked as a senior software engineer for the last 10 years for multiple companies on several AAA titles including, Tao Feng, Wrestlemania XXI, Fight Night Round 3, and Def Jam ICON. During his 13-year game career, Ho has worked with such publishers as Atari Corporation, Midway Games, Microsoft and THQ and garnered great acclaim for the motion work on Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus and Wrestle Mania 21.

Giant Bombcast 06-03-2008 [Giant Bomb, via VG247]