Tim Sweeney

That was my very first game. It took about a couple hours to build and tune, and I went from there. But I built a lot of things. I built... at different points. I built a programming language and a full compiler for a language like Pascal because I didn't know where you went to buy one of those. So I made my own. And one of the fun things of that time was bulletin boards.

Before we had the internet in the hands of consumers, you used your modem and you dialed into a local phone number and connected to whoever was running the computer there. And every town or city had hundreds of these bulletin boards run by different people with their own personalities and themes.

Before we had the internet in the hands of consumers, you used your modem and you dialed into a local phone number and connected to whoever was running the computer there. And every town or city had hundreds of these bulletin boards run by different people with their own personalities and themes.

Before we had the internet in the hands of consumers, you used your modem and you dialed into a local phone number and connected to whoever was running the computer there. And every town or city had hundreds of these bulletin boards run by different people with their own personalities and themes.

And so I spent a lot of time building a board and board program and learning how to deal with database management and user interface and dealing with multiple users concurrently and things. And so I probably found about 115,000 hours writing code just on my own as a kid between like age 10 and age 20 before I actually shipped a program to the outside world.

And so I spent a lot of time building a board and board program and learning how to deal with database management and user interface and dealing with multiple users concurrently and things. And so I probably found about 115,000 hours writing code just on my own as a kid between like age 10 and age 20 before I actually shipped a program to the outside world.

And so I spent a lot of time building a board and board program and learning how to deal with database management and user interface and dealing with multiple users concurrently and things. And so I probably found about 115,000 hours writing code just on my own as a kid between like age 10 and age 20 before I actually shipped a program to the outside world.

Yeah, you know, it's not just hours. It's really striving to learn, to understand what knowledge you have, what knowledge you lack, and to continually do experiments and work on projects that improve your knowledge base. And I didn't do this with a great amount of structure or planning. I was rather just going from project to project, doing things that I thought would be fun and cool.

Yeah, you know, it's not just hours. It's really striving to learn, to understand what knowledge you have, what knowledge you lack, and to continually do experiments and work on projects that improve your knowledge base. And I didn't do this with a great amount of structure or planning. I was rather just going from project to project, doing things that I thought would be fun and cool.

Yeah, you know, it's not just hours. It's really striving to learn, to understand what knowledge you have, what knowledge you lack, and to continually do experiments and work on projects that improve your knowledge base. And I didn't do this with a great amount of structure or planning. I was rather just going from project to project, doing things that I thought would be fun and cool.

And with each project, I learned new things. learning about how to store and manage data, learning how to deal with advanced data structures, how to write complex programs that have deeply nested data and control flow. Each one of those provide a lesson which were later essential.

And with each project, I learned new things. learning about how to store and manage data, learning how to deal with advanced data structures, how to write complex programs that have deeply nested data and control flow. Each one of those provide a lesson which were later essential.

And with each project, I learned new things. learning about how to store and manage data, learning how to deal with advanced data structures, how to write complex programs that have deeply nested data and control flow. Each one of those provide a lesson which were later essential.

In 1991, I released my first game, and over the course of that decade, we went from zero commercial releases to the first generation Unreal Engine. But this was largely just using the knowledge that I'd built up over the previous decade, just doing fun hobby projects. And if I hadn't done all of that work, there's no way I could have ever built the things that came later.

In 1991, I released my first game, and over the course of that decade, we went from zero commercial releases to the first generation Unreal Engine. But this was largely just using the knowledge that I'd built up over the previous decade, just doing fun hobby projects. And if I hadn't done all of that work, there's no way I could have ever built the things that came later.

In 1991, I released my first game, and over the course of that decade, we went from zero commercial releases to the first generation Unreal Engine. But this was largely just using the knowledge that I'd built up over the previous decade, just doing fun hobby projects. And if I hadn't done all of that work, there's no way I could have ever built the things that came later.

Yeah, there were definitely karate kid moments. Because all this time I was learning math in high school and in college. I studied mechanical engineering. And so you learn all kinds of math, vector calculus and vector math and matrices and all these related fields, physics and stress and strain and how to deal with complex physical systems. And Yeah.

Yeah, there were definitely karate kid moments. Because all this time I was learning math in high school and in college. I studied mechanical engineering. And so you learn all kinds of math, vector calculus and vector math and matrices and all these related fields, physics and stress and strain and how to deal with complex physical systems. And Yeah.

Yeah, there were definitely karate kid moments. Because all this time I was learning math in high school and in college. I studied mechanical engineering. And so you learn all kinds of math, vector calculus and vector math and matrices and all these related fields, physics and stress and strain and how to deal with complex physical systems. And Yeah.

I wasn't really sure how engineers would actually make use of that knowledge. Do you just like forget about it when you actually go off to do work? Or do you write down equations on paper? It was actually not clear as an early engineering student what you do. But when I started writing the first generation on real engine and I was dealing with 3D math, I was like, wait, I know this stuff.