Tim Sweeney

Some people socialized. And some people really got into serious projects. So many people at all times were doing cool things. I was programming. I was learning to build things. Before I was releasing games to the world, I'd be like... Having neighborhood folks over to play the things I was working on and check them out. Sometimes they're impressed, and sometimes they weren't.

They'd have their own projects. Often we'd have spare time jobs, and everybody was entrepreneurial. Everybody had a side gig. Sometimes you'd go around and mow people's lawns, or you'd rake the leaves up and earn money. There's freedom there. organic learning that occurred there, I think it's something that is really critical to the American experience.

They'd have their own projects. Often we'd have spare time jobs, and everybody was entrepreneurial. Everybody had a side gig. Sometimes you'd go around and mow people's lawns, or you'd rake the leaves up and earn money. There's freedom there. organic learning that occurred there, I think it's something that is really critical to the American experience.

They'd have their own projects. Often we'd have spare time jobs, and everybody was entrepreneurial. Everybody had a side gig. Sometimes you'd go around and mow people's lawns, or you'd rake the leaves up and earn money. There's freedom there. organic learning that occurred there, I think it's something that is really critical to the American experience.

Our worry is increasingly going away as society is ever more protective and sheltering and makes it harder to get these experiences.

Our worry is increasingly going away as society is ever more protective and sheltering and makes it harder to get these experiences.

Our worry is increasingly going away as society is ever more protective and sheltering and makes it harder to get these experiences.

I've had a funny relationship with games because my real aspiration was has always been to program cool stuff. I get more enjoyment out of programming than anything else in the world. And so my first really too formative experience with games were playing this game called Adventure for the Atari 2600.

I've had a funny relationship with games because my real aspiration was has always been to program cool stuff. I get more enjoyment out of programming than anything else in the world. And so my first really too formative experience with games were playing this game called Adventure for the Atari 2600.

I've had a funny relationship with games because my real aspiration was has always been to program cool stuff. I get more enjoyment out of programming than anything else in the world. And so my first really too formative experience with games were playing this game called Adventure for the Atari 2600.

It was like, you move this dot around the screen and picked up objects like swords and fought dragons and invaded castles and solved puzzles. Very, very simple, iconic stuff, rather than realistic graphics. And then the other game that really got immersed in was Zork, which was a text adventure game.

It was like, you move this dot around the screen and picked up objects like swords and fought dragons and invaded castles and solved puzzles. Very, very simple, iconic stuff, rather than realistic graphics. And then the other game that really got immersed in was Zork, which was a text adventure game.

It was like, you move this dot around the screen and picked up objects like swords and fought dragons and invaded castles and solved puzzles. Very, very simple, iconic stuff, rather than realistic graphics. And then the other game that really got immersed in was Zork, which was a text adventure game.

It would tell you where you are and what you see, and you'd type in commands like go north or pick up sword or open door and explore a world that way. So the game didn't have any graphics, but in your mind you had this elaborate picture of what you were seeing there, and it really brought in inspired imagination more than other things.

It would tell you where you are and what you see, and you'd type in commands like go north or pick up sword or open door and explore a world that way. So the game didn't have any graphics, but in your mind you had this elaborate picture of what you were seeing there, and it really brought in inspired imagination more than other things.

It would tell you where you are and what you see, and you'd type in commands like go north or pick up sword or open door and explore a world that way. So the game didn't have any graphics, but in your mind you had this elaborate picture of what you were seeing there, and it really brought in inspired imagination more than other things.

And playing those games led me to often want to learn to program everything I saw there. And that drove a lot of my programming. I learned how to move a player around the screen. I learned how to, you know, build a design tool so I could build castles and save them off and play them in a game.

And playing those games led me to often want to learn to program everything I saw there. And that drove a lot of my programming. I learned how to move a player around the screen. I learned how to, you know, build a design tool so I could build castles and save them off and play them in a game.

And playing those games led me to often want to learn to program everything I saw there. And that drove a lot of my programming. I learned how to move a player around the screen. I learned how to, you know, build a design tool so I could build castles and save them off and play them in a game.

And I realized there was a separation between the tools that you use to build a game and the game itself, and that the more powerful tools you had, the more creativity you could unleash in yourself or others. And I learned all the programming techniques that supported games, how to parse text, pick up sword and go north.