This Week's Featured Interview ...
John Hight
Executive Producer, Atari
by Jeannie Novak
Founder & Lead Writer

SANTA MONICA, CA -- After beginning his career as a software engineer for Xerox, John Hight worked with Philips Media during its foray into interactive entertainment, an ill-fated set-top called CD-i. After developing a slew of edutainment programs for Philips, he put together his first game: CD-i Pinball. Although CD-i never took off, John was hooked—and he wanted to make more games. John was hired by Trip Hawkins (who went on to start Electronic Arts) to lead the creative team at 3DO—which was outgunned by the Sony PlayStation and failed to achieve its goals. John went back into development with Virgin Interactive and Westwood Studios. One of his external projects showed a lot of promise; the team’s president, Mike Booth, sold him the rights to his multiplayer game, Nox, and together they started building the solo experience. Within months, they were acquired by Electronic Arts and got the funding to raise the bar. Nox is still one of John’s fondest projects. He then went on to work with the godfather of RTS games, Brett Sperry, who gave him the task of directing the designers and artists for Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 and its sequel, Yuri’s Revenge. While he really enjoyed his creative role at Electronic Arts, he wanted to get back into the producer’s job—so he jumped at the opportunity to work as Executive Producer at Atari’s Los Angeles studio. In addition to his industry experience, John also has an impressive academic background—having received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of New Mexico, and an M.B.A. from USC’s Marshall School of Business.

As Executive Producer, John gets to decide which games to produce, which developers to work with, and how much money to put into a given property. His job involves scouting for new talent, negotiating deals, creative problem-solving, building teams, and, yes, playing games. He has a team of top-notch producers; each one manages a single game like it’s their own business. Every game starts with an idea—whether his own, one of his producers, or one pitched by a developer:

"I work with my producers and their developers to draft a high concept. From concept we go into pre-production and a working prototype. Our goal at the end of pre-production is to have a solid grasp of the game design and the ‘look and feel’ of the game. If the game has the potential to be a success, then we green-light it into production. I stay with each game until it ships, and then the process of looking for the next “big thing” starts all over again…. I’ve done both internal and external production—and I like to switch back
and forth. In internal production, you really get into the details of your game."

John has a personal relationship with every member of the development team. He gets involved in the daily decision-making, and he has a strong awareness of the technology and talent going into any game he produces.