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Todd Howard

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Todd Howard
Howard in 2010
Born (1971-04-25) April 25, 1971 (age 53)
Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCollege of William & Mary
Occupation(s)Video game designer, director, producer
EmployerBethesda Game Studios
Known forThe Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3, Fallout 4

Todd Howard (born April 25, 1971) is an American video game designer, director, and producer. He currently serves as director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the development of titles within the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series.

GamePro magazine named Howard one of the "Top 20 Most Influential People in Gaming" over the last 20 years.[1] He has also been named one of IGN's "Top Game Creators of All Time".[2] He received one of the industry's highest awards by being named "Best Game Director" by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences in 2012. In 2014, he received the Lara of Honor, Germany's lifetime achievement award for gaming. Howard is one of a small number of developers to have created four consecutive Game of the Year award winners with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. [3]

Early life

Howard was born in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania. He developed an interest in computers, particularly video games, at a very young age.[4] He considers Wizardry and Ultima III: Exodus to be inspirations for his future games.[4] He is a 1989 graduate of Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. In 1993, he graduated from The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he double majored in engineering and finance despite his desire to create video games, saying "it seemed like the easiest path to get through college".[4]

After playing Wayne Gretzky Hockey, Howard requested a job from a Bethesda Softworks office he encountered each day on his commute to and from school, but he was rejected and told that he needed to finish school as a prerequisite. After completing school, he went back to Bethesda for a job but was rejected again.[4]

Career

Bethesda Softworks

Howard was finally able to join Bethesda Softworks in 1994. His first game development credit for Bethesda Softworks was as producer and designer of The Terminator: Future Shock and Skynet.

Howard's first development credit for The Elder Scrolls came in the form of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, released in 1994, and followed by design on The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, released in 1996. He was the project leader and designer of The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard released in 1998. Howard was the project leader and designer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and for the expansions that followed. He led the creation of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and all of its downloadable content. After this, he was the game director and executive producer of Fallout 3.[5][6]

He returned to The Elder Scrolls series to lead development of the fifth installment The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which was released in November 2011. Howard then directed Fallout 4, which was announced with the release of its first official trailer on June 3, 2015.[7] Fallout 4 was shown at length during Bethesda's 2015 E3 Showcase.[8] He directed Fallout Shelter, Bethesda Game Studios' first mobile game, which was announced and released at the E3 Showcase.[9]

Speaker

Howard is a frequent speaker at industry events, and his games have been featured in everything from Newsweek, CNN, USA Today, and The Today Show to magazine covers worldwide. He has stated that Bethesda's philosophy for The Elder Scrolls games is to allow people to "live another life, in another world".[10]

Notable appearances

Howard spoke before developers at the 2009 D.I.C.E. Summit, sharing his three rules of game development:

  • Great games are played not made. "You can have the greatest design document ever made, and you're going to change 90 percent of it as soon as you play the game."
  • Keep it simple. "Doing something really well takes time, more time than you think it will. Simple systems acting together create complexity that players can appreciate."
  • Define the experience. "Don't define your game by a list of bullet points... define it by the experience you want people to have."[11]

Howard returned as a speaker at D.I.C.E Summit in 2012 as the keynote speaker.[12] He also said that developers should ignore demographics and installed base, and follow their passions, saying that "if install base really mattered, we'd all make board games, because there are a lot of tables".[13]

References

  1. ^ "Around the Web: Interviews edition | Bethesda Blog". Bethblog.com. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2013-04-16.
  2. ^ "IGN - Top 100 Game Creators of All Time". IGN. Archived from the original on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2013-04-16. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2013-10-17 suggested (help)
  3. ^ "Bethesda Blog - LARA to Honor Todd Howard". Bethesda Blog. Archived from the original on 2015-02-03. Retrieved 2014-05-12.
  4. ^ a b c d Hanson, Ben (2011-01-13). "Road To Skyrim: The Todd Howard Interview". Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  5. ^ Remo, Chris (2008-10-13). "Falling Into Fallout 3: Director Todd Howard Talks Scope And Evolution". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2015-06-15.
  6. ^ "Fallout 3 Q&A - E3 Thoughts And More". GameSpot. 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2015-06-15.
  7. ^ Hussain, Tamoor (2015-06-03). "Fallout 4 Officially Confirmed for PC, Xbox One, PS4". GameSpot. Retrieved 2015-06-18.
  8. ^ "Fallout 4 -- E3 Showcase World Premiere". Bethesda Softworks. Archived from the original on 2015-06-15. Retrieved 2014-06-15.
  9. ^ "Move over, Candy Crush, Fallout Shelter catapults to #1 app in iTunes Charts". Phone Arena. Retrieved 2014-06-23. {{cite web}}: Check |archiveurl= value (help)
  10. ^ Howard, Todd. "The RPG for the Next Generation". Archived from the original on 2010-01-24.
  11. ^ Totilo, Stephen (2009-02-20). "DICE 2009: The Following Colorful Wisdom Is From Todd Howard". MTV. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  12. ^ "Todd Howard D.I.C.E. 2012 Opening Keynote Address". Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  13. ^ Remo, Chris (2009-02-20). "DICE 09: Bethesda's Howard On Supreme Playability". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2014-03-12.

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