Thanks B3D Crew!

[AJ]

Hi Guys,

I guess most of you might know that I've left Futuremark by know. My contract with them expired yesterday. From my behalf I'd like to offer warm thanks to everyone at B3D that I've had the pleasure to work with. I've learned to respect both the editors (especially Dave and Revered!) as well as everyone on the boards.

I'm moving on to work with a Finnish game developer company called Bugbear Entertainment (www.bugbear.fi). They are a ambitious and talented group and I'm looking forward to my tasks in the Business Development role.

I'd prefer to keep the reasons for my departure private. Suffice to say that for the last six years one of my responsibilities has been account management focusing on the major IHV's, which hasn't always been exactly a joyride...

I also want to make absolutely clear that Futuremark crew has my complete, total trust and I know that they'll be doing what ever in their power to both develop high quality benchmark software as well as to ensure that the integrity of their software won't be sacrificed. In short I strongly believe that Futuremark is doing exactly the right things right now and really look forward to this fall.

Again, my sincere thanks to everyone at B3D that I’ve had the privilege to work with.

Cheers,

AJ

 

[just me]

I'm just a poster here & @ FM, but I want to say you'll be missed. You were a founding member @ MO & it's kinda sad you've moved on. I hope you all the best @ Bugbear (Rally Trophy!) & hope you find the time to visit here & @ FM to keep us updated on Bugbear products & how you are doing too. 8)

Have a great one AJ & don't be a stranger.

 

[AJ]

I'm just a poster here & @ FM, but I want to say you'll be missed. You were a founding member @ MO & it's kinda sad you've moved on. I hope you all the best @ Bugbear (Rally Trophy!) & hope you find the time to visit here & @ FM to keep us updated on Bugbear products & how you are doing too. 8)

Have a great one AJ & don't be a stranger.

Yeah, it certainly is sad to leave Futuremark, but there's plenty of great dudes there (worm and Patric you know best, but the rest of the crew is just as great ) and I'm confident that they'll do a fantastic job with the next 3DMark too...

I hope that I'll have the time to be active in the forums in the future, but I'll still need to figure out what I can talk about and what not... *evil grin*

Cheers,

AJ

 

[Jima13]

Hi AJ

Just wanted to wish you the best of luck with the new job!

 

[Brent]

Good luck in your future endeavors AJ

 

[Arun]

I'm just a poster here & @ FM, but I want to say you'll be missed. You were a founding member @ MO & it's kinda sad you've moved on. I hope you all the best @ Bugbear (Rally Trophy!) & hope you find the time to visit here & @ FM to keep us updated on Bugbear products & how you are doing too. 8)

Have a great one AJ & don't be a stranger.

Yeah, it certainly is sad to leave Futuremark, but there's plenty of great dudes there (worm and Patric you know best, but the rest of the crew is just as great ) and I'm confident that they'll do a fantastic job with the next 3DMark too...

I'm looking foward to the NV40 demo done by FM. Dawn's good, but FM got way more experience doing full scenes than NV's demo team - and I'm tired of seeing ONE character on the whole screen for all of NV's demos
I'm sure they'll do a good job there too.

And good luck at Bugbear! Don't **** up though, or we'll know it'll be the "Business Development" guy who's responsible Just kidding! I'm sure you'll do a great job there too.


Uttar

 

[Entropy]

Good luck! Work hard. Be happy.
And do drop by.

 

[LeStoffer]

Good luck at your new job, Aki!

oh and...

I'd prefer to keep the reasons for my departure private. Suffice to say that for the last six years one of my responsibilities has been account management focusing on the major IHV's, which hasn't always been exactly a joyride...

... now you know where your true friends are; at beyond3d!

 

[andypski]

Good luck with your new job at Bugbear, AJ.

- Andy.

 

[Evildeus]

Good Luck!

 

[Miksu]

I'm moving on to work with a Finnish game developer company called Bugbear Entertainment (www.bugbear.fi). They are a ambitious and talented group and I'm looking forward to my tasks in the Business Development role.

Excellent. Rally Trophy already was an excellent game. Hopefully you help them to create even better games in the future. I think I read about Bugbear's new project from Pelit-magazine but can't remember what it was. Prolly something to do with cars, afterall, it's a finnish company

 

[Dave Baumann]

AJ - You've truly broken my slight stereotypical view of the Finnish.

It was a pleasure working with you, and as I said on the phone, don't be a stranger.

 

[Saem]

Best of luck. I hope to see your musings on the board.

 

[Reverend]

Futuremark will miss you, AJ. Hope BugBear sells lotsa copies of their games.

And if BugBear games do not have benchmarking feature, I will hate you.

 

[cthellis42]

I've learned to respect both the editors (especially Dave and Revered!)

<reads>

<reads again>

Er... Good luck to you, man!







(Hahahaha! Don't you love out-of-context quoting? Sorry, just had to do it because it tickled my funny bone thinking about it this way first. )

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

God bless you AJ. I wish you luck in all your endeavours.

 

[AJ]

And if BugBear games do not have benchmarking feature, I will hate you.

*grin* Um. Erm. Ahem. Well, I dunno about that. Don't hold it against me if we won't go into that later, okay?

I'm genuinely wondering whether it makes sense to plunge a title into the benchmarking wars. After all in order to develop a good enough benchmark one should invest at least a month or two into the development and cooperate with the major IHV's before releasing the title. (especially the latter can be a bit err... well, less than fun)

Besides once you've released the title you're into a real nightmare with the driver stuff, where you'll either need to simply stop caring (which seems to go for 90% of the solutions out there) or spend so much resources in troubleshooting and hunting down genuine bugs compared to... ahem... 'not prohibited optimizations' that your financinal incentives are mostly negative.

The way I figure the only financially sensible choise is to take the care free approach where you simply sign the best deal you get, take all the the money and PR you can have, and don't worry about unpleasant things like objectivity or concequences. But that approach doesn't really suit my personal view of the world, if you know what I mean...

Ã￾n general it's a bit unfortunate, as the industry really does need as many objective data points as possible, but for developers creating them is mostly a cost center which will plunge you into the political battles between the major IHV's. (altough there are some exceptions where the financial incentives exceed the costs... *smile*)

Cheers,

AJ

 

[CorwinB]

I'm a bit late to the party, but is there any chance that you could get a developer forum at B3D ? I for one am genuinely interesting at hearing your views about some tidbits of the industry, as well as news about your project when you can give them...

 

[Bambers]

rally trophy was good

nutty driving in 60/70s cars from mini coopers to 1st model escorts


good luck in your new job