Ken Tabor
President, Founder

I'm an eleven year veteran of the video game industry. Having spent that time soaking in the Dallas game scene, I've served in roles including lead programmer, lead designer, and producer. Over the years I've worked on lots of projects, but am most satisfied to have shipped five titles on three generations of home consoles including the Nintendo64, PlayStation2, GameCube, and PlayStation Portable. I've successfully delivered titles in such diverse genres as character platforming and vehicle action in licensed and original IP works.

That time gave me a chance to work within a broad range of the development process from concept incubation to rapid prototyping to full development. More than just a coder, I've tried to break the introvert mold by supporting marketing and PR events by demonstrating at three E3 shows and interviewing with national and internal members of the web and print press. Having a room full of people looking at me still gets me nervous, but I'm learning to love it.

New Year's 2007 saw me follow through with a perennial resolution by breaking off from the old crew at Paradigm to start up KATWorks Games as an independent development shop that can grow on making high-quality, original, fun games serving the established and emerging casual markets. Not because they are easier, but because it's a return to the basics of a core game mechanic that's easy to understand and fun to toy with over time. We don't stress on shoving in extra junk just to make a bullet-point on the back of a box.

I love the game development process. Finding a great idea, then being smart enough to realize it's great and carving the debris away from it. Spending so much time assuming, guessing, theorizing, and dreaming about what the idea can become. Slaving, suffering, dwelling on that idea until it lives strongly enough to show promise in action. Then seeing it's time to throw away, kill, abandon, delete seemingly crucial ideas that just aren't important as they once were. All done in an effort of leaving behind the truly great idea so it has room to grow into what it always wanted to be.

That's the craft of game development, and it's what I love to do.

And isn't that what you love about playing games? Discovering that amazing new experience you never thought you wanted, but then seeing it, knew you had to have it.

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