Tim Sweeney Quotes

I've always liked to think ahead. Not stupid-far ahead. A hundred years doesn't interest me. But 20 years interests me, and more for what happens to humans as opposed to things.

A nation has to look ahead.

An entrepreneur never thinks of quarter-on-quarter; he thinks for 25 years, 50 years.

I think three-to-five years ahead minimum. I have a short-term plan, a five-year plan and a decade plan.

Well Microsoft really does develop some really interesting technology.

We didn't have our online service developed. We had never shipped a console game before as a company. So we were developing a lot of new competencies as a company and assembling a new team.

There are now college degrees in game design and interactive media, so if I were starting now, I would probably do that. When I started, you had to break into design from QA or programming or art, but it's really not true anymore.

I look three to five years ahead, not 10 years behind.

We don't look at what happens in our business in six-month periods.

Right now we're working on finishing up Pirates! for the Xbox, we're developing Civilization IV and we've got a couple other games in development that we'll tell you about soon.

Do, What you're going to do in longevity. Not just what happens tomorrow.

I've worked in the business world and, as a futurist, the whole 20 years that I've led at Mosaic.

I must analyze, from what I do now, what will be the impact two or three or five years in the future. What is the statement I want to make?

The architect must be a prophet... a prophet in the true sense of the term... if he can't see at least ten years ahead don't call him an architect.

A lot of times what happens is, not even just with child actors, but people in general, is they get so caught up in the now. The hot song, the hot TV show, the hot movie. You're not saying 'OK, this is cool, but where am I trying to be 20 years from now?' That's always been in the forefront of my mind.

Virtual reality is a tough sell for a software developer. They have to convince investors that not only are they going to build a good game, which is what they normally have to do, they have to convince them that it's going to be a good game and that virtual reality will be successful.

If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead.

I am now very interested in computer technology as it is used currently to make games. I think this technology is very powerful and could be used in new ways.

Coming from a programming background, I have a good sense of what's feasible and what's not feasible in a game.

I'd been playing everything and decided that this was something I maybe wanted to make a career out of. I knew where some companies were, but I saw the name 'Bethesda, Maryland' on 'Wayne Gretzky Hockey 3.'

People sometimes ask me what I did when I was hired at HAL. The answer is that I was a programmer. And an engineer. And a designer. And I marketed our games. I also ordered food. And I helped clean up. And, it was all great fun.

I used to be a part-time enthusiast press games writer when I was starting to get into making indie games.

When I was 11, I started building games for IBM PC XT.

When I plan ahead, I don't just plan what I'm doing tomorrow. I also plan what I'm doing five years from now.

You can't build an engine that's just good for one type of game anymore. The economics don't work.