Drawn To Jaffe · @davidscottjaffe
16th Aug 2012 from Twitlonger
Very proud this week of Allan Becker, my former Sony boss and the man who started Sony Santa Monica.*
He toots his own horn so damn rarely I bet the man doesn't even know he has one to toot! :) So allow me to do it for him:
A few years back, Allan left Sony Santa Monica to take over Sony's Japan Studio after a very, very successful run as the SM studio head. When he was at Santa Monica he spearheaded a lot of amazing games, including bringing Gran Turismo PS2 to America (along with sir Taku, of course), TM:BLACK, WAR OF THE MONSTERS, FLOW, FLOWER, JOURNEY, KINETICA, and the GOD OF WAR franchise. He also was the guy who funded and supported LA NOIR for a long time before that game left Sony and went to RockStar, along with SIX DAYS IN FALLUJAH and bunch of other very imaginative, cool games that never came out but clearly carried the banner for 'games as art/games-being-more-conceptually-meaningful-than-games-as-action-movies'.** He also made lots of earlier Sony hits as well (from Equinox to Skyblazer to Twisted Metal to Jet Moto).
Point is: I'm real proud of the guy cause the first two games out his revamped Sony Japan Studio just hit the press and it's very exciting to see that the Allan Becker touch is still very much alive and well:
http://videogamewriters.com/sony-japan-unveils-two-gorgeous-new-ips-rain-and-puppeteer-52880
Since the press NEVER covers him (which is prob. how he likes it) I figured I'd give the man a well deserved, long overdue shout out.
David
*Allan was also one of a handful of Sony execs that- over the years- was instrumental in giving me the great career I enjoy today. Trust me when I say that it's not every exec who can recognize, harness, and monetize the value of a mostly non technical brain in a very, very technical industry.
**Ok, so clearly, I didn't always agree with him :)...