Feargus Urquhart

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Urquhart at the Russian Game Developers Conference KRI 2013

Feargus MacRae Urquhart (born April 19, 1970 ) is an American game developer . For a long time, Urquhart was the head of Black Isle Studios , a developer specializing in computer role-playing games , until he and several other employees left the company in 2003 and founded Obsidian Entertainment . Since then he has acted as managing director.

Private

Feargus Urquhart is the son of Robert William Urquhart and has a sister named Jessica Christine Urquhart. The surname Urquhart is derived from the Scottish castle ruins Urquhart Castle near Loch Ness . Urquhart is married to Margo Urquhart, with whom he has several children.

Career

Urquhart began his career as a game developer for the US publisher Interplay Entertainment . In 1991 he started there as a part-time tester ( The Bard's Tale Construction Set , Out of This World ) and also worked as a manual writer ( The Lost Vikings , Clay Fighter ). In 1993 he got a full-time position as an assistant producer. This was followed by annual promotions, in 1994 to associate producer, in 1995 to producer. In 1996 he finally became Division Director of the role-playing games division of Interplay, which has operated under the name Black Isle Studios since 1998 , while he also received the title of President. The studio was named after the island of Black Isle from Urquhart's Scottish homeland. In addition to in-house developments such as Fallout , the studio mainly oversaw the software licenses acquired from Interplay for the role-playing game rules Dungeons & Dragons . As the studio manager, Urquhart oversaw all of the developer's projects, but also continued to take on producer responsibilities for various Interplay titles , including the first game by Canadian developer BioWare called Shattered Steel . During its development, Urquhart got a glimpse of BioWare's tech demo of a new game engine called Battleground Infinity . At Urquhart's suggestion, the Infinity engine was used to develop a D&D role-playing game. BioWare received an order from Interplay and, under the supervision of Urquhart's Black Isle Studios, developed the successful titles Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn , while Black Isle itself developed the playfully related titles Planescape: Torment , Icewind based on the Infinity engine Dale and Icewind Dale II developed.

After twelve years with the company, he left Interplay in April 2003 because there were different views between him and the Interplay management about the direction of the company. Interplay had been working in deficit for several years and lost the D&D license, so that Black Isle had to stop the work on Baldur's Gate 3: The Black Hound (internal working title: Project Jefferson ), which had been ongoing for two years . According to Urquhart, Interplay began to focus more on the console market, and although Black Isle had produced Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, the company's most successful console game, the studio played a subordinate role in the strategic planning of Interplay management and received increasingly less support . In 2003 he founded the development studio Obsidian Entertainment together with his former Black Isle colleagues Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, Chris Avellone and Chris Jones , which he has led as CEO and President since then. In 2009 he was named one of the 100 best game developers of all time by the game magazine IGN .

Ludography (excerpt)

As a designer:

As a producer:

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Feargus Urquhart . Duck and Cover, June 28, 2001. Last accessed September 6, 2011.
  2. ↑ Inside the Vault: Feargus Urquhart ( English ) In: Bethblog . Bethesda Softworks . March 17, 2010. Retrieved July 13, 2012: “ Has anyone ever pronounced your name correctly? –- Not very often, but it does happen and it still surprises me. In school, it was always entertaining when we had a substitute teacher. They would go through the list of students and then there would be a pause. The whole class would look at me with a grin, and I would just say "Here." That was then immediately followed by the question of my name's nationality which is Scottish. Urquhart castle is on Loch Ness… Yep, the one with the monster. "(Note: cookie required for US site to view)
  3. ↑ Obituaries: Robert William Urquhart, Long Beach, CA / Janesville (1933 - 2009) ( English ) In: The Janesville Gazette . Bliss Communications Inc .. March 17, 2010. Retrieved on August 15, 2012.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / gazettextra.com  
  4. ↑ Tramell Isaac: Interview with Black Isle Studios' Feargus Urquhart ( English ) In: Gamasutra . United Business Media. June 11, 2001. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b Jon "BuckGB" Birnbaum: Obsidian Entertainment Interview ( English ) In: Gamebanshee . UGO entertainment. June 11, 2009. Retrieved July 13, 2012.
  6. ^ Ian Cheong: Game Info ( English ) In: Lionheart Chronicles . GameSpy . 2002. Archived from the original on May 7, 2006. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 25, 2006. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rpgplanet.com
  7. ↑ John Keefer: Black Isle Studios: We are not BioWare ( English ) GameSpy . January 2001. Archived from the original on December 11, 2004. Retrieved July 25, 2006.
  8. ^ A b Morgan Ramsay: Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play . 1st edition. Apress, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-4302-3351-0 , pp. 79-92 ( online view ).
  9. ↑ Trent Oster: Getting into the Games Industry ( English ) In: Baldur's Gate developer's blog . March 23, 2010. Retrieved February 16, 2011: “ After a lack of interest from most publishing partners around“ Battleground Infinity ”, it was shown to our“ Shattered Steel ”producer, Feargus Urquhart. Feargus looked at the demo and stated it would be a great fit with the Dungeons and Dragons license that Interplay had. Without much debate the title was signed and "Baldur's Gate" was into development. "
  10. ↑ Tor Thorsen: Q&A: Feargus Urquhart, Part Two ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . January 6, 2004. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  11. ↑ John "JCal" Callaham: Obsidian Entertainment Interview ( English ) In: HomeLan Fed . September 15, 2003. Archived from the original on February 5, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2011: "Interplay has a direction that it wants to pursue concerning projects and I have a direction that I want to go."
  12. ↑ Bethesda Softworks: Bethesda Softwork announces Fallout: New Vegas for fall 2010 . February 4, 2010. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  13. ↑ The Top 100 Game Creators of All Time ( English ) In: IGN . News Corp . February 2009. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Urquhart, Feargus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Urquhart, Feargus macRae
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer game designer
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1970