Greetings Citizens, Meet Sean Murphy, Star Citizen’s new Art Outsource Manager! It’s going to take a lot of art to build Star Citizen, and Sean is responsible for coordinating it’s development from Cloud Imperium’s partners around the world. You can tune in to learn more about Sean on Friday’s episode of Wingman’s Hangar!
How did you get started in the game industry? My first job out of college was for an old paper role-playing-game company called Iron Crown Enterprises; they had (at the time) the exclusive license to do Lord of the Rings-based RPG’s. I experienced my first industry downsizing layoff there, and went to work for Ross Perot’s old company Electronic Data Systems where I first got experience doing graphics on a computer (this was in the Dark Ages of the late ‘80’s). In 1990 I got an itch to get off the East Coast so I uprooted to Oregon where I slept on a friend’s couch and looked for a job; a local game company called Dynamix had just been bought by Sierra and were expanding rapidly and were hiring folks with computer graphics experience – and I’ve been in the industry since!
What projects have you worked on? Have you worked with Chris Roberts before? The list is too long to post here, but I worked on classics like Jimmy Neutron and Space Quest 5 (I actually played Roger Wilco in the video-capture sessions); at Origin I worked on a number of Wing Commander titles, some with Chris Roberts and some after he’d left. More recently I spent a year on SOE’s DC Universe Online and then at Vigil working on their canceled Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online project.
What are you doing for Cloud Imperium? I’m the Art Outsource Manager for Cloud Imperium – I’m responsible for managing the various external contractors and studios we are using to help us create the massive world of Star Citizen.
Wing Commander's TCS Midway, built by Sean Murphy What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen/Squadron 42? This is the realization of the dream we used to talk about in the old Wing Commander days – a fully playable universe that blurred the line between first person shooter, dogfighter, and role playing game.
What are you playing right now? I’ve been “playing” Minecraft for a while now – I use quotes because I don’t so much play as just build towers and dig chambers. I find it very relaxing and peaceful! The last game I played all the way through was Bioshock Infinite.