27 Facts About Warren Spector

Warren Evan Spector was born on October 2,1955 and is an American role-playing and video game designer, director, writer, producer and production designer.

Warren Spector is known for creating immersive sim games, which give players a wide variety of choices in how to progress.

Warren Spector is best known for the critically acclaimed video game Deus Ex that embodies the choice and consequence philosophy while combining elements of the first-person shooter, role-playing, and adventure game genres.

Warren Spector is employed by OtherSide Entertainment, where he was part of the development team for the stalled System Shock 3.

Warren Spector grew up in Manhattan, which he described as a sometimes hostile environment where "short, pudgy, Jewish kids didn't fare well".

Warren Spector showed an intense devotion to whatever topic became his focus at any given time, from dinosaurs and airplanes as a small boy, to an interest in law by the sixth grade.

At age 13, Warren Spector had decided he wanted to be a film critic, and by high school, his interests expanded to include cars and basketball.

Warren Spector attended Northwestern University in Illinois, still intending to become a film critic, stating that he "knew more about movies than a lot of my teachers".

Warren Spector earned his BS in Communications at Northwestern, and went on to earn his MA in Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin in 1980.

Warren Spector's thesis was a critical history of Warner Bros.

Warren Spector was a writer for a weekly entertainment magazine I used to edit in college.

Warren Spector wrote the early Paranoia game supplement Send in the Clones with Allen Varney.

Warren Spector spent some time in TSR's research and development department, helping launch, among other things, Spelljammer.

In 1989, Warren Spector entered the video game industry and joined Origin, where he co-produced Ultima VI and Wing Commander and produced Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld II, Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle, System Shock, Wings of Glory, Bad Blood, Martian Dreams, and others.

Warren Spector later became general manager of Looking Glass Austin.

Warren Spector worked briefly on Dark Camelot, which later became Thief: The Dark Project.

However, Warren Spector left Looking Glass soon afterward, just before Thief shipped, to pursue other interests.

In 1996, Warren Spector was about to sign a contract with EA to do an unannounced project when he got a call from John Romero to join him at Ion Storm; Romero persuaded Warren Spector by offering him the chance to make the game of his dreams with no creative interference and a big marketing budget.

In 2004, Warren Spector left Ion Storm to "pursue personal interests outside the company".

Somewhere between the end of 2005 and mid-2007, Junction Point Studios and Warren Spector worked on an additional Episode for Half-Life 2 that was ultimately cancelled by Valve.

Warren Spector's first project with Disney Interactive was a project involving Disney characters, titled Epic Mickey.

In January 2013, it was announced that Warren Spector had left Disney Interactive following the closure of Junction Point Studios.

Warren Spector worked with UT staff to create a curriculum and plan out courses and labs.

In February 2016, Warren Spector announced he had joined OtherSide Entertainment, a studio formed by Paul Neurath in 2014 and includes several previous Looking Glass developers, as their Studio Director, after having been in an advisory role from its inception.

Warren Spector will be helping the studio with their current development of System Shock 3 and Underworld Ascendant, the spiritual successor to Ultima Underworld which both Spector and Neurath worked on in the early 1990s.

Warren Spector believed the opportunity would help garner good favor from players that had been disappointed by his choice to work on Epic Mickey, even though he states that game had still been based on his past design philosophy used in the development of System Shock and Deus Ex.

Warren Spector met Caroline Skelley in 1984 at a comic book store in Austin, Texas, where she was employed.