Get to Know our New CTO!
Introducing Dr. Grant Osborne
Mighty Kingdom has grown a little mightier with the arrival of our new (and first!) Chief Technology Officer: Dr. Grant Osborne!
Dr Grant Osborne, Mighty Kingdom’s Chief Technology Officer
A friend of Mighty Kingdom for years, Grant has a wealth of experience in leading teams of software engineers and data scientists across large-scale projects for government, defence, as well as the Adelaide start-up scene. During his time as CTO of GAMURS, he also worked on an AI coaching tool for esports coaches and athletes, with an aim to help improve gameplay.
We sat down with Grant to find out his goals for MK, his dreams for the future – and a few quick fun facts along the way!
Would you be able to give a short explainer on your role?
As CTO my goal is to build on the successful technology initiatives that Mighty Kingdom has had in the past – and bring that knowledge more generally into the company through documented decision making and collaborative processes. I’ll be working with our team here to build a roadmap for technology in games, technical art, and our cloud services and platforms.
What excites you about working at MK and/or in the games industry?
Ultimately, it comes down to Phil’s vision of the kind games he’d love to make. I want to put Adelaide on the map as a place to build games with a healthy work/life balance. The exciting part is we know the destination, and we need to plot our course to get there through the technology choices we make right now. I’d love to be providing the technology that enables our designers and artists to tell the stories we want to tell – and feel with some clear focus and push we can get there in a few years.
Do you have a goal for your first year at MK?
I’m looking to get our technical directors leading our tech roadmap implementation through project work, and to establish a set of common approaches for common problems. More than anything I’m going to be pushing us down a path of quality, long term strategic thinking, and a mantra of ‘good enough, is not good enough’. We need to be excellent to reach our goals; and I’m wanting to push us down that path
Have you always wanted to work in games?
Since the 90s! For me, probably the itch started when I was first playing around with a bunch of game editors back in the day. I distinctively remember making silly maps Age of Empires 1 map editor, where I’d bunker myself into a base and throw as many units at it as the engine could handle! I did similar fun (for me) things in Warcraft 3’s editor – only started to play around with the characters and abilities quite a bit more. I also made a bunch of “training maps” for Quake 3 that my buddies and I used to practice our rocket and rail-gun techniques.
From here I found myself drawn to technical analysis of how particular scenes were rendered or what techniques were used to build an engine and so forth. I’ve always been curious in this space and find it a great challenge to try and learn from what some of the cool kids in the rendering space are doing (e.g., idTech7, Unreal’s nanite tech, etc.)
In an ideal world, what would you like the ANZ games industry to look like in five years?
I’d love us to be successful enough to encourage a larger eco system of game development, from smaller indie teams through to other large studios. I want to see companies in ANZ doing original IP and pushing our unique part of the world into games for the globe to see.
Do you have a dream game project you'd love to work on?
I’m a massive fan of fantasy RPGs – ever since playing Eye of the Beholder, and A Link to The Past on the SNES back in the early 90s. A Link to the Past has influenced my personal taste for games since – loving those games with a feeling of progression, coupled with good background lore (I don’t need a story in my face if the world feels great). That feeling of “Oh I can’t get there, yet,” and looping back around once your higher level or can move the rock is super great for me. And the hidden things like firing an arrow into the sun to get fire arrows in Ocarina of Time (“When water fills the lake, shoot for the morning light"), those kind elements give me the warm fuzzies.
If I had infinite money, I’d be making a High-Fantasy MMO (cliché I know); with gameplay beats centred around exploration, social gameplay and challenging encounters or puzzles to solve as a group. Something with the freedom of movement and exploration you get from Breath of the Wild, coupled with the temples from Ocarina of Time, only there are group encounters in them… I tend to enjoy it when the world is the main character. and the players bring the story and drama.
What is your favourite game/genre?
I can’t pick a single game…. so, I’ll break it into my many gaming eras.
C64 Era: Street Rod, Raid on Bungeling Bay.
SNES Era: Chrono Trigger, A Link to the Past, Seiken Densetsu 3.
PS1 Era: Resident Evil 1-3, Final Fantasy 7.
PC Era: Diablo 2, Warcraft 1-3, Baldur’s Gate 1, World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Wrath), Elden Ring, Dune II, Mass Effect 2, C&C, Age of Empires 2, Homeworld, Skyrim.
Outside of games, what do you like to do to unwind?
I love to jog, go to the gym (CrossFit) and chill on the couch watching movies with my family (two girls and my wife). Dinner with friends, nice wine, a good BBQ on a hot day. Making music.
What's a fun random fact about you?
I play in a blackened thrash metal band, where I play guitar / vocals. We’re called Executus. We’re recording new material right now!