Gary Whitta

Gary "Gaz" Whitta (born July 21 1972) is an English screenwriter, author, game designer, and video games journalist. Among long-time video game enthusiasts, he is known as the former editor-in-chief of both the UK and US editions of "PC Gamer" magazine and contributor to one of the first gaming magazines, ACE.

Biography

Whitta was born and raised in London, England. There, he began his career as a writer and games journalist, and came to ACE magazine. When ACE closed down in 1992, cite web|url=http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acemagazine.html |title=Amiga history guide |accessdate=2007-09-21 |last=Knight |first=Gareth |work=ACE |publisher=ACE ] he became deputy editor of "The One for Amiga" then was involved with founding the original "PC Gamer" magazine [http://web.archive.org/web/19961022181817/http://www.pcgamer.com/staff.html "PC Gamer"] , 1996.] in the UK. A few years later, he moved to the United States to become editor-in-chief of the newer, US version, of "PC Gamer". He left the magazine in early 2000, but has continued to write columns for the publication.

Whitta still lives in the United States, currently residing in San Francisco, CA. Despite his long term residency in the US, he is still a devoted fan of the Tottenham Hotspur football team.

Magazine publishing

Besides his involvement setting up "PC Gamer", Whitta has a long history of involvement with print and online magazines of all kinds. As previously mentioned, he was a contributing game reviewer for UK-based ACE magazine, an Amiga computer games. ACE was owned by UK publisher Future Publishing, and in early 2000 Whitta worked with Future to establish a film magazine, Total Movie Magazine. Due to financial difficulties at the publisher, Total Movie was cancelled after only a couple issues in early 2001. [http://chud.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-24542.html CHUD.com] Forum archive, February 2001.] According to Whitta:

I should take a minute to sort out the speculation as to why the magazine died: it was not due to any failure on its part. Actually, we were doing really well, with sell-through rates on the newssstand in the 60-80% region in many places (if you know anything about magazine publishing, you know that's pretty impressive), and we had just finished our first monthly issue and DVD when we learned it would not be printed and published.

While no longer managing or editing, Whitta still contributes game reviews and opinion pieces for a number of gaming publications. His articles can be found in various places, including "PC Gamer" [ [http://www.pcgamer.com/archives/2005/07/independence_wa.html IW2 review] . "PC Gamer", July 2005.] and 1Up. [ [http://www.1up.com/do/my1Up?publicUserId=5679975 1Up profile page] ] He also shows up in industry podcasts, for example with "PC Gamer" [ [http://www.pcgamerpodcast.com/?p=74 "PC Gamer" podcast] , June 2006.] and Next Generation. [ [http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4526&Itemid=36 Next Gen podcast] , January 2007.]

Screenwriting

In addition to contributing to periodicals, Whitta has written a number of screenplays and TV episodes. A partial list, including the text of those which were not picked up, can be found [http://www.garywhitta.com/screenwriting.html here] at his homepage. Included among them are both movie scripts and TV episodes for and Futurama.

Whitta has found Hollywood success as the screenwriter of the upcoming movie Reaper, scheduled for release in 2008. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426558/ IMDB] Reaper, 2008.] On March 5 2007, Whitta announced that his science fiction script entitled "The Book of Eli" has been purchased by Warner Bros. to be produced by Joel Silver. [ [http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=33836 QT3 Forums] March 2007.] He is also working on a script known only as the "Monkey Project" with Chris Weston. [ [http://chrisweston.blogspot.com/2006/09/monkey-magic.html Chris Weston blog] . September 2006.] More recent rumors have tied him to a Blizzard project, possibly a title based on the Diablo series of games. [ [http://www.maxfreak.com/diablo3/archives/diablo-the-movie-confirmed/ Diablo Movie confirmed] . June 2007.] It was announced on www.First showing.net, that Gary was set to write the script for the live-action version of "Akira" that is scheduled to be release in the Summer of 2009. [ [http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/02/20/its-official-live-action-akira-confirmed-already-for-2009/ It's Official - Live-Action Akira Confirmed Already for 2009! « FirstShowing.net ] ]

Game development

In the realm of game development, Whitta has consulted on a number of game titles. Perhaps his best known contributions have been as a writer for "Duke Nukem Forever", [ [http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-16677.html DNF script] 3D Realms forums.] [http://www.garywhitta.com/biocontact.html GaryWhitta.com] biography.] "Prey", [ [http://www.3drealms.com/prey/wiki/index.php/History_of_Prey "Prey" info] at 3D Realms] and Gears of War. He has also consulted on general game design for Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Activision, Midway Games, and others.

Comic books

Whitta is also the writer behind a popular short series of comic books based on the "Death, Jr." character, together with cover artist Mike Mignola and illustrator Ted Naifeh. [ [http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=5952 Image Comics] Press Release, September 2005.] Having been extended to a second three-part series, [ [http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=24169 QT3 Forums] , February 2006] the writing has received praise as "charming and cleverly subversive" [ [http://shrewreview.blogspot.com/2005/04/death-jr-1.html Shrew Review] April 2005.] and for its "quirky characters and slick humor". [ [http://comics.ign.com/articles/602/602020p1.html IGN Comics] April, 2005.] Whitta spoke about his experience writing this comic with [http://www.silverbulletcomics.com/news/story.php?a=394 Silver Bullet Comics] in May 2005.

Podcasts

Gary Whitta is a frequent commentator on the PC Gamer podcast and he co-host the Game Theory podcast with Colin Campbell, which has since stopped being produced. He also commentated on the Next Gen podcast until the podcast was cancelled.

References

External links

*
* [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,71499/ Moby Games] developer profile
* [http://www.amazon.com/s/?search-alias=stripbooks&field-author=Gary%20Whitta Amazon.com] list of books
* [http://www.garywhitta.com/ GaryWhitta.com] – Home Page
* [http://gwhitta.blogspot.com/ The "Gaz" Blog] – Personal Blog
* [http://thinkexist.com/quotes/gary_whitta/ Famous Whitta quotes] – ThinkExist.com