Episode #46: Mick West

Mick co-founded the video game development company Neversoft Entertainment in July 1994 with Joel Jewett and Chris Ward. Working at Neversoft for nine years as Technical Director: he was heavily involved in programming the first five games of the Tony Hawk’s series. His favorite contributions were doing the initial player control for THPS. He was responsible for general technological developments at Neversoft during those first nine years, which was quite a bit of stuff! He also worked on Apocalypse and Spider Man for Neversoft. As we have heard from other THPS Podcast guests: Mick is largely responsible for creating the famous gameplay “feel” in THPS. 

Since retiring as a video game programmer, Mick has created the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, and he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories such as chemtrails and UFOs. His first book is Escaping the Rabbit Hole. How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect. He further hosts a podcast Tales from the Rabbit Hole where he interviews “conspiracy culture” guests.