So what’s up with Atari’s inspirational powers? Miguel Molinari, associate interface designer with EA Tiburon, was hooked by the age of four. “When I was three, my older sister got an Atari 2600 for her First Communion. I started playing Pac-Man. It was the first time I had played video games.” When people would ask the young Molinari what he wanted to be when he grew up he would tell them that he wanted to make Atari games.

Years later he realized that people actually do that for a living. Miguel graduated from Full Sail’s Game Development program, which enabled him to immerse himself in the world he loved. “When I met Dave Arneson [Full Sail instructor and co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons], that was my first time meeting somebody who had been in the industry and created games. For me, that was huge. It was like meeting Michael Jordan. I thought, wow, he’s just a regular human being. It made me feel like I could do it to.”

Molinari was fearless when it came to finding a job. He knew early on that he wanted to work for Tiburon, so he sent them an email telling them that he had been playing EA games for the last fifteen years and that Madden was his favorite game. He was in. “My official position is associate interface designer, but I’m more of a scripter, I do more of the code side of interface. So, it’s kind of strange being a programmer in the art department. Instead of my title, I like to call myself Ambassador of Peace because I bring both worlds together.”

He’s worked on Madden 2002, 2003, and 2004, and he, like his co-workers at EA, is no stranger to the afterglow. “Sometimes I go to Best Buy just to see how they have the game on display. And then I look at the people playing on the display and go, ‘Wow, that pause menu looks really cool.’ That’s one of the factors that made me want to be in the video game industry. To one day walk into a video game store and see people pick up my product. It’s such a rush.”

Molinari literally lives the stuff too, because he plays the games he makes. “I’m afraid to admit it. You would think that by this being my full-time job, when I go home that’s probably the last thing I would want to do, but no, I actually go home and play Madden. It’s pathetic, I know. But that’s why I work here, because I’ve always loved the game.”