Richard Bloor, Principal Programmer reaches ten years at d3t!
13th Aug 2025
Towards the end of July 2025, our Principal Programmer, Richard Bloor reached the incredible achievement of being at d3t for ten years! With this in mind, we recently spoke with Richard to talk about how the studio and the industry has changed during this time.
How did your career begin and how did you get your job at d3t?
I studied Music Technology at York University where I particularly enjoyed making Digital Signal Processing (DSP) software for music applications. When I then left university, I googled audio programming jobs and it seemed to be a choice of either working on embedded mobile phone software, or there were a few jobs in game audio. The later of the two sounded far more fun so I went for them.
For me the appeal of d3t was that the studio worked on co-development projects, which meant that there were lots of different projects taking place at any one time. With this came the opportunity to add variety to my work, after my previous role where I spent 10+ years mostly working on making engine sounds for various racing games.
How has d3t changed during your time at the studio?
Mostly obviously in size. I think there were only 15 of us when I joined whereas we’re now in excess of 200! We have also gotten lots of amazing high-profile games to work on in more recent years, which has been great to be a part of.
What is it like working at d3t?
It is the best place I’ve ever worked. There is a culture of professionalism, respect, and support across the whole team which is something that I truly value.
What has been your most memorable moment working at the studio?
When we got Shenmue 1 to run on PC for the first time, having started with the original source code for the Dreamcast game. We even had to use online translation to read the comments! Fun times.
What was the first game that you worked on?
That would be Destruction Derby Arenas on the PS2.
What’s your favourite game to date that you’ve played/worked on?
Recently, it has been Ghost of Tsushima. However, back when I was more fanatical about playing games, my favourite would probably be the Mass Effect trilogy.
Favourite game that I’ve worked on is perhaps Driveclub. Back then I was Lead Audio Programmer and developed the tools and runtime for the (I think) very realistic engine sounds. Best of all though I got to travel the world with the audio team recording fast cars!
How has the wider games industry changed during your time at d3t?
Co-development is becoming increasingly more popular, and it now seems to be a normal part of getting through the production phase of modern AAA titles. This was probably not as common 10 years ago.
Do you have any tips for people looking to get into the games industry?
Getting into the industry is so different now than when I did it! The main thing is to love games and to love making them. If you can show this through your own projects, then I’m sure that will help you to stand out from the crowd.