Gobico Games developer joins Palm's SDK team 17

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 1:03 pm EDT

Dave Balmer, Palm webOS developer extraordinaire, is jumping from the creation to the support side of the development field by joining Palm’s Mojo SDK development team. Dave, who runs Gobico Games and built the popular webOS games Wobble Words (swoon) and Poker Drops, was recruited to join the Mojo SDK team and, as he puts it, to help “take a great SDK to new heights.” We’ll agree that the SDK needs some new heights, and are excited to see an accomplished developer like Dave joining the team.

If you’re fearful that your Gobico Games apps are going to fall be the wayside, fear not. Dave assures us that he’ll still be working on improving Wobble Words and Poker Drops, and may even push out some new apps if time permits. He’s also going to continue work on his open source JavaScript and HTML5 app framework “Jo.”

So congratulations to Dave! And golf claps to Palm for picking up another fine programmer to keep pushing the SDK forward. Now bring on those APIs!

Source: Palm Developer Center Forums

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17 Comments

Posted by DanLipson on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 1:10 pm EDT

This is the kind of awesomeness that makes me smile.

Posted by PreDogs on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 3:43 pm EDT

OMG!!! All those poor guys that bought Evo's thinking talent could not flow in as easily as out.

Oh the humanity!!!

Posted by toyotast165 on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 1:14 pm EDT

glad to hear your new job kev, best of luck!
lol sorry, it's gunna stick now

Posted by Axmirza2 on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 1:23 pm EDT

Whoop Whoop!

Posted by tsaunders on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 1:35 pm EDT

Congrats! Would love for this to happen to me.

Posted by clutch1222 on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 1:50 pm EDT

congrats!!!!

Posted by chodaboy on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 2:21 pm EDT

Congrats Dave! Congrats Palm!

Posted by Spyral on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 2:49 pm EDT

Congrats to Dave.

Posted by jermil on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 3:13 pm EDT

This is great news. Wobble got me hooked, and Dave was very responsive with my questions.

Posted by PreDogs on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 3:42 pm EDT

Any mobile, any time.

Posted by dmglakewood on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 5:43 pm EDT

Great guy and great games, but I don't understand this move on Palm's part. I mean don't get me wrong I love to see the "Big Man" showing some love to the "Little Man" but I'm a little confused. Gobico Games from what I can tell has only created 2 games for webOS. Both games are similar in style and function just have different ways of playing them. How does this show that Dave is a good asset to Palm's SDK team?

Once again please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to bash Dave or his games I just don't see what sets him apart from the other 500-1000 app developers for webOS. If someone knows the answer please leave a comment as I'm interested.

Posted by PreDogs on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 5:49 pm EDT

I'm guessing he's done more in life than code two games. Perhaps some things beyond our view. Look at the second page of his resume, that's pretty wild stuff.

Posted by dmglakewood on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:50 am EDT

True, but then again almost every other developer has done more then just webOS apps. I've coded in c, c++, object c, java, j2me, php, vb, javascript. I've been programming for over a decade. I've had a few top selling applications on more then 1 cell phone platform. What makes Dave more suitable then myself?

I'm not saying I want the job I personally love being self-employed and not having anyone over looking what I do. With that being said though I'm just wondering what the basis was on their selection. It seems like it just came out of left field.

Posted by dbalmer on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 3:28 pm EDT

I don't think anyone said that I'm more suitable than you. If you are interested in helping make webOS even better than it is, why not apply? Palm is definitely hiring and they appreciate talent.

Posted by Anashti on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 9:39 pm EDT

Ok 1st. I posted about this on our forms hours before this article :p.

2nd -- what sets him apart?

jo

Posted by PreDogs on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:42 am EDT

Ok, ready to start a website? Work for free here and make all news postings real time, 24 hours a day?

2nd-- Balmer knew before you posted. Pretty impressive huh?

Posted by dbalmer on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 9:58 pm EDT

Must be a slow news day, but thanks so much for the well wishing! webOSroundup was kind enough to post about this as well, and asked me a few questions http://www.webosroundup.com/2010/06/movin-to-palm-an-interview-with-deve... about the gig and what I've been up to before this.

I think Wobble Words did get me noticed by Palm, but more for the fact that I wrote my own framework to develop it. I'm sort of addicted to making JavaScript frameworks, the latest released as open source here: http://grrok.com/jo

I didn't expect all this fuss! I just posted an excited tweet after getting the green light from Palm and kaboom! Really looking forward to working with the webOS team, and can't wait start making some contributions to a great SDK. :)