Luke Smith (writer) - Bungie

Bungie

In April 2007, Smith announced on a 1UP podcast he was leaving the site to work for Bungie. Reaction to Smith's announcement varied; some were happy or sad to see him leave, while others felt he had "sold out." Smith joined the ranks of other former game journalists who left to work for game companies, including 1UP expatriate Che Chou, who joined Microsoft Game Studios, and former Gamespot chief Greg Kasavin, who became an associate producer for Electronic Arts.

Bungie staff hinted in a weekly update that Smith might play a role in the developer's podcast. Smith officially began work on May 7, 2007, as content editor, providing fans and the Bungie readership with information about Bungie's game and staff. Smith believed that there was a special opportunity for game developers, "for someone to come in and tell the stories that people want to know Right now you have four bridges between developer and reader: Developer to PR, to journalist to reader. could get rid of those middle two bridges."

While Bungie had historically been good at letting fans interact via forums and provided updates and artwork via their site, Bungie.net, the company's releases had a "corporate and muted tone to it," and made less effort and been less successful historically at providing access to the inner workings of the game studio. As part of a change to become more transparent, Bungie took steps repeated throughout the industry to allow fans more say and recruiting respected voices from the community—namely, Smith. Robertson credited Smith's tenure as aiding Bungie's greater focus on, "building, supporting and learning from the Halo 3 community."

Smith also hosted Bungie's podcast show along with co-host Brian Jarrard; in an interview with his former coworkers at 1UP, Smith said of the Bungie podcast, "we are focusing on getting our listeners and fans familiar with a bunch of the different faces at Bungie studios." Brought back after close to a year-long hiatus, the podcast now features Bungie news and interviews with staff members about their jobs and working at the studio. Smith had the title of "Bungie Community Manager" at Bungie, and has given interviews with the press about the company's recent products, including Halo 3: ODST. Smith was among other writers-turned-game developers who held a discussion on the topic at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Smith worked on player investment for Halo: Reach.