Disney created Crazy Taxi: Jon Snoddy interview reveals Disney x Sega collab which became DisneyQuest, GameWorks
Sega Retro interviewer Ashley Rojas has published an in-depth interview with Jon Snoddy, the former Walt Disney Imagineering designer and founding creative force behind GameWorks. The interview follows Snoddy from his start at Lucasfilm in 1984, where he helped launch THX and bring Captain EO to the Disney parks, through his time at Imagineering, where he did the original concept and ride system for Indiana Jones Adventure and founded the Disney VR Studio in 1992. Snoddy recounts the “Sega Project,” Hayao Nakayama’s failed attempt to bring Joypolis-style venues to America with Disney, and reveals that the brainstorm behind it produced the idea that became Crazy Taxi. He explains how Disney’s decision to go it alone led to DisneyQuest, how Nakayama and Jeffrey Katzenberg both independently chose him to lead what became GameWorks, and touches on the sustainability of GameWorks at large. The interview goes on to cover his 20 trips to Sega in Japan, the 1996 tour with Steven Spielberg, a Disney partnership with Nintendo that never happened, and his return to Imagineering to lead its research and development group through to the modern era.