It’s always interesting to get a close look at the inner workings of Sega during its heyday. We’ve spoken to management before, but there’s always plenty more going on behind the scenes that the suits won’t reveal. A great source for this juicy info can be found among game testers, the worker ants of most software publishers. Known as “Game Analysts” at Sega, testers saw all kinds of interesting things happen during the Genesis era, and Sega-16 recently spoke to Tom Byrne, a third party tester during the early ’90s. A big fan of strategy titles, Mr. Byrne gave us some great details on the quality control process for third party titles, and he shares his experiences in our latest interview.

There are quite a number of a industry personalities today that have a tenure at Sega somewhere on their résumé. Many designers, artists, and programmers either got their starts at the fabled company or made a stop there sometime on the road to success. David Foley is a great example of the latter. Working at Sega as both a designer and programmer, he took part in many famous projects, including Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin and Chakan. He also played a major part in bringing the Sega Channel to thousands of happy homes across America. Ultimately, Foley moved on to found several companies and enjoy the fruits of his efforts as an entrepreneur.

Longtime Sega-16 readers are well aware of our investigations into the history behind Sega Visions magazine. From our editorial about its history to our interviews with former writer Bill Kunkel and Niles Nemo cartoon artist David Sullivan, a great deal has already been revealed. This time around, we’ve gone a few steps up on the Sega Visions heirarchy and spoken to former managing editor David Sullivan, who was with the periodical since its origins as the Sega Challenge newsletter.