John Tobias facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Tobias
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Tobias in 2017
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| Born | August 24, 1969 Chicago, IL
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| Years active | 1988–present |
| Known for | Mortal Kombat franchise |
John Tobias is an American artist, designer, and writer who creates comic books and video games. He is most famous for helping to create the super popular Mortal Kombat video game series. He worked on this series with Ed Boon, and it was John Tobias who first came up with the idea for the game!
Contents
Early Life and Career
John Tobias loved drawing from a young age. He was inspired by comic books. When he was in high school, he even took special weekend classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Before joining Midway Games, John worked as an artist for The Real Ghostbusters comic book series. He originally wanted to be a comic book artist. However, video games were becoming very exciting with new graphics. This made the video game world more interesting to him.
Creating Mortal Kombat
John Tobias worked on the arcade game Smash TV in 1990. Then, in 1992, he helped create Mortal Kombat. This game became a huge success!
John Tobias was in charge of creating the story, themes, and worlds for the early Mortal Kombat games. This included places like the Outworld and Netherrealm. He also designed all the characters for the first games, up to Mortal Kombat 4 in 1997.
Some of the most popular characters he designed include:
- Kano
- Kitana
- Liu Kang
- Raiden
- Johnny Cage
- Scorpion
- Sub-Zero
- Sonya Blade
- Goro
A fun fact is that the character Noob Saibot was named after John Tobias and Ed Boon! If you spell their last names backward, you get "Noob" (Boon) and "Saibot" (Tobias).
After Midway Games
In 1999, John Tobias and some other people from Midway Games left to start their own company. They formed Studio Gigante in 2000.
Studio Gigante made two games:
- Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus (2003)
- WWE WrestleMania 21 (2005)
Studio Gigante closed in 2005. After that, John Tobias worked as a helper for other game companies. In 2012, he joined a company called Zynga, which makes social games.
Legacy and Recognition
Even though John Tobias was one of the original creators of Mortal Kombat, he wasn't always mentioned in later documentaries about the game. However, he was called one of the "four people who made" the first Mortal Kombat game. You can see him in the commentaries for Mortal Kombat 3 in the game collection Midway Arcade Treasures 2.
In 2008, John Tobias drew a comic book that came with special versions of the game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. He was also interviewed in a 2020 Netflix show called High Score. This show talked about Mortal Kombat and how popular it became.
In 2021, during National Hispanic Heritage Month, Ed Boon shared that both he and John Tobias are Hispanic.
See also
In Spanish: John Tobias para niños
