Before Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater shredded on to the video game scene in 1999, the man himself “had given up” on making a skateboarding game. Hawk revealed in a new interview that talks with various developers and console manufacturers about the concept were going nowhere in the mid- to late 1990s.
Speaking with USA Today, Hawk talked about how “it was kind of an uphill battle convincing anyone” to create a skateboarding game. He cited growing up on the medium as a reason for pursuing the idea, noting the Intellivision was the first console he owned. Later, Hawk had a Commodore 64, SNES, and then a PlayStation, and he also briefly did video-editing work for the TurboGrafx 16 in the early ’90s. But with multiple companies passing on his idea, Hawk noted in 1997 that he basically had thrown in the towel.
Activision, however, was working on a skateboarding game and reportedly heard about Hawk’s desire to make such a title. “And so I went to Activision,” said Hawk. “I saw a very early build of what became THPS (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater), and immediately, I knew this was the game. I could tell instinctively that this would be the most fun, that this would be the best one to be involved with, and with my connections and resources and experience, we could make this something truly authentic.”