Jeff Strain
Encyclopedia
Jeff Strain is a game programmer
and one of the three founders of ArenaNet
. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft
as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's
MMORPG
World of Warcraft
; he also created the StarCraft
campaign editor and worked on Diablo and Warcraft III. He is credited as a programmer and executive producer for Guild Wars
.
He left NCsoft in August 2009 under amicable terms with the company. On November 23, 2009, it was announced that Jeff had founded Undead Labs
, to create a zombie MMO game for the major consoles.
Game programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer"...
and one of the three founders of ArenaNet
ArenaNet
ArenaNet is a computer game developer and part of NCsoft Corporation, founded in 2000 by Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain and located in Bellevue, Washington...
. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft
NCsoft
NCsoft is a South Korea-based online video game company, which has published massively multiplayer online role-playing games including Lineage, City of Heroes, Wildstar, Exteel, Guild Wars and Aion.-History:...
as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
; he also created the StarCraft
StarCraft
StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling...
campaign editor and worked on Diablo and Warcraft III. He is credited as a programmer and executive producer for Guild Wars
Guild Wars
Guild Wars is an episodic series of online 3D fantasy role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Although often defined as an MMORPG the developers define it as a CORPG due to significant differences from the MMORPG genre. It provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative...
.
He left NCsoft in August 2009 under amicable terms with the company. On November 23, 2009, it was announced that Jeff had founded Undead Labs
Undead Labs
Undead Labs is a Seattle, Washington-based game development studio developing a zombie-survival game for Xbox 360. It was established by Jeff Strain in 2009, and has since brought artists and programmers who have worked on titles like Guild Wars and Diablo to their team.On 3 February 2011 Undead...
, to create a zombie MMO game for the major consoles.
External links
- Great Tools Make Great Games, an article about Strain's production philosophy
- How to Create a Successful MMO, Strain's 2007 Games Convention speech
- MMOZed, Community website following Undead Labs
- Undead Labs Zombie MMO Facts Everything we know about Undead Labs Zombie MMO from VGRevolution.com