Joe Ybarra is one of the original game producer

Game producer

A video game producer is the person in charge of overseeing development of a video game.The earliest documented use of the term producer in games was by Trip Hawkins, who established the position when he founded Electronic Arts in 1982...

s at Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...

 in 1982 (along with Stewart Bonn, Dave Evans (Apple), Susan Lee-Merrow and Pat Marriott), where the concept of a game producer was created by Trip Hawkins

Trip Hawkins

William M. 'Trip' Hawkins III is a Silicon Valley American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company and Digital Chocolate....

. During this time he produced several highly acclaimed computer games

Computer Games

"Computer Games" is a single by New Zealand group, Mi-Sex released in 1979 in Australia and New Zealand and in 1981 throughout Europe. It was the single that launched the band, and was hugely popular, particularly in Australia and New Zealand...

, including M.U.L.E.

M.U.L.E.

M.U.L.E. is a seminal multiplayer video game by Ozark Softscape. It was published in 1983 by Electronic Arts. It was originally written for the Atari 400/800, and was later ported to the Commodore 64, the Nintendo Entertainment System and the IBM PC Jr. Japanese versions also exist for the...

by Dani Bunten

Danielle Bunten Berry

Danielle Bunten Berry , born Daniel Paul Bunten, and also known as Dan Bunten, was an American game designer and programmer, known for the 1983 game M.U.L.E. , and 1984's The Seven Cities of Gold.-Biography:Bunten was born in St Louis, Missouri, and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas as a...

 and Ozark Softscape

Ozark Softscape

Ozark Softscape was a computer game programming team consisting initially of Dan Bunten, Bill Bunten, Jim Rushing, and Alan Watson.-History:The company was based out of Little Rock, Arkansas and had profound success with a few of their early titles...

, Seven Cities of Gold (also by Bunten), Starflight

Starflight

Starflight is a computer game published by Electronic Arts and developed by Binary Systems in 1986. Originally developed for DOS and Tandy, it was later released for the Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh and Commodore 64...

and Dr. J. and Larry Bird Go One on One

One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird

Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One, more commonly known as One on One, is a 1983 computer basketball game for the early era of home computers...

by Eric Hammond. Ybarra was also the original producer on the first version of Madden NFL

Madden NFL

Madden NFL is an American football video game series developed by Electronic Arts Tiburon for EA Sports. The game series is named after Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden, a well-known former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Oakland Raiders and color commentator...

.

He later led product development for game publisher Infocom

Infocom

Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....

 and produced 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....

s for Sierra Online.

He had been working with Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and its subsidiary FireSky on the Stargate Worlds

Stargate Worlds

Stargate Worlds was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game video game in-development by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and published by FireSky for Microsoft Windows. The game's setting was mainly borrowed from military science fiction series...

 MMO as the Vice President of Product Development. However, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment filed for bankruptcy on February 12, 2010 and no longer sells or operates Stargate: Resistance

Stargate: Resistance

Stargate: Resistance is an online, third-person shooter owned and operated by Dark Comet Games, powered by the Unreal 3 engine, and based on the television series Stargate SG-1...

.

Currently, Joe Ybarra also teaches classes on video game production at Collins College in Phoenix, Arizona.

External links