Aaron is an environment artist that has worked on a variety of different MMO projects over the last eight years. He loves creating unique, visually compelling worlds for players to explore, and enjoys collaborating with other team members on bringing the game’s space to life.  Outside of working at Playable Worlds, Aaron stays inspired by playing tons of games, traveling, reading fantasy series, and working on a variety of personal creative projects.

Abby has worked in several places in San Diego, mostly in Frontend Development roles, though her responsibilities would often crossover into Backend and DevOps. She’s worked in product liaison roles where, especially at small startups, there is no product owner and she’s had to make sure to guide and focus the product as well as architect and implement development. Abby is a big fan of JS, Typescript, and React because these technologies have allowed UIs to reach new levels of performance, organization, and speed. Not to mention they also have ability to deploy to basically any platform, web, native apps for mobile and PCs, servers, and even micro controllers. Abby has been playing video games since she was a kid. And since learning that anyone can make them, has been self-studying to be able to make her own. Games are what inspired her to learn how to program and from that she became more interested in the web development world. Although she’s yet to publish a full game title, she’s always working on some small game and finds that her studies carry over really well to creating performant and easy-to-use web UI. (Pronouns: she/her/hers)

Aiden is a newcomer to the gaming industry, though she brings with her 8+ years of software team management, business development, and marketing experience. So far, her career has spanned such diverse industries as OSHA compliance, fleet telematics, and veterinary medicine. She’s worked for a variety of companies ranging in scope from 3 person startups to the Watson Data Platform department of IBM. In her free time, Aiden is an avid fan of the God of War franchise, plays tabletop RPGs, and goes to way too many LARPs. She has two very spoiled cats, and an ever-growing collection of houseplants.

Amirah is a concept artist and illustrator professionally working in the video game industry. Born and raised in Malaysia, she is always looking to explore new things in her new home, California. Besides drawing and painting, Amirah has an unhealthy obsession with baking and cooking shows. You can often find her looking at a new bread recipe while finishing her sets at the gym. A good loaf mustn’t be underestimated.

Arthur has been creating interactive software for over a decade, from consumer products to military applications and until now had only worked on games for fun. For fun he plays DND, works on game jams, and practices bass guitar at his home in Portland with his wife and two cats.

Brandon is a technical animator with a passion for animation and is excited at making characters come to life. He is a newcomer to the games industry but is no stranger when it comes to video games. He is always ready for an adventure and looks forward to new challenges. In his free time, he enjoys going camping, playing video games, reading, learning, and watching films. And now for something completely different, he is also a fan of Monty Python and anything made by Mel Brooks.

Brian Youn is a concept artist with ten years of professional experience creating wondrous environments at companies such as Blizzard and Gameloft. He enjoys his free time playing video games, watching movies, or collecting and/or assembling Gunpla.

Dan Silberberger focuses on business and corporate development for Playable Worlds. Starting in the earliest days of mobile games, Dan wound up touching virtually every part of the business. Dan previously served in various roles for numerous companies, including Huuuge Games, Venan Entertainment, EA, JAMDAT, Nextel, Saban, and DreamWorks, where he focused on distribution, publishing, and licensing. At home, Dan occupies his time biking, hiking, and playing video games with his family.

David Georgeson has been a creative force in the games industry for over three decades. Some of his favorite projects include “Tribes 2”, “Planetside”, “zOMG!”, and acting as creative head of the “EverQuest” franchise of games, including the world’s best building game, “Landmark”. He also created a company developing disinfection devices for hospitals and government agencies during the pandemic before returning to the industry as the Game Director for Playable Worlds.

Evan Galleguillos is a concept artist and illustrator with a passion for delivering well-crafted imagery that resonates with the viewer. He’s spent over eight years cultivating his skills through work in video games, live action, stylized film animation, and more. As a major gamer at heart, Evan loves exploring fantastical worlds along with the characters, creatures, and places within them. Whether it be a world of his design or yours.

Hayley has been in QA since 2012, and has worked on titles such as The Last of Us, Beyond Two Souls, and Gravity Rush 2. People are often surprised when someone continues to pursue a career in QA- but Hayley enjoys the feeling of seeing a game as it’s being built. To her, investigating defects feels a bit like being a detective, and creating a test strategy feels like being a city planner. In her spare time, she loves playing games- and learning more about them. She also enjoys road trips, growing her succulent plant collection, celebrating Halloween three months too early, and Youtube video essay deep dives on obscure topics. (Pronouns: she/her)

Jason Abbott started off working on operating systems for x86 architectures, was briefly derailed during that whole dot-com thing, and then finally decided to follow his heart and make games for a living. After working on FPS and sandbox RPGs games he found his home in working on MMOs. He’s worked on Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, Star Wars the Old Republic, Rift, and Trove. He enjoys hiking, cooking, and playing all manner of games — video, TTRPG, board games, card, … you name it.

John has been making games since the 90’s. While working one day, he overheard some co-workers discussing the troubles their Sims were going through at home after one of them burned up in a kitchen fire. Immediately concerned for the lives of The Sims, John joined Maxis and spent 18 years creating animations for Sims 2, Sims 3, and Sims 4. He even helped put the Sims on the Nintendo 3DS. After a brief stint with ZeniMax Media on Elder Scrolls Online, John found a place to contribute with Playable Worlds.

Johnny has been making video games and computer graphics since middle school, having no idea that people made a living doing that. He spent most of his career at Neversoft and Activision as a VFX and tech artist. After taking a break and finding his way back to video games, Johnny is very excited to work on his first MMO.

Justin Strefling is an accomplished HR Manager and former Litigation Attorney with a proventrack record in leading HR teams and managing comprehensive compensation and benefitsstrategies. His experience spans large companies, startups, and legal environments, makinghim a versatile asset in HR. Known for his integrity and work ethic, Justin is dedicated to drivingorganizational success through strategic HR management. Outside of his professional life,Justin enjoys playing and watching sports, diving into historical fiction novels by James Rollins,and playing video games.

Kevin is an industry veteran who started making games professionally in 1996. He has created environment levels, props, and artwork for PC, console, and handheld games. His career has been mainly focused on MMO titles like EverQuest, Planetside 2, and DC Universe Online, but he has also developed games on PlayStation 2, Playstation 3, and Sony’s PSP. When not creating or playing video games, Kevin enjoys tabletop games, as well as hiking, cycling, and cat memes.

Kurt Harland Larson started his career in audio in the pre-MIDI, pre-computer, New-Wave days of 1982 with the formation of the all-electronic band Information Society. After recording and performing for 10 years, he made the move into game audio and has worked for and at various game companies since 1994. Kurt has held audio design and director positions at Crystal Dynamics, Electronic Arts, Slipgate-Gazillion, Nihilistic Software, and Machine Zone. He is an avid rollerskater, MtG player, and was one of the founders of Thunderdome at Burning Man.

Liam has spent over 20 years in game production. He originally learned to be an engineer, but found his skills were more in organization and leadership than in programming. He put his skills to use, leading the production team for Full Sail’s Game Development program for over a decade. While there he became an early adopter of SCRUM and has been a CSM and CSPO for over 15 years. After Full Sail, Liam worked a wide array of interactive jobs, such as military simulation, lottery games, and e-sports games. Never wanting to get bored, Liam earned an MBA in Project Management, and is currently working on his DBA. In his free time, Liam enjoys spending time with his family. They especially love hiking to waterfalls around Georgia and playing board and video games together. They are also a large Disney family, and love going to the parks and on cruises. He also has three cats and a beta fish, who all love to distract dad from work.

Light is an enthusiastic game designer with a versatile, technical skill set whose previous work includes several published games and a virtual graduation experience developed for their Master’s cohort. Nothing excites them more than a creative problem in need of an even more creative solution, and they love crafting those solutions into engaging systems and memorable player experiences. When Light isn’t busy making (or playing) games, you can probably find them geeking out with their tabletop RPG group, trying to learn a new instrument, or curled up with a good book and a cup of tea. (Pronouns: Any)

Magnus is a veteran Art Director with over 25 years in the industry, during which he has shippedmore than 50 titles. He has experience across virtually every game platform and excels inexploring new technologies and art methodologies. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer,spending time with his family, and creating real-time graphics videos. Despite being Swedish,his favorite food is not meatballs.

Majick is a detailed and highly ethical accounting and office management professional with over 25 successful years of combined experience in office management, accounting operations, events/meeting/conference planning, purchasing, and staff/vendor relations. She is a powerful force in the workplace and uses her positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. In her free time, she loves watching sports, playing video games, hiking/walking, listening to audiobooks, and playing with her critters!

Mark Halash is a veteran game designer with decades of industry experience and whose career includes 20 credits on 14 different games and expansions on a number of well known franchises. Before getting into game development, he managed a small chain of video game arcades in the 1990s. As the arcade business declined, his development career kicked off on the Massively Multiplayer Online Game EverQuest. Since that time he has worked on a number of MMOs including Star Wars Galaxies, DC Universe Online and Crowfall.

Meghann is a designer with a passion for odd ball games and mechanics who tends to geek out over the topic to anyone around. She started out in QA and has been focusing on learning from every team she can. In her spare time, she reads a lot of fantasy adventure books and plays D&D with her fantastic group of creative friends.

Nick Hand is a character artist and recent graduate with experience creating vibrant and exciting characters for the games industry. He has worked with companies such as Netease Games and Rushdown Revolt developing 3D characters for production. He is passionate about seeing the characters he creates come to life and become a relatable part of a larger world and experience. In his free time he enjoys exploring a variety of creative activities like 3D printing, building PCs, or playing games online with his friends.

Rick first fell in love with MMORPGs as a beta-tester for Meridian 59 and helped convince his employer The 3DO Company to acquire the developer, Archetype Interactive. He launched Age of Conan in North America for Eidos & Funcom. He has been a marketing director for CCP Games, The 3DO Company, Infogrames, Hudson Soft, Empire Interactive, 38 Studios, and Hands-On Mobile. He led the Player Studio project at Sony Online Entertainment/Daybreak Games. He leads a null-sec alliance in EVE Online and plays Dungeons & Dragons with the same group since the late 1970s. Pronouns: he/him

Rodney has 15 years of experience in the gaming industry working on games ranging from the Everquest Franchise, PlanetSide, and Free Realms to console products on the PS3 and PSP. He has worn many hats over the years working in QA, CS, Programming and Production. Outside of work, he can often be found defending the world from the zombie apocalypse and playing other sandbox games.

Sam is a linguist-turned-cognitive-scientist-turned-game developer. He got started in the industry as a MUD developer, and has always maintained a special interest in how players learn game systems and how those systems shape and interact with the social world of multiplayer games. Sam has played a wide variety of games as far back as he can remember, from MMO raidleading to competitive FPS to story-heavy RPGs and experimental indie games. He’s yet to find the game that doesn’t have something worth looking at more closely. In his spare time, when he isn’t playing video games, he’s designing and running tabletop games.

Sarah has been breaking games and finding their secrets since she was a wee human. When she gets a game, she is finding their easter eggs, the hidden passages, the secret levels and getting into areas she was not supposed to be. With an endless amount of curiosity, she has done many different things during her career life, but video games are her passion. In her free time, Sarah likes to hang out with her cat and discuss current events. Such as, the best napping locations and how the birds in the tree outside are plotting devious plans. She also enjoys drawing, painting, sculpting and being in nature.

Scott started his love affair with computers pecking out code from Atari 800 magazines and saving his work to tape. After that he was off to Berkeley to get some proper CS training, punctuated by the odd game of D&D or Talisman. He broke into the game industry by chronicling his efforts at iwanttoworkatea.com, landing a coveted role on The Godfather where he shipped his first AAA game and met his wife (of Spore and Call of Duty fame). They had two kids so they wouldn’t need to join a PUG. These days they mostly play Fortnite, Minecraft, and Don’t Starve Together.

Sean is an experienced graphic designer and digital marketing professional who is excited to be joining the team at Playable Worlds. His background in the consumer packaged goods industry and history as an artist has readied him to tackle branding, marketing, art, and design in the world of gaming. In his free time, Sean plays a wide variety of games (FPS, RPGs, Rogue-likes, open-world, action/adventure, MMOs, etc.), plays guitar, writes music, and is a photographer.

Tyler is a Unity developer with 10 years of experience. About 9 of those years have been used for developing business applications with Unity instead of games. Some examples are level design tools for people conducting research with how a department store or hospital room is laid out. He’s from a small town of less than 500 people and has enjoyed playing MMOs since he first got the internet back in 1997. He is sometimes somewhat amazed that he is helping Playable Worlds make their new vision.

As a Senior QA Analyst with over 8 years of experience in the gaming industry, I bring a wealth ofexpertise to ensure that every game we release is not just entertaining but also of the highest quality.My passion for gaming is matched only by my love for all things cute and whimsical.In addition to my professional role, I am an avid enthusiast of tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons& Dragons, where I’ve honed my skills in storytelling and creativity. My gaming interests extend to therealm of cozy gaming, where I find solace in the comforting embrace of video games that evoke warmthand relaxation.Beyond gaming, I am a digital artist who enjoys bringing vibrant and imaginative worlds to life on thedigital canvas. My creativity knows no bounds, and I channel it into crafting adorable crochet Amigurumiand intricate Punch Needling projects and far more to even list, with more to come! These hobbies notonly bring joy to my life but also allow me to infuse my passion for cuteness into tangible creations. I runa small Esty where I sell some of these little guys!My personal life is enriched by the company of my wonderful group of talented and supportive friends,who share my interests and creative pursuits. Together, we explore new horizons and embark onexciting adventures both in and out of the gaming world.Over a year ago, I welcomed two furry companions into my life – Nyx and Picasso, my beloved cats.Their presence adds an extra layer of happiness and playfulness to my daily routine.In my professional and personal endeavors, I strive to bring a touch of whimsy and a dedication toexcellence. I am thrilled to be a part of this gaming company, where I can merge my passion for gamingwith my commitment to quality assurance, all while infusing a sprinkle of charm into every project.

Vivian Giacobbi Vivi is a game designer, level designer, programmer, digital artist, and writer who loves to build projects from the ground up. She’s eager to get done well before the deadline and then add her own personal touches. Her favorite way to relax from working on projects is to work on other projects, always seeking to add a few folds to her brain. In her free time, Vivi writes, draws, bowls, and gets lost in decades-long media franchises. She loves watching perspectives change, stories expand, and design processes evolve, and always wants to stick her nose into something that will last a lifetime. Right now, she’s probably agonizing over another RWBY hiatus. (Pronouns: she/her/hers)

Yvette has a mixed background in tech, art, and psychology. She has worked on several mobile titles such as Love Nikki and has been actively participating in various game projects in different roles. She is dedicated to combining points of artistic aesthetics to enhance and evolve a delightful and intuitive game experience. Besides playing or making games, Yvette enjoys anime, Lolita fashion, reading, learning new skills, and volunteering to make other lives better.