You might know me as @MarcFromRivr, which is totally cool, I dig it. Otherwise, welcome weary traveler.
I spent the bulk of my professional life as a self-taught game developer, dabbling in various titles across PC, console, and mobile as a gameplay designer, product manager, QA lead, and overall morale maintainer.
Like many who exit games, I still love games but can't imagine diving back into development. I had a pretty rough experience the first go-around, as documented by Kotaku.
I've always been into designβgraphic, visual, experience, web, you name it. Likewise, I have always been a techie, it kind of runs in my family. Being a tech generalist is a mixed bag professionally. Unless you're at the top, companies usually look for specialists since there's no shortage of "idea guys." However, I believe my ability to think from technical, business, and product perspectives simultaneously makes me an effective product manager.
Now, I'm the co-founder and CXO (Chief Xperience Officer) of Botni.Vision, and more specifically, I manage the design, development, and public facing aspects of Rivr.
My mission is to empower creators, streamers, and content authors to unleash their full potential through cutting-edge media understanding tools. π
I've worked in several industries, and am proud of the what I've accomplished in each, even if it's not Forbes 30-under-30 level stuff. We do the best we can as we move through life, and learn what we can from those around us.
Botni.Vision, Inc. β 2020 - 202X β Montreal, QC
After reconnecting with my best friend Brandon, who is now our CEO, we started working on a solution to reduce the time needed to find the most valuable parts of long-form video. In doing so, we ended up building a media understanding engine which goes well beyond just getting cool clips. Creators and organizations can now search through video to find anything they need, quickly and cost effectively. So now I'm designing and building the next generation of media understanding applications and services. Check out Rivr to see where that's at.
Freelance β 2014 - 2020 β Los Angeles, CA
When I moved to Los Angeles in 2014, I wanted to apply my project management and design skills to something outside of gaming. At first, I was designing website and cover art for mostly EDM artists, but then I picked up artist management and started managing several Dubstep DJs. This was an incredible experience and taught me so much amount about the music industry, rights, royalties, touring, events, and so much more. I am forever grateful for the experience and to the guys who let me do my best to lead them forward. I even had Diplo and Skrillex at my house for a party once! That was pretty neat.
Special thanks to: 2TD, Volt, Ryan Browne, Danny Johnson, Max Mayeri, and Henry Lu.
Buygore Records β 2015 - 2017 β Los Angeles, CA
Despite having worked in games for years, I found myself back at the intern level in the music industry. Getting your foot in the door is always the hardest part, and people who stick their nose up at opportunities to do so are the worst kind. After spending some time designing cover art for soon to be released records, I earned the trust of the label head to start vetting and submitting demos that I thought were really promising. This unlocked a whole world of opportunities for me in the EDM scene that pushed me into artist management.
Special thanks to: Asaf Borger, Steven Pahel, Christina Discon, and Nappy.
Trendy Entertainment, LLC (Chormatic Games) β 2014 - 2015 β Gainesville, FL
After the indie success of Dungeon Defenders, I was called up to help complete and release a new version of Dungeon Defenders on a very short timeline, with a team of mostly junior developers. Despite having had a poor experience at Trendy, I took on the job as a contract with no intention of returning to the company. I loved the game so much and knew it so well that I wanted to try and keep the magic of Dungeon Defenders going. I did the best that I could while fighting back against shareholder and publisher interest that led to initial poor reviews.
Nival β 2013 - 2014 β Miami, FL
Short lived but interesting experience working for a Russian company as one of the only Americans. My emails were in Russian, calls were in Russian, and I was setup with a Russian language teacher to do the best that I could. I even took a trip to Moscow and St. Petersberg to meet the team. My job was to take their games and port them over to North American and European audiences. The main game I worked on was called Prime World, which had some really great city building RPG elements, but the session based MOBA gameplay was just not better than DotA or League, so it did not do particularly well.
Trendy Entertainment, LLC (Chromatic Games) β 2010 - 2013 β Gainesville, FL
Played a major role in the success of Dungeon Defenders for XBLA, PSN, and PC. My job was to design and see through production nearly all aspects of gameplay. I worked closely with every department, often working outside my responsibilities, Trendy was a start-up at the time after all. I learned Unreal Engine from nothing, built a QA team, designed and balanced my ass off, did voice overs, made trailers, and spent many nights sleeping under my desk. The head of the company was verbally abusive, my job was constantly threatened, and over time the truth of how things went down were revealed in a Kotaku article calling it "The Video Game Studio from Hell".
University of Florida β 2009 - 2010 β Gainesville, FL
Kind of a weird one, mainly because I did not go to the University of Florida. As a matter of fact, I was probably the only person who worked at the Department of Chemistry that did not have a college degree. Nevertheless, they needed a techie, and I needed a job. I maintained intranets, websites, and publication libraries. Honestly was pretty neat but not satisfying by any means.
Nexus Gaming Center β 2008 - 2009
My first tech job was working in a LAN center / Arcade. As a teenager, this was a pretty sweet job. Unlimited supply of energy drinks, free games, and building/repairing computers for minimum wage. I honestly didn't even care about the money at the time, it was just a great place to be with an amazing community. It wasn't all fun and games though! I did get to spend some time creating custom World of Warcraft servers and scripting boss fights for internal events. Having this specific experience really put me on track to get my first game jobs.
Well, that's basically it. Cya π