Show Host

Jake Simpson

I’m Jake Simpson. No, not that one, that won that singing contest in the UK. Nor am I a footballer. I am from the UK though, born and bred in Herne Bay/Canterbury, before discovering where the railway station was, and eventually finding my way to the US in 1991. At this point I’ve been in the US so long some of my accent is decidedly Mid Atlantic, as the wife charitably puts it.

I’ve been in the games industry off and on for over 40 years now, my first game development being on the Commodore 64. I’ve done other things in the mean time; I have a degree in computer science from what used to be Hatfield Poly and is now The University of Hertfordshire, and I did some mainframe business programming in Cobol starting out (shudder), but when I came to the US I went back to games and have been here ever since, with some slight detours into Movie Production Land for a few years.

I’ve worked at Midway, during their golden arcade years, I’ve worked at Raven, when they still did original titles and also licensed stuff. I’ve worked at EA, on The Sims and wrote a fair bit of Sims 2. I did two years on Second Life during their heydey. I’ve worked for Bob Zemekis on some of his mocapped movies, Steven Spielberg on Ready Player One, and most recently, I’ve been working on my own company, TNB Studios (trading as TNBGames), where we are a technology provider for other games and movie studios.

Plus, I love Doctor Who, Sci-Fi in general, writing, talking, drinking various alcohols, my kids, my dog, and my wife (although probably not in that order. I may be old, but I’m not stupid.)

About Our Podcast

When you’ve been in the industry as long as I have, you tend to make friends with lots of the old timers who’ve been around a while and haven’t left games for pastures new. Because of that, I get to know a lot of developers who’ve had long and varied careers, that are not house hold names. Or names that any gamer (and some developers) will ever have heard of.

But these people exist. They have stories to tell. Games they’ve been involved in to talk about. Reminiscing to do. Questions to answer. And some of them owe me money and/or drinks.

So this podcast is basically a chance to tell the development career stories of some of the unheard of minions and movers and shakers.

The Unsung Game Dev Heroes, in fact.

Enjoy.