William "Bing" Gordon is a video game executive and technology

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

ist. He served ten years as Chief Creative Officer of video game publisher and developer

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

(EA) prior to his current partnership with

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

(KPCB). He was a founding director of

Audible.com Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receiv ...

and has served on several high-profile Boards of Directors including

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

, Ngmoco, and

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

. He designed the video games ''

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri ''Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'' is a 4X video game, considered a spiritual sequel to the ''Civilization'' series. Set in a science fiction depiction of the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet ...

'', ''

Sid Meier's SimGolf ''Sid Meier's SimGolf'' is a video game developed by Firaxis and published by Electronic Arts in 2002. Players must successfully design golf courses and play them with their default professional golfer Gary Golf. Played in a near- isometric di ...

'' and '' The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth''.

Career

Gordon graduated from Cranbrook School in 1968. He studied drama and literature and earned a BA from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. He moved to the Bay Area where he received an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from Stanford in 1978 after acting for a period in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. After working as an account executive at the advertising firm

Ogilvy and Mather Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City ag ...

, Gordon joined EA in 1982 while it was an early-stage start-up, working as a one-person marketing department. As the company grew, Gordon continued to drive marketing strategy and execution. Gordon became more involved on the creative side after a few years, working directly with game teams on concepts, helping to flesh out game designs, and providing feedback on the games as they took shape in development. In 1998 he was named Chief Creative Officer of EA. In 2005, he took a faculty chair position at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division after EA invested in the fledgling program. On April 28, 2008 Gordon announced plans to leave EA to join the venture capital KPCB starting June 2008. Gordon joined the

Board of Directors in 2003 and resigned in 2017.

Awards

Gordon was the recipient of the 2011 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award.

References

External links

Bing Gordon
at MobyGames
"He's Got Games"
a Bing Gordon profile from ''The Washington Post'' Cranbrook Educational Community alumni Electronic Arts employees Living people Ngmoco Yale University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Amazon (company) people American video game designers Kleiner Perkins people Video game businesspeople Zynga people American venture capitalists Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award recipients {{videogame-bio-stub