Daniel James (born 1971,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

), is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

video game developer based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He is a co-founder and CEO of

Three Rings Design Three Rings Design, Inc. was an online game developer that was founded on March 30, 2001, by Daniel James and Michael Bayne. The company was named in honor of the Three Rings of the Elven-kings in Tolkien mythology. The company's first product ...

, the company behind the

MMOG A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...

s '' Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates'', ''

Bang! Howdy ''Bang! Howdy'' is an online free-to-play, hybrid turn based and real time strategy game created by American company Three Rings Design. It was originally released on December 1, 2006 after public beta testing by Grey Havens, a non-profit organiza ...

'', '' Whirled'' and '' Spiral Knights''.

Biography

James was born in 1971 in London, the only child of Allan James, a filmmake

who worked on titles such as '' Out of Africa (film), Out of Africa'' and '' Superman'', and Hope James, an interior designer and art teacher. James attended

Holland Park School Holland Park School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form in Holland Park, London, England. In 2013, it has attained academy status. Opened in 1958, the school became the flagship for comprehensive education, and at one time had ove ...

and

Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College West London College, legally known as the Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College is a large further and higher education college in West London, England, formed in 2002 by the merger between Ealing Tertiary College and Hammersmith and West ...

, and got involved with MUDs early, playing Essex MUD at the age of 12, in 1982. While still at university, he worked as a god on Avalon: The Legend Lives and co-founded the Avalon dial-up service in 1990, moving services to the internet in 1994, the same year that he graduated from the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

, with a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy. In 1995, he founded another company, Sense Internet. In 1998, he moved to the United States to work for

Sierra Online Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre ...

, as a designer on Middle-earth Online. While in the United States, he met Michael Bayne and they founded

to create '' Puzzle Pirates''. It was launched in 2003. It has been followed by '' Bang Howdy'', '' Whirled'', '' Corpse Craft'' and '' Spiral Knights'', in partnership with SEGA. In March 2011 Three Rings announced a partnership with the BBC to create an online game based on Doctor Who. He is a member of the

IGDA The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is a nonprofit professional association whose stated mission is to "support and empower video game developers, game developers around the world in achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers. ...

Online Games An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and s ...

SIG, and a frequent speaker or moderator at industry conferences such as E³, GDC, and the Austin Games Conference.

The First Church of the Grey Goo

According to ICANN's

WhoIs WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomou ...

James & Three Rings Design are the registrant for the website of The First Church of the Grey Goo. The site proclaims and praises the inevitability of nanomachines replacing mankind as "prophesied" by

Bill Joy William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...

. It is unclear whether this site is an attempt at humor, earnest, or related to an upcoming or unreleased video game. Registration was on February 16, 2000 and expires in 2016. There have been no changes to the site since its first archiving by the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

on June 25, 2001. On February 11, 2020 the site's domain information has been updated, and expires in 2022.

References

Daniel James' personal website

Daniel James' blog

DreamStation interview
September 29, 2003

IGDA Online Games webpage

External links

Official Three Rings Website

Puzzle Pirates Website

Whirled Website

Spiral Knights Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Daniel 1971 births Living people British video game designers Canadian video game designers Three Rings Design Alumni of the University of Leeds People educated at Holland Park School