Jesse N. Schell (born June 13, 1970) is an American video

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

, CEO of

Schell Games Schell Games is a game design and development company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 2002 by game developer Jesse Schell. Schell Games creates video games and interactive experiences for education and entertainment. History ...

,Schell Games
/ref> and a distinguished professor of the practice of

entertainment technology Entertainment technology is the discipline of using manufactured or created components to enhance or make possible any sort of entertainment experience. Because entertainment categories are so broad, and because entertainment models the world in m ...

at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a joint master's program between the College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

. Jesse Schell earned a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and subsequently, earned a Master's Degree in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon University. His early career consisted of his work as a Software Engineer for IBM and

Bell Communications Research iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...

, and then moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

to work with Disney Imagineering. In addition, Schell has also been a writer, director, performer, juggler, comedian, and circus artist for both Freihofer's Mime Circus and the Juggler's Guild.

Career

After graduating from the Information Networking Institute at CMU in 1994 with a Masters of Science in

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

, Jesse Schell went on to work for

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...

. In 1995 he joined

Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc., commonly referred to as Imagineering, is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construction of Disney theme parks and attra ...

, where he worked for seven years in capacity of programmer, manager, designer and creative director on several projects. These included rides for theme parks like DisneyQuest, and

massively multiplayer online game 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 like ''

Toontown Online ''Toontown Online'', commonly known as ''Toontown'', was a 2003 massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on a cartoon animal world, developed by Disney's Virtual Reality Studio and Schell Games, and published by The Walt Disney Comp ...

''. During his time at Disney, he met Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, who was taking a sabbatical in the lab where Schell worked. When Pausch founded the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU, he invited Schell to become a faculty member. Schell joined the faculty in 2002. In 2002, Schell founded Schell Games. The company is based in Pittsburgh, PA and employs more than 100 people. He currently serves as CEO. At Tech 50 in 2016, Schell was awarded CEO of the year, and the year prior, Schell was named one of Pittsburgh's 50 most powerful people. In 2008, using the design methodologies developed during his time at the ETC, Schell published ''The Art of Game Design''. A second edition of this book was published in 2014. He continues to teach Building Virtual Worlds and Game Design at the ETC. Schell is well known for his many talks on game design, but is best known for his DICE 2010 talk, "Beyond Facebook", which was adopted as a

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

"Best of the Web" talk. In 2015, Schell was honored with a Carnegie Science Award in the entrepreneur category. The program celebrates innovators who have distinguished themselves by making unparalleled contributions to science and technology in various disciplines. The following year, Schell received a 2016 Creator-of-the-Year award at the CREATE Festival. Since 2016, Schell has been in talks with Disney about reviving ''Toontown Online''. As of August 2018, Schell noted that he is actively talking to Disney about obtaining the rights to ''Toontown Online''.

Games and rides

Schell contributed to the development of certain video games and rides.

Games

* ''

'' * ''

Pirates of the Caribbean Online ''Pirates of the Caribbean Online'' was a 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing video game based on the '' Pirates of the Caribbean'' franchise. It was developed and published by Disney Online, in conjunction with SilverTree Media, for ...

'' * ''

Pixie Hollow Pixie Hollow is a character meet and greet attraction at Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland, offering guests the opportunity to meet Tinker Bell and her friends from the Disney Fairies franchise, including: Vidia, Terrence, Fawn, Rosetta, Silve ...

Rides

* '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold'' * ''

Toy Story Midway Mania Toy Story Midway Mania! (also known as ''Toy Story Mania!'') is an interactive 4-D theme park attraction, located at three Disney theme parks: Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort, Disney California Adventure at the Dis ...

References

External links

General

Schell in a Handbasket
- Official website

Talks

DICE 2013: "The Secret Mechanisms"
- 2013 talk that expands on his acclaimed 2010 DICE presentation
DICE 2010: "Beyond Facebook"
- 2010 talk exploring the world of game development beyond the Facebook era
TEDxUniPittsburgh: "The Future is Beautiful"
- 2010 talk about using games to improve education
"Visions of the Gamepocalypse"
- 2010 talk about gamification
ARE2010 Keynote: "Seeing"
- 2010 talk about seeing augmented reality with new eyes
Unite Conference 2010: "Who will we talk to? Our Virtual Companions"
- 2010 talk that focuses on the future of virtual characters. {{DEFAULTSORT:Schell, Jesse 1970 births Living people American video game designers Carnegie Mellon University alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty American chief executives