Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding

Westwood Studios Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westw ...

, designing the PC game ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...

'', and collaborating with

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

on the ''

Boom Blox ''Boom Blox'' is a puzzle video game for the Wii console, mobile devices and N-Gage 2.0 developed by EA Los Angeles in conjunction with film director Steven Spielberg. It was released on May 6, 2008 in North America and on May 9, 2008 in Europe. ...

'' and ''

Boom Blox Bash Party ''Boom Blox Bash Party'', called ''Boom Blox Smash Party'' in non-English territories, is a Game physics, physics-based puzzle video game, puzzle video game developed by EA Los Angeles and published by Electronic Arts for the Wii video game consol ...

'' video games for the

Nintendo Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

console based on Spielberg's design ideas.

Career

Castle co-founded

with

Brett Sperry Brett Sperry is an American video game designer, a fine arts gallerist, and a professional photographer. He is also a leading developer of the Las Vegas arts community where he's made significant investments in property and infrastructure, primari ...

in 1985. Castle has multiple credits on Westwood games, including executive producer, technical director, and art director for the 1997 video game ''

''. Castle is also known for his contributions to multiple ''

Command & Conquer ''Command & Conquer'' (''C&C'') is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' influential strategy game '' Dune ...

'' games. Westwood was acquired by EA in 1998, and Castle continued on with EA in a number of executive and creative roles. He was executive producer of ''

'' and ''

'', developed for the

in a collaboration with

. From 2003 to June 2009, Castle was Vice President of Creative Development at the Los Angeles studio of Electronic Arts (

EA Los Angeles Danger Close Games (formerly DreamWorks Interactive LLC and EA Los Angeles) was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft (later moved to Mi ...

). On July 15, 2009, Castle joined

InstantAction InstantAction was a web gaming site and digital distributor featuring 3D, browser-based games. The site was created by GarageGames after being acquired by IAC/InterActive Corp in 2007 and released a year later. InstantAction's goal was to allow ...

as the new CEO of

GarageGames GarageGames was a game technology and software developer. GarageGames was the parent company of GG Interactive, developers of educational technology in the areas of computer science, video game development and programming. In addition, the com ...

. After InstantAction was shut down in November 2010, Castle went on to become Senior Advisor for Premium FanPage in January 2011, and later joined

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 ...

as VP of Studios. Castle took a detour out of the video gaming industry to serve as Chief Strategy Officer for Shufflemaster (which became

SHFL entertainment SHFL entertainment, Inc. (previously named Shuffle Master) was a manufacturer of shuffling machines, table games, slot machines, and other casino products, based in Paradise, Nevada. Founded in 1983, it was acquired by Bally Technologies in 2013. ...

) in late 2011. He returned to video games as Creative Director for

Kixeye Kixeye (stylized as KIXEYE, formerly known as Casual Collective) is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer online real-t ...

's ''War Commander: Rogue Assault'' which launched worldwide in 2016. On March 9, 2017, Castle became the head of the newly formed Amazon Game Studios Seattle.

Games

Awards

Castle was given the second annual Lifetime Achievement Award by the

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

at the

Spotlight Awards The Spotlight Awards (GDC) was hosted annually by the Game Developers Conference from 1997 to 1999. Its focus was on the video and computer game industry. GDC now hosts another video game award ceremony called Game Developers Choice Awards since 20 ...

in 1999. Castle was also given a BAFTA award (along with

and Amir Rahimi) for his work on ''

'' in 2009.

Personal life

Castle lives in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

with his family. Castle was the Grand Master of Masons in Nevada in 2020.

References

External links

Louis Castle
at MobyGames * {{DEFAULTSORT:Castle, Louis Year of birth missing (living people) American entertainment industry businesspeople American technology company founders American video game designers American video game programmers Creative directors Dungeons & Dragons video game designers Living people Video game artists Video game businesspeople Video game producers Westwood Studios