Mike Verdu
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Michael Verdu (born December 28, 1964) is an American manager and producer and author of computer games.


Life

Verdu was born on December 28, 1964. His father worked for a trade union, his mother was a dance instructor. Michael visited the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...
in
Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...
, 600 km away from his native Washington. He did not finish his studies because Advanced Technology, an IT service provider for the US
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
, offered him a lucrative job as a programmer. Aged 20, he left Advanced Technology in 1985 to found the software company Paragon Systems that produced software for the Department of Defense. Paragon's programs were used to maintain submarines of the
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
and Los Angeles-class submarines. The company also rented out programming capacities, for example to
Bob Bates Robert Bates (born December 11, 1953) is an American computer game designer. One of the early designers of interactive fiction games, he was co-founder of Challenge, Inc., which created games in the 1980s for the pioneering company Infocom. A ...
' video game start-up Challenge Inc. which developed text adventures for industry leader
Infocom Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called '' Cornerstone''. Infocom was founded o ...
. In September 1987 Verdu sold Paragon Systems (which had 25 employees by the time) to IT service provider American Systems Corporation where he worked as the business unit director for software development for the following three years. When defense budgets dwindled down with the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, Verdu turned his passion for computer games into a profession and founded the video game development studio Legend Entertainment together with Bob Bates who in the meantime was affected by the shutdown of Infocom. Legend Entertainment produced text adventures and acted as its own
publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
. Verdu was the CEO of the company and remained on this position until the company was sold to GT Interactive in 1998. After the acquisition Legend Entertainment was integrated into GT Interactive's production line as a studio and remained so when Infogrames bought GT in 1999. Verdu and Bates acted as the studio heads, with the studio focussing on the production of first person shooters. From July 2002 until May 2009 Verdu worked for
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 t ...
, first as producer, then from 2005 on as division director for
real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...
games, and from 2007 on as vice president/general manager. During his seven years at EA Los Angeles he was responsible for titles such as '' Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars'' or '' The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II''. From June 2009 until August 2012 Verdu worked as Chief Creative Officer for American
browser game A browser game or a "flash game" is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Some browser games are also available as mobile apps, PC games, or on ...
publisher Zynga. At this time Zynga had a market value of about nine billion dollars. In September 2012 he left Zynga to found the independent
studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...
TapZen. The starting capital was provided by his former employer, later on Chinese tech corporation
Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the wo ...
acquired a financial interest. In January 2015 TapZen was bought up by browser and mobile games producer
Kabam Kabam (formerly Watercooler, Inc.) is an interactive entertainment company founded in 2006 and headquartered in Vancouver, BC. with offices in Montréal, QC, San Francisco, CA and Austin, Texas. The company creates, develops and publishes massive ...
. The Canadians hired Verdu as Chief Creative Officer for the mother company. When Kabam was bought up by South Korean video game company Netmarble Verdu went back to
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 ...
, this time as senior vice president of EA Mobile. From May 2019 on he was vice president of content for
augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...
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), edu ...
at the Oculus division of Facebook. In July 2021 he was hired by
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
as vice president, responsible for their upcoming video game branch. Verdu is married and lives in California.


Works

In games business, Verdu mainly laid the focus on being a manager and producer. During the ten years as CEO of Legend Entertainment he engaged in creative activities as well though. '' Mission Critical'' (1995) was the only narrative game he completely wrote himself. He was involved in writing the scripts for ''Gateway'' und ''Gateway II: Homeworld'' and the development of the ego shooter ''Unreal II: The Awakening''; his share of the work on ''Gateway II'' was about 50%. Verdu started the Legend Entertainment tradition to obtain licenses for literary works and use them as a blueprint for games. When the company faced the problem of having only two full-time authors (Bob Bates and
Steve Meretzky Steven Eric Meretzky (born May 1, 1957)
''Infocom''. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
is an American
) and thus having too little capacities for producing new games, Verdu suggested licensing existing stories to save time on game design. As a fan of the works of
Frederik Pohl Frederik George Pohl Jr. (; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellit ...
he brought up the idea of using Pohl's '' Gateway'' trilogy as a blueprint for a game. Bob Bates made use of his contacts back from Infocom times and organized the license. Verdu suggested himself as the author for the implementation. He had no previous experience in this metier, but Legend found a way to canalise Verdu's thirst for action: The writing of the script was shared between three unexperienced but enthusiastic authors (Verdu, programmer Glen Dahlgren and producer and musician Michael Lindner) who were supervised by Bates. This way of working worked well, ''Gateway'' was well received by the media. Other conventional writers whose works were licensed to Legend for conversions to computer games were Piers Anthony ('' Companions of Xanth''),
Terry Brooks Terence Dean Brooks (born January 8, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two film novelizations. He has written 23 ''New York Times'' bestsellers during his writing career, and ha ...
(''
Shannara ''Shannara'' is a series of high fantasy novels written by Terry Brooks, beginning with ''The Sword of Shannara'' in 1977 and concluding with ''The Last Druid'' which was released in October 2020; there is also a prequel, '' First King of Shan ...
'') and
Spider Robinson Spider Robinson (born November 24, 1948) is an American-born Canadian science fiction author. He has won a number of awards for his hard science fiction and humorous stories, including the Hugo Award 1977 and 1983, and another Hugo with his co-a ...
(''
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon Callahan's Place is a fictional bar with strongly community-minded and empathetic clientele, part of the fictional universe of American writer Spider Robinson. It appears in the ''Callahan's Crosstime Saloon'' stories (compiled in the ...
''). In ''Mission Critical'' Verdu delved into the topics of evolution and the potential of artificial intelligence. His central issue was how humanity could deal with the awakening of artificial intelligence as an actual new lifeform, not as an anthropomorphic reflection of humans as seen in literature. In this context Verdu sees the current stage of evolution as an intermediate form within the frame of a further evolution.


Reception

American ''
Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
'' magazine named ''Mission Critical'' game of the year 1995. During the "Year in Review 1995" awards hosted by US magazine Computer Game Review ''Mission Critical'' won in the categories "Adventure of the Year" and "Best Graphics of the Year".Nuke.com:


Games

* 1990: '' Spellcasting 101'' (producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1991: ''
Timequest ''Timequest'' is an interactive fiction game released by Legend Entertainment, and written by Bob Bates. The game can be played online at the Internet Archive. Plot In the year 2090 AD, the use of time machines (called interkrons) is regulated ...
'' (co-producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1992: '' Frederik Pohl's Gateway'' (co-producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1993: '' Gateway II: Homeworld'' (co-producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1993: ''
Eric the Unready ''Eric the Unready'' is an adventure game developed and published by Legend Entertainment for MS-DOS in 1993. ''Eric the Unready'' is a parody of the fantasy genre in general, though it parodies numerous other topics as well, ranging from ''Star T ...
'' (co-producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1994: ''
Superhero League of Hoboken ''Superhero League of Hoboken'' is an adventure and role-playing video game developed and published by Legend Entertainment. Designed by Steve Meretzky, the game combines the superhero, comedy and post-apocalypse genres. It was available on bo ...
'' (co-producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1995: '' Mission Critical'' (author, Legend Entertainment) * 1999: ''
The Wheel of Time ''The Wheel of Time'' is a series of high fantasy novels by American author Robert Jordan, with Brandon Sanderson as a co-author for the final three novels. Originally planned as a six-book series, ''The Wheel of Time'' spans 14 volumes, in ad ...
'' (co-producer, Legend Entertainment) * 1999: '' Unreal Mission Pack 1: Return to Na Pali'' (producer, Legend Entertainment) * 2003: '' Unreal II: The Awakening'' (author, Legend Entertainment) * 2006: '' The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II'' (producer, EA Los Angeles) * 2007: '' Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars'' (producer, EA Los Angeles)


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Verdu, Mike 1964 births American video game designers American video game producers Interactive fiction writers Living people Netflix people Video game businesspeople