Thomas Simon

WORK HISTORY

ABOUT THOMAS SIMON

Experienced Game director / Design director with a project-wide vision and impact and a strong focus on building high-quality & scalable game mechanics/systems in line with production and tech capacities. I had the chance to collaborate both with large teams within large organizations (Ubisoft, Electronic Arts) and also experienced the creation of a smaller independent studio (Monster Closet Games). This extensive 25+ years experience in 4 different countries gave me the opportunity to work on all aspects of game design (3Cs, core gameplay, systems, progression, UI, cooperative or competitive multiplayer, world building) and to develop multiple new IPs or sequels on all types of platforms, while building design teams of up to 13 designers. Over the course of my career, I\'ve developed a strong knowledge of multiple game models, from very large to F2P seasonal models, to license-driven or time-to-market opportunity games.I firmly believe that our role as game designers on a game does not stop with ideas, pitches or adjusting design data; designing game mechanics is a lengthy process of constantly caring for features from conception & prototyping to production, debug & live updates. As such, I\'m strongly involved in the production & QC processes to get a complete picture of the project\'s status & challenges, and make sure everybody has all the design info they need to take informed decisions.In my mind also, designers do not own design ideas on the project - ideas will be found everywhere in the team and the designers are not expected to find them all; instead, they should emulate the creative process within the team and help everyone bringing their gameplay ideas forward while making sure they stay consistent with the rest of the design architecture to avoid discrepancies or waste efforts.I have no doubts when it comes to the importance of creating diverse teams, in term of gender, heritage and also social origins, as I believe it is both fairer at a human level and critical to be able to make games for everyone.On a more personal note, I\'m a very outdoorsy person and there is no rain, snow or wind that will prevent me from bicycling or trekking in nature; I\'m also an avid yoga practitioner. Gaming has been a core part of my life since I was a child, not only through video games but also thanks to all forms of paper role-playing games, board games or simply inventing systems for my own made-up activities. My ultimate designer dream would be to find a way to gamify the income tax, to make it fun, engaging and more universal.