Jeffrey Anderson | |
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Born | Rockford, Illinois, U.S. |
Alma mater | |
Occupation(s) | Chief Executive Officer, NCSoft West |
Years active | 2021–present |
Spouses | Josette Anderson (m. 2019)Susan Anderson (deceased) (m. 1990) |
Children | 2 |
Jeffrey Anderson is currently serving as the founder and managing director of Kickstand, LCC. [1] Kickstand is a boutique corporate advisory firm that offers professional guidance and consulting support to digital gaming, media and technology companies. In this role, Anderson provides seed and venture capital as well as board management, product strategy, and marketing support.
Anderson received an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign where he was one in the top 3% of his graduating class. [2] He also has a JD from the University of Chicago where he served on the University of Chicago Law Review. [3] After graduating, he went to work as an attorney at the law firm of Holleb & Coff in Chicago, Illinois. Feeling that the legal profession was not for him, he joined with Thomas Ptak and others to start Mission Studios (which was later sold to Take-Two). After that, he moved to Los Angeles and joined Viacom's consumer products division where he worked on various initiatives from Star Trek licensing to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. In 1998, Electronic Arts recruited him to join its Austin, Texas studio to oversee the Ultima Online franchise along with Raph Koster and Richard Garriott. [4]
Then, in 2001, Turbine Inc recruited him to be its president and CEO. The company had a software development agreement with Microsoft at the time to develop Asheron's Call 2, but wanted to expand the business and become the largest independent MMORPG company in the world. Anderson successfully raised capital from Highland Capital Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, and secured the rights to develop two new MMORPG games known as Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online. He went on to raise $30 million in additional funds from Tudor Ventures and Columbia Capital for development and expansion capital. [5] Anderson left Turbine in 2008 and the company was subsequently sold to Warner Brothers. [6]
After a short break, Anderson went on to found Quick Hit and Quick Hit Football. This new online gaming studio developed the world's first free-to-play National Football League-licensed online football game. [7] The company raised capital from New Enterprise Associates and had some moderate success before it was ultimately sold to Majesco in 2011. [8] As a part of Majesco's senior executive leadership, Anderson was responsible for driving the company's social and mobile business, including the original Quick Hit Football game as well as Cooking Mama and other titles.
Once the earn-out from the sale of Majesco was over, Anderson left the company and joined the Game Show Network in 2013 [9] as chief strategy officer under David Goldhill. Under his leadership, GSN acquired the makers of Bingo Bash [10] and others. At the time, Bingo Bash was one the world's most profitable and successful social bingo games according to the CY16 annual report published by Eilers and Krejcik. [11] In addition to serving as the CSO, Anderson also spent time operating GSN's many gaming divisions and apps as its executive vice president of social casino and bingo, including Bingo Bash, GSN Casino, Wheel of Fortune Slots, Fresh Deck Poker, and many more.
After nearly seven years with GSN, Anderson left the company to pursue a new opportunity with Hasbro as the head of its global gaming business. In that role, he served as the senior vice president and general manager of global gaming. [12] At Hasbro, Anderson was responsible for driving Hasbro's portfolio of iconic game brands (such as Monopoly, Risk, Cluedo, and Game of Life) where the total value of the portfolio exceeded 700 million U.S. dollars in global annual sales. [13] Specifically, Anderson oversaw the strong growth over Hasbro's iconic Monopoly brand which is the leader in the 7.2 billion U.S. dollars Tabletop game industry. [14] Moreover, in 2020, Wizards of the Coast announced that its Avalon Hill brands would be moved over to Hasbro and be overseen by the gaming group. [15] Subsequently, Hasbro announced that it was relaunching a new version of HeroQuest, the iconic role-playing game on its crowd-funding platform. [16]
Following Hasbro, Anderson joined NCSoft West as its chief executive officer, overseeing NCSoft's gaming business in the Americas, EMEA, and Oceana regions. He was appointed to this position on July 28, 2021, replacing Dr. Songyee Yoon. [17] As the head of NCSoft West, Anderson is in charge of the company's internal development at its first-party studio ArenaNet, publishing Aion (video game), Blade & Soul, Fuser (video game), Guild Wars, Lineage II and Lineage 2 Mobile ("L2M"), and corporate operations of more than 400 employees in Aliso Viejo, Austin, Bellevue, London, and San Mateo. Under his leadership, the studio launched the third expansion pack for Guild Wars 2, entitled "End of Dragons," on February 28, 2022 [18] as well as releasing the title on Steam (service). [19]
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast, now a subsidiary of Hasbro, since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, and also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre.
WB Games Boston is an American video game developer. The studio is best known for its massive multiplayer online role-playing games, Asheron's Call, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and The Lord of the Rings Online.
Game Show Network (GSN) is an American basic cable channel owned by Sony Pictures Television. The channel's programming is primarily dedicated to game shows, including reruns of acquired game shows, along with new, first-run original and revived game shows. The network has also previously aired reality competition series and televised poker.
Asheron's Call (AC) was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows PCs, developed and published by Turbine Entertainment Software. Though it was developed by the Turbine team, it was published as a Microsoft title until 2004. The game was set on the island continent of Dereth and several surrounding smaller islands and archipelagos on the fictional planet of Auberean. The game was played in a large seamless 3D virtual world which could host thousands of players' characters at a time.
Wizards of the Coast LLC is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidiary of Hasbro, which acquired the company in 1999. During a February 2021 reorganization at Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast became the lead part of the new "Wizards & Digital" division.
Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux is a British-born American video game developer, entrepreneur and space tourist.
Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres of video games, such as the Ultima and Wing Commander series. The company was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1992.
Lineage is a medieval fantasy, massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in Korea and the United States in 1998 by the South Korean computer game developer NCSoft, based on a Korean comic book series of the same name. It is the first game in the Lineage series. It is most popular in Korea and is available in Chinese, Japanese, and English. The game was designed by Jake Song, who had previously designed Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, another MMORPG.
NCSoft Corporation is a South Korean video game developer and publisher headquartered in Pangyo, Seongnam, South Korea, primarily known for the distribution of massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Lineage and Guild Wars.
Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents. The terms are most often used in games where both activities exist, particularly MMORPGs, MUDs, and other role-playing video games, to distinguish between gamemodes. PvP can be broadly used to describe any game, or aspect of a game, where players compete against each other. PvP is often controversial when used in role-playing games. In most cases, there are vast differences in abilities between players. PvP can even encourage experienced players to immediately attack and kill inexperienced players. PvP is often referred to as player killing in the cases of games which contain, but do not focus on, such interaction.
Guild Wars is an online role-playing game franchise developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSOFT. The games were critically well received and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as Best Value, Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), and Best Game. Guild Wars was noted for being the "first major MMO to adopt a business model not based on monthly subscription fees", its instanced approach to gameplay, and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications. In April 2009, NCSoft announced that 6 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold. The sequel and fourth major entry into the series, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007 and released on August 28, 2012. It features updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and continues the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees. The Guild Wars series had sold 11.5 million copies by August 2015
Scott Jennings, also known as Lum the Mad, is an American commentator on MMORPG games. He is best known for creating a website, The Rantings of Lum The Mad, a pioneer blog, which existed from 1998 to 2001, when Jennings was hired by MMO developer Mythic Entertainment, where he remained until 2006.
ArenaNet, LLC is an American video game developer and subsidiary of NCsoft, founded in 2000 by Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain and located in Bellevue, Washington. They are most notable as developers of the online role-playing game series Guild Wars.
Fujisankei Communications International, Inc. (FCI) is the American arm of the Fujisankei Communications Group, a Japanese media conglomerate of television and radio channels, magazine, newspaper, record and video game companies. The Fujisankei Communications Group regroups more than 90 companies, like Fuji TV in Japan, among others. Founded in 1986 in New York City and owned by Fuji Media Holdings, FCI makes productions from the Fujisankei Communications Group available to the United States and the rest of the western world.
Peter D. Adkison is an American game designer and businessman who is the founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast (1993–2001).
The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which receives significant attention in the media and in popular culture, has been the subject of numerous controversies. The game sometimes received unfavorable coverage, especially during its early years in the early 1980s. Because the term D&D may be mistakenly used to refer to all types of role-playing games, some controversies regarding D&D mistakenly pertain to role-playing games in general, or to the literary genre of fantasy. Some controversies concern the game and its alleged impact on those who play it, while others concern business issues at the game's original publisher, TSR. The game is now owned by Wizards of the Coast.
Guild Wars 2 is a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. Set in the fantasy world of Tyria, the core game follows the re-emergence of Destiny's Edge, a disbanded guild dedicated to fighting Elder Dragons, colossal Lovecraftian-esque entities that have seized control of Tyria in the time since the original Guild Wars (2005), a plot line that concludes in the third expansion End of Dragons (2023). The game takes place in a persistent world with a story that progresses in instanced environments.
The history of massively multiplayer online games spans over thirty years and hundreds of massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) titles. The origin and influence on MMO games stems from MUDs, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and earlier social games.
Majesco Entertainment Company is an American video game publisher and distributor based in Hazlet, New Jersey. The company was founded as Majesco Sales in Edison, New Jersey in 1986, and was a privately held company until acquiring operation-less company ConnectivCorp in a reverse merger takeover, becoming its subsidiary and thus a public company on December 5, 2003. ConnectivCorp later changed its name to Majesco Holdings Inc. on April 13, 2004.