Rachel Bernstein

Last updated
Rachel Bernstein
Alma mater Princeton University
Occupation(s) Video game developer, Video game designer
Known for Frog City Software
Imperialism
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove
Trade Empires

Rachel Bernstein is a video game designer and developer based in San Francisco, USA.

Contents

Education

Bernstein graduated from Princeton University with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1987. [1]

Career

From 1987 to 1994, Bernstein worked as a software engineer. In 1994, she co-founded the company Frog City Software with the brothers Bill and Ted Spieth. Bernstein wrote the code and assembled a development team for a prototype that later became the game Imperialism. The project received funding from Strategic Simulations in 1995, with president Chuck Kroegel describing it as, 'the thinking man's Civilisation'. [2] Imperialism was released in 1997 and has an IGN community rating of 7.8/10. [3] Bernstein oversaw the development of games Imperialism II and Trade Empires, for which she wrote a detailed project breakdown. [4] In 2003, Bernstein sold Frog City to Take-Two Interactive, but continued to run the company as Take-Two's subsidiary. [5]

Bernstein joined Electronic Arts in 2007 and became an executive producer for Maxis, overseeing the development of the Wii version of MySims Agents (2009) and The Sims Medieval (2011). [6]

Since 2013, Bernstein has served as an executive producer at Google for the Android Play Studio. [7]

She has been a speaker at South by Southwest, [6] TEDxYouth, [5] and the 2016 Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit in San Francisco. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Meet Our Speakers". Astra S.t.e.a.m. Program. Astra STEAM. 3 June 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  2. "History". Sidecar Studios. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  3. "Imperialism". IGN . Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  4. "Postmortem: Frog City's Trade Empires". Gamasutra . Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  5. 1 2 "TEDxYouth@Castilleja - RACHEL BERNSTEIN". TEDxYouth. 6 June 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  6. 1 2 Glasser, AJ; Rynak, Allison; Ely, Cara; Bernstein, Rachel (12 March 2013). How Women Are Driving the Gaming Industry Forward. South by Southwest. Hyatt Regency, Austin, TX.
  7. Paul, Ian (3 May 2013). "Android Play Studio hires, Google I/O 2013 lineup hint at game-filled future for Android". Techhive. Green Bot. Retrieved 13 December 2016.