Blue Fang Games has hired Bill Schofield as director of software engineering. He will be responsible for creating and driving the vision of the engineering department, and aligning it to deliver on Blue Fang's mission and goals. Schofield will also coordinate and prioritize departmental work, foster use of best development practices and apply his extensive knowledge and experience with Agile development to game development projects at Blue Fang.
"We are proud to have Bill join Blue Fang Games and lead our engineering team; he brings an impressive, unique set of technical and game development expertise to our group," said Hank Howie, president, Blue Fang Games. "We will be tapping into both his knowledge of Agile game development as well as his engineering experience across a broad set of platforms, including both console and PC games, as we begin work on an exciting new set of game development projects at Blue Fang."
Schofield brings more than 10 years of engineering experience to Blue Fang Games. Prior to joining Blue Fang Games, Schofield was a senior software architect at Ternary Software, an award-winning Agile consultancy and outsourced development company. In this position, he led development teams through design, implementation, testing, and deployment cycles of software development efforts, including both games and Web/database products.
Schofield also held positions as senior software engineer at Electronic Arts, where he was responsible for engineering on the PC game MEDAL OF HONOR: PACIFIC ASSAULT. He also was a senior Programmer at Ritual Ent., working on the games ELITE FORCE II (PC), COUNTERSTRIKE (Xbox), COUNTERSTRIKE: CONDITION ZERO (PC); Schofield also held the position of senior software engineer at Retro Studios, working on METROID PRIME (Gamecube), where he co-architected the MVC-based game framework.
"I am very excited to join the Blue Fang Games team and lead their engineering department," said Schofield. "This is an ideal opportunity to apply my experience and knowledge of Agile game development with a proven leader in the game development industry, and help them deliver on their mission to create games that set the benchmark for broad-based family entertainment."
Blue Fang Games (www.bluefang.com) is an independent game developer dedicated to creating compelling, emotionally engaging games focused on the animal kingdom that set the benchmark for broad-based family entertainment. Blue Fang's ZOO TYCOON franchise, published by Microsoft Game Studios, has established itself as one of the most popular PC gaming franchises and has sold more than 5 million units worldwide. Founded in 1998, Blue Fang Games is located in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
