TechTV Help Site of the Week!

GameDev.net has received accolades from numerous sources. Nearly every game development book published in the last several years praises GameDev.net as the best place on the Internet to learn about game development. We've been mentioned in many magazines and other periodicals. We've even been featured on television, being named as TechTV's Help Site of the Week in November 2000.

Nowhere will you find a team of people more qualified to run a game development website than the group of people that brings you GameDev.net. Our staff members have been producing high quality game development sites since 1996, and together we have over 20 years of web development experience. Three of our staff members have written game development books. To find out more about the people behind GameDev.net, read on!

Founders

Kevin "Khawk" Hawkins
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer
kevin@gamedev.net
ICQ#: 12546632
From: Orlando, Florida

Site Responsibilities: As one of the co-founders and CEO, my responsibilities vary from day to day, but in the end I help ensure GameDev.net maintains its focus in providing a high quality experience for game developers and those interested in game development, as well as creating and maintaining contact with other entities in the game industry. I'm also responsible for news administration, contests, the GameDev.net chatroom, working on the backend site software when needed, ensuring GameDev.net maintains a healthy financial status, hosted sites, public relations, and whatever else may come up that day.

A Little about Yourself:
Degrees: B.S. Computer Science (2001), Master's of Software Engineering (2003) - Embry-Riddle University
Publications: Beginning OpenGL Game Programming, OpenGL Game Programming, contributor for Game Programming: Tricks of the Trade
Hobbies: Golf, guitar, bodyboarding, music, various other sports, the beach, reading, learning, living, playing with the dog
Other: Played intercollegiate baseball for Embry-Riddle for 5 years. Drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the 35th round of the 2002 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft.

"Act as if it were impossible to fail."
"To succeed, it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it."

Dave "Myopic Rhino" Astle
Executive Vice President and Executive Producer
dave@gamedev.net
ICQ: 16125317
From: San Diego, CA

Site Responsibilities: I'm involved in just about everything. I manage the reference section, including the featured articles, I handle most of the book reviews, and I'm responsible for the site design.

A Little About Yourself: I got my first computer (an Atari 400) at the age of 10, specifically for making games. After doing that for about 5 years, I got away from programming for a while, but then got back into it in 1997 when I returned to college at the University of Utah to finish my computer science degree, which I completed in 2001.

I'm currently working a Staff Engineer at Qualcomm, where I'm heavily involved in the development of their 3D gaming solutions.

I coauthored OpenGL Game Programming, Beginning OpenGL Game Programming, and OpenGL ES Game Development. I've contributed to many other books and I'm a regular speaker at industry conferences.

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill today because they pissed me off and also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on today, as they may be connected to the ass that I may have to kiss tomorrow."

Mike Tanczos
Chairman and Chief Technology Officer
From: Pennsylvania
mike@gamedev.net

Site Responsibilities: CGI/ASP Programmer, Artist

A Little about Yourself: I've been programming for roughly 14 years, having started with a Commodore 64. As far as education goes, my major area of focus in high school was business, in which I had the opportunity to place in the top 25 in a national DECA competition. Upon entering college at Pennsylvania State University (PSU), I switched over to the Computer Science degree program. I completed the Computer Science degree program in May of 2001. Since then I have earned a CCNA (Cisco Certified Networking Associate) certification and am currently enrolled at Kutztown University in their masters degree in secondary education (math specialization) program.

I was webmaster of Game Programming '9x since 1996. The site has since merged with GameDev.net to help create one of the largest Game Development resources anywhere. In addition to running the Game Programming '9x site, I also ran my own business which specializes in web development and hosting. I've also attained the rank of Eagle Scout from the BSA, and have published an article which will appear in one of LaMothe's books. I am currently teaching computer networking at Easton Area High School in Pennsylvania.

"There are three types of people in this world.. those who can count, and those who can't." -Read it off of some website...

John Munsch and Don Thorp
IT Department
john@gamedev.net
From: Texas

Site Responsibilities: Server administration

"I yam what I yam." - Popeye

Additional GameDev.net Staff

GameDev.net was created with the sole purpose of providing a public site where game developers could freely exchange information. This site isn't powered by a large corporation. It is powered by game developers, real people with real experience and education in their fields. And lastly, it is powered by you the viewer, who may some day find a topic you'd be interested in sharing with the rest of us.

This site contains technical articles that have been written by literally hundreds of people across the world on various topics and varying skill levels. Chances are, if you're looking for it, we have it. If we don't have it, let us know and we'll try to find someone knowledgeable in that area to write about it.

This site contains news. We keep you updated on the latest happenings in the game development world. If a game development team creates a break-through technique in the far off nether regions of Siberia, disconnected from the world and surrounded by miles of nothing but ice and snow, with the only mode of travel being a pack of trained Yetti's pulling a broken-down Florida oranges crate with two brooms attached as skiis, we'll find some way to get that info to you! (okay, okay.. perhaps that's pushing it slightly, we may have trouble finding more than one Yeti). Let us put it in a different way, if it matters to you.. you'll hear about it from us. 'Nuff said.

This site is about community. We do our best to make the environment friendly to all walks of life in the game development world. We're all game developers in some form.. is there anything easier to get together behind than the pursuit of creating the ultimate game? We look forward to talking with you all out in the discussion forums.

History

Devgames.com  Game Prog. 9x  Sweet.Oblivion

GameDev.net has a rather interesting history. Starting from a conversation between Dave Astle of Sweet.Oblivion and Mike Tanczos of Game Programming 99, an idea of the owners of several of the largest game development sites in the world to join forces was forged. At first we thought small, deciding to create a simple resource page which would merely link to each other's prime material.

After contacting John Munsch of DevGames, the possibilities were blown into the stratosphere. Not wanting to create merely a portal page, Munsch insisted that our sites join forces to create one large site. Discussion between the people behind the sites began, quickly leading to an agreement to launch a game development site which would come to make even so-called 'mega-sites' look small.

Realizing the potential of an existing Affiliate group created by Michael Tanczos, which consisted of the three previous sites and the Game Development Search Engine, Wotsit's Format, and Demonews, discussion further escalated to include those sites. This resulted in an agreement on varying levels between all the sites to assist each other in the creation of the new site, which we dubbed "GameDev.net".

The domain was snatched up, and design and layout discussions began in early April. By the beginning of May, development on the site would begin at a feverish pace. Slating our original launch at June 1st, we realized that an effort of this magnitude would be impossible to achieve in that short of a time. Development would continue up to our finalized June 15th launch date.

GameDev.net v1 6/99-12/99

GameDev.net would undergo many changes over the next few years. We soon added several major sites to our family as hostees, including NeHe Productions, the best place on the web to learn about OpenGL, and Wotsit's File Formats. The original design, shown above, was replaced in January 2000 with GameDev.net v2. At the same time, to meet the growing popularity of our forums, we launched new forum software which we had developed in-house to be more tightly integrated with the rest of the site. A year later, the forums were updated, with a new look, new features, and numerous bug fixes. With the launch of the new forums, the staff began to look at other areas of the site that could be improved, and it became clear that a complete redesign was in order. On June 20, 2001, 5 days after our second birthday, GameDev.net v3 launched, with a new, sleeker design, featuring tight integration of all our content. What else do we have in store? You'll have to wait and see.

GameDev.net v2 1/00-6/01