Jason C.
French
____________________________________________________________________________________
SUMMARY
Languages:
C, C++, SQL
Game Areas
of Expertise: Online, Gameplay, UI,
AI, and Tools
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS2, Xbox, GameCube
10 Years in the Game Industry
Shipped 8 games on various platforms
7 years as Games Software Engineer; 3 as a Lead
Software Engineer
3 years Management experience
Good communicator with proven leadership skills at
one of the largest game studios
Responsible for hiring of engineers at EA-Tiburon
EXPERIENCE Electronic Arts – Tiburon
October 2000 – Present
Maitland,
NCAA
Football 09 (Xbox 360 / PS3 / PS2) July 2007 - Present
Development
Director
NCAA Football 09 is a continuation of the NCAA
Football series with a scheduled release of July 2008. I am responsible for
defining the processes by which the game is done with four development managers
reporting to me. The four-sub teams consist of 4 – 10 engineers each. Along
with a project manager, we schedule and hold the team responsible for getting
the work done on time. In this position, I am responsible for risk management,
setting game development processes, and coordination with central development
teams. I run regular team meetings and I am also responsible for communicating
team progress to upper management.
NFL Head
Coach 09 (Xbox 360 / PS3) & “SuperSim” June 2006 – June 2007
Senior
Development Manager
I worked on NFL Head Coach 09 for only half of its
development cycle before moving over to NCAA Football 09. The team was small
consisting of two designers and five engineers. During this time, we designed
and implemented a small project called “SuperSim” which was then integrated
into Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360 / PS3), NCAA Football 08 (Xbox 360 / PS3), and
NCAA Football 09 (PS2). The goal of the project was to give the user the
ability to pause the game and simulate a series of
plays instead of actually playing them. For SuperSim, I was responsible for
making sure all the designs & technical designs were complete and created a
four month schedule to complete the project. For NFL Head Coach 09 I was
responsible for organizing the pre-production and doing planning for the ramp
of the full team for the second half of development.
NFL Head
Coach (Xbox / PS2 / PC) December 2005 –
May 2006
Development
Manager
I moved to NFL Head Coach in the last milestone of
development because they were struggling to get features into a completed
state. I was given six engineers and a designer to manage and was responsible
for the Gameplay and Online pods. I was responsible for making sure each
feature for those areas were completed in full. I managed the development
schedule, managed bug flow, and tracked dependencies with art and central data.
Madden NFL
06 (Xbox 360) September 2004 – November
2005
Development
Manager
I made the transition from software engineer to
manager for the first time on Madden NFL 06, a launch title for the Xbox 360.
This was the first “next gen” title for EA-Tiburon. I was given sixteen
engineers to supervise across several disciplines: graphics, user interface,
gameplay, and online. I managed the development schedules,
build schedule, bug flow, and making sure all technical designs were written.
Madden NFL
2005 (PS2 / Xbox / GameCube)
August 2003 – August 2004
Lead
Software Engineer
For this project I was one of the Lead Software
Engineers and was responsible for three other engineers all of us working in
the UI and Franchise simulation portion of the game. My engineering duties
included architecting and implementing the Storyline Central feature in
Franchise. This was a data driven decision tree and keyword text replacement
system which picked and displayed newspaper stories relevant to what was
happening in a user’s Franchise. I was also responsible for posing the players
in the UI to simulate a picture in a newspaper and implementing a speech system
for the EA Sports Radio feature. For the Collector’s Edition, I implemented low
level support for dual layer DVD9 which doubled the amount of content we could
put on the pressed DVD. This was the first PS2 DVD9 format shipped at EA.
Madden NFL 2004 (PC)
August 2002 – July 2003
Lead Software Engineer
For this project I was the Lead Programmer and was
responsible for the entire development of the project. My duties were the
scheduling and management of three engineers and one artist as well as a full
engineering workload. I also coordinated our online component, which was being
created by a team at EA-Canada. My engineering duties included the porting of
current Madden NFL 2004 (PS2 / Xbox) features to the PC as well as the
integration of the EA Sports Online component from EA-Canada. From a management
perspective, the project was a great success. We passed every milestone without
a single failure from QA. It was also the first time in two years that we
delivered the final product to CQC on the originally scheduled ship date as
well as going through on our first pass.
Madden NFL 2003 (PC) August 2001 – July 2002
Lead Software Engineer
For this project I was the Lead Game Programmer,
which gave me the duties of doing the scheduling and management of four
engineers: two engineers working in
Madden NFL 2002 (PC)
October 2000 – July 2001
Software Engineer
The plan for Madden 2002 PC was to take the PC 2001
front-end and graphics engine and combine it with the PS2 2001 AI &
animation engine. My duties were to merge the online capabilities of the PC
version and make it work with the PS2 game engine. I was also responsible for
making the PC 2001 front-end and franchise data transition into the PS2 in-game
code. During Alpha, I had to fix many of the bugs from the previous year in
their Online Dynasty feature.
Atomic Games January 1998 – October
2000
“Hammer’s Slammers” & “Ground Zero” December 1999 – October 2000
Lead Software Engineer
“Hammer’s Slammers” was a sci-fi real-time strategy
game using the NetImmerse 3D engine. I was the Lead
Programmer, which gave me the duties of scheduling the project as well as
organizing and co-authoring the technical design. My duties included 3D graphic
and animation interfaces with the NetImmerse 3D
engine, as well as, the framework for the tactical game system. “Ground Zero” was
a new game engine that was going to be used for all new games at Atomic. I was
co-designer and lead programmer for the implementation. The idea behind Ground
Zero was to come up with a portable game engine by breaking it into different
modules that could be worked on independently and used across projects. For
this, we architected it using object-oriented design and strictly defined the
interface between the modules so that coupling between them could be kept at a
bare minimum. Modules include a game system, operating system, online, and 2D
and 3D Engines.
Close Combat:
Software Engineer
This game saw the addition of a new strategic layer,
which tied the different tactical level battles together. My main duties were Tactical Artificial
Intelligence and Online programming. I
designed and implemented the integration of the new strategic layer with the
existing tactical layer. This brought in
a new feature of being able to attack onto various sides of a map, which was
new to the engine. Also added was the
new concept of battle groups with force pools.
I implemented the logic behind their repair and requisition of
units. In the tactical layer I was
responsible for the damage inflected during artillery and air strikes as well
as the ability of the soldiers to dig defensive trenches and gun pits during
deployment. Finally, I delved into the
existing vehicle pathing and improved it so that they
avoided other vehicles better.
Close Combat III: The Russian Front January 1998 – December 1998
Software Engineer
My main duties were Online and Tools programming. I
converted present engine networking system from Winsock TCP/IP to Microsoft
DirectPlay v6. This included being able to launch from an Internet lobby, like
Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone as well as optimizing game packets so that
only current information that had changed was sent. At the beginning of the project I was
responsible for converting several tools from the Macintosh platform to the
Windows platform. Including the Map Tool
which allows the artists to define what each section of the pre-rendered map is
for the game system.
EDUCATION Bachelor of Science in Computer
Science Engineering,
The