Tim Train is the Studio General Manager for Zynga East, where he released the smash hit Facebook game Frontierville. A recent Wall Street Journal report potentially valued Zygna at USD$10 billion, and Frontierville had 30 million Monthly Average Users at its peak.
But Tim is not just a ‘social gaming’ guy. He has serious hardcore gaming credentials, having worked on the original Sid Meier’s Civilisation, Magic: The Gathering, X-COM: UFO Defense, Rise of Nations and more.
Next Tuesday 21 June is your chance to hear one of the most influential people in gaming today, in Auckland for one night only.
Cost: $20 special offer
We have arranged a special deal for Playmaker and Auckland Game Developer Meetup members - you are eligible for the $20 members tickets.
Pizza and nibbles are included. A cash bar is available.
Please RSVP at: http://keaaklgameon-efbevent.eventbrite.com/
About Tim Train, Studio General Manager, Zynga East
Over his twenty years in the video game industry, Tim has worked in virtually every genre of interactive entertainment and contributed to some of the best-loved franchises in history. He is now the General Manager of Zynga East, the studio that produced last year’s FrontierVille and was named one of the World’s Top Five Developers by Gamasutra for 2010. From the early days of the industry, up through the social media revolution, Tim has followed his mantra: “you gotta have fun to make fun.”
Tim’s career began in 1991 at the legendary MicroProse Software. His first project was working on the original Sid Meier’s Civilization, considered one of the best and most influential games of all time. While at MicroProse, he began his longtime collaboration with Brian Reynolds, working with him on Sid Meier’s Colonization and Civilization II. Other titles included Magic: The Gathering, Masters of Orion, X-COM: UFO Defense, Command HQ, and F-14 Fleet Defender.
Tim then joined Sid and Brian at Firaxis Games, where he acted as Designer and Producer on 1999’s landmark Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. This product still holds the title as PC Gamer’s highest rated game of all time, winning numerous “Game of the Year” awards. Tim also headed up the expansion team for the title.
In 2000, Tim and Brian co-founded Big Huge Games with two other partners. Over the next ten years, the company produced several successful titles, including Rise of Nations and Catan XBLA. As PC titles declined in popularity, Tim led the transformation of the company into a top-notch console role-playing team, negotiated the sale of the studio, and closed a publishing deal with Electronic Arts for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Energized by the exploding possibilities of the social media gaming space, Tim joined Zynga East in 2010 as Studio General Manager, reuniting with Brian and many of the veterans from Big Huge Games. The team’s smash hitFrontierVille has rewritten the rules for social media games and become one of the most popular games on Facebook.
Tim is in New Zealand courtesy of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.