Vijay Lakshman

Vijay Lakshman is a 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, having been the executive in charge on many mega-franchises, including the Lord of the Rings, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon. He has successfully produced and shipped over 55 titles and generated over one billion dollars in sales revenue to date.

Lakshman began his career at Bethesda Softworks, where he was the designer and producer of The Elder Scrolls: Arena. This title went on to receive the Role-Playing Game of the Year in 1994, and the series has garnered every RPG of the Year award since. Bethesda Softworks latest release, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, is considered to be the standard for RPGs in the PC and Console world.

Lakshman went on to run Looking Glass Technologies, where he was the Executive Producer of Flight Unlimited 2, British Open Golf, Dark Camelot, and Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri. His passion for different genres and game styles allowed him to learn a number of different game development methodologies.

Lakshman has since worked in senior executive positions for FASA Interactive, Bootprint Entertainment, and Vivendi/Universal Games. He served at the latter as Vice President of Development for six years. During the first three years of his leadership VUG saw their revenue rise due to the quality and timeliness of his development plan, and his ability to execute that plan under difficult market circumstances such as the hardware transition from the PlayStation1 to the PlayStation2.

Lakshman was recognized for this achievement and given leadership of Vivendi’s online games division, where he spearheaded the Massively Multiplayer Online Game initiative with Lord of the Rings Online. He was directly responsible for securing creative, art, and technology talent necessary for its successful deployment. LOTR: Shadows of Angmar launched in 2006.

Lakshman has been honored to serve as a judge for The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s Youth Entrepreneurs Semifinal Business Plan Competition, and is a featured speaker on The Business Destiny show, which focuses on providing CEOs and business owners with useful information and insights on how to run and grow their businesses to achieve their personal and professional goals. He has also been a speaker for the 2001 Game Developers Conference on “Managing Mega-Franchises”, and again in 2002 for “What Hot Publishers are Looking For in Game Development”.

Lakshman is a graduate of the George Washington University and the Harvard Business School.