Mike McShaffry

Developer BIO

Mike McShaffry, a.k.a. "Mr. Mike," started programming games as soon as he could tap a keyboard—in fact he somehow skipped 7th grade math entirely in favor of writing games in BASIC on an ancient Commodore Pet. In his singleminded pursuit of programming knowledge, he signed up for an extended stay at the University of Houston. To the surprise of himself and the Dean of Mathematics, he was actually graduated five and one-half years later.

Shortly after graduation he entered the boot camp of the computer game industry: ORIGIN Systems, Inc.. He worked for Warren Spector and Richard Garriott, a.k.a. "Lord British," on Martian Dreams, Ultima VII: The Black Gate, Ultima VIII: Pagan, Ultima IX: Ascension, and Ultima Online. Exactly seven years from the day he was hired, Mike arranged his escape and in 1997 formed his first company, Tornado Alley.

Tornado Alley was a garage start-up whose goal was to create No Grownups Allowed, a massively multiplayer world for children—something that was sure to land Mike and anyone else at Tornado Alley front and center of a Congressional hearing. While No Grownups never left the tarmac, a kid’s activity program called Magnadoodle by Mattel Media did, and in record development time.

The entrepreneurial bug, a ravenous and insatiable beast, finally devoured enough of Mike’s remaining EA stock to motivate him to take a steady gig at Glass Eye Entertainment, working for Monty Kerr, where he produced Microsoft Casino.

Ten short months later, Monty asked Mike and his newly assembled team to start their own company called Compulsive Development, which would work exclusively with Microsoft on casual casino and card games. Mike served as the primary coffee brew master and Head of Studio, and together with the rest of the Compulsive folks, twenty great people in all, produced three more casual titles for Microsoft until August 2002. Compulsive was acquired by Glass Eye Entertainment to continue work on Glass Eye’s growing online casual games business.

Mike then became the Head of Software Development for Glass Eye Entertainment. Mike is never too far away from technology development and research. He still writes code when he can, but he’s also doing business development and project management as well. If Mike’s fingers aren't tapping away at a keyboard, he’s probably either "downhilling" on his mountain bike or enjoying a tasty beverage with his friends in Austin, Texas.

Currently, Mike is working for BreakAway Games in their Austin Studio.

Mike also has credits on these games:

• Magnadoodle by Mattel Media (1999)
• Microsoft Casino by Microsoft (2001)
• Bicycle Casino 2003 by Activision (2003)
• Bicycle Card 2003 by Activision (2003)

Websites

• Mr. Mike -- Mike McShaffry's game consulting business

Games Credited

Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004), Eidos, Inc.
Bicycle Casino Games (2001), Microsoft Corporation
Ultima Online (1997), Electronic Arts, Inc.
Crusader: No Remorse (1995), ORIGIN Systems, Inc.
Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994), ORIGIN Systems, Inc.
Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle (1993), ORIGIN Systems, Inc.
Ultima VII, Part Two: The Silver Seed (1993), Electronic Arts, Inc.
Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992), ORIGIN Systems, Inc.
Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams (1991), ORIGIN Systems, Inc.