Johann Ertl

Born in former CSSR in the 70ies, Ivan Ertlov grew up as Johann Ertl in Lower Austria. During grammar school, he managed to sell his first games (mostly adventures for C64) to DiscMags. In the mid-90ies, Ivan Ertlov was among the best render Artists in Austria with his shows "Welcome to the Cyberspace" and "Atomic City" being shown at the Knight Games events with hundreds of thousands of visitors.

After several years of studying, DJ-ing and journalism, with a PhD earned, Ivan became a teacher in Lower Austria. He managed to survive the kids and pupils for five months before going back into media business as Online Writer for the JoWooD AG, developer and publisher of the "Giant" and publisher of Gothic.

Working his way up the career ladder, Ivan became Editor, Community Manager and finally Head of the Community Management in 2005. He left JoWooD in 2005, outsourcing himself and creating the company "HRMC" that has been managing gaming communities (of course including the one of JoWooD) for almost 3 years. In addition to that, he worked on marketing, PR, Game Design issues, business evaluation and even as actor for cutscenes, motion capturing and gaming arts.

In 2006, he created the "Gothic 3 & Guild 2" promotion tour, sending a band of medieval mercenaries through Europe, visiting the most important re-enactment and medieval festivals, which is still considered as one of the most spectacular PR events ever introduced in Europe. He was part of the group himself and he got hurt sever times by his opponents swords when fighting in front of journalists.

In 2007, the label "Homegrown Games" was introduced to the public, a small development group founded and led by Ivan and now developing independent games.

In spring 2009, Ivan took over the Producing Departement of JoWooD, firefighting and re-scoping the development of the AAA RPG project "ArcaniA" until fall 2009. He was also responsible for the producing of sever other titles published by JoWooD and Dreamcatcher.

Personal Achievements:

"Award of Excellence in Marketing" granted 2003 by AET

"Deutscher Entwicklerpreis beste Community" (for Gothic 3, 2006)

Goethe Academy Award (for poetry)

"Silberner Hahn" - Lower Austrian marketing award

"Silver Medal of Creativity" (OESF, 2006)

"The Best of the Best" - Developer Award by TGC

The games in which Ivan had been involved won hundreds of international Awards and sold millions of copies.