Mark Eyles

As Creative Director at Quicksilva in 1981 Mark Eyles was one of a handful of pioneers establishing the games industry in the UK. From 1981 to 2003 Mark had a far reaching career in the games industry working as a designer, producer and manager for companies like Sega, Electronic Arts, Hasbro, Microprose, Activision, SCI, Nintendo, Climax etc. He has worked as both a freelancer and company director. His final full time games industry role was as Head of Design at Rebellion in Oxford. He has also written for comics (2000AD & Sonic the Comic) and run a holography studio. Originally he trained as a maths and English teacher and taught 11 – 16 year olds maths 1979-1981.

Following his games industry career Mark joined the University of Portsmouth where, in 2003, he set up and subsequently ran three games courses in the School of Creative Technologies. In 2006 he formed the Advanced Games Research Group; in 2012 he completed a PhD investigating ambient gameplay.

Mark is currently Animation, Games and Enterprise Section Lead at the university. He also has a role as an Educational Advisor to TIGA (The Independent Game Developers Association), where he has led the development of the TIGA Accreditation scheme for games courses, which he now runs. He started the Women in Games conferences (ran from 2004 to 2011). He is part of indie game developer Ambient Quest Studios which has been running since 2008.