We can’t talk about the work we’re doing, so we’re talking about the people doing the work. There comes a time in every studio’s life where you realize you joined up to make games, and now that you’ve had a bit of success, you…no longer have time to work on games. All the business of running a business creeps in, and if you really care about your company, you can’t hand off the financial reins to just anyone. You need someone who understands games, game development, and game developers. You need someone who is well versed in all aspects of getting a game off the whiteboards and into the hands of players, with a sense of when to step in and when to stay back. That person is very, very hard to find. Undead Labs is lucky: We have Ted Woolsey. We met him because he was one of the people at Microsoft who gave the green light to State of Decay back in 2009. Throughout the development process, he was a true friend and a staunch ally. Frankly, the only reason we could bear to lose him from the publishing team was because we gained him for our development team. Read on, and learn a little more about what goes on behind the curtain. — Sanya
Long Strange Trip
by Ted Woolsey
Title
General Manager, Undead Labs LLC
Responsibilities
Supporting–and staying out of the way of–our amazing development team. Includes everything from general planning, selecting company-wide insurance plans, working on IRS forms, playing games, negotiating agreements of various types and jumping in to help in any way necessary. Sound ambiguous? Sort of, I guess, but it is dead on in terms of what I was looking for.