eric zimmerman

ERIC ZIMMERMAN

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Shamlessly Self-Promoting Bio

ERIC ZIMMERMAN is a game designer, entrepreneur, author, and academic who has been working in the game industry for more than 16 years.

Eric's diverse activities have made him one of the New York Observer's "Power Punks," one of Interview Magazine's "30 To Watch," one of International Design Magazine's “ID 40” influential designers and one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “Digital 50” along with Stephen Spielberg and Will Wright. Eric recently was honored with a “VIP Award” by the International Game Developers Association for his years of work in the game creation community. Eric has been called “The Lou Reed of Games” by author Stephen Johnson in Emergence and leading games scholar Dr. James Paul Gee has written that Eric “is surely one of the smartest and most creative humans I have ever met.”

Eric is the Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer of Gamelab, a game development company based in New York City that was named one of 5 "Rising Star" design firms by HOW Magazine. Gamelab's games, which include the casual game blockbuster hit Diner Dash, have won awards from the Independent Games Festival, Games for Change, ID Magazine, Art Directors Club, ARS Electronica, as well as finalist nominations in the Webby Awards, the IGDA Developers Choice Awards, and the Zeebys casual game awards. Founded in 2000, Gamelab created innovative games for broad audiences, including singleplayer and multiplayer online games, as well as games in other media both on and off the computer. Gamelab worked with partners including LEGO, HBO, VH-1, Nickelodeon, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Disney, Mattel, PlayFirst, PBS, Fisher-Price, Leapfrog, and many, many others. Gamelab closed its doors in 2009.

Gamelab spun off two successful companies, including Gamestar Mechanic, an online site that was funded by the MacArthur Foundation that lets kids create games. Gamelab also created the Institute of Play, a nonprofit that looks at the intersection of games and learning and recently launched Quest to Learn, a school in New York City based on play as the model for learning. Eric's game design work prior to Gamelab includes the critically acclaimed SiSSYFiGHT 2000 as well as the PC games Gearheads and The Robot Club. He sits on the boards of Games for Change and The Institute of Play and the Advisory for Digital Media for Global Kids.

Eric lectures and publishes extensively on games, including keynotes at major industry events. He is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, the definitive textbook on game design (MIT Press, 2004). He is also the co-editor with Katie Salen of The Game Design Reader (MIT Press, 2006) and co-editor with Amy Scholder of RE:PLAY - Game Design and Game Culture (Peter Lang Press, 2003). Eric has taught courses at MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and Game Center, Parsons School of Design's MFA in Digital Technologies Program, and School of Visual Arts' Design as Author MFA Program. He has exhibited game artworks at museums and galleries in the US and abroad. Eric studies Shaolin KungFu at the USA Shaolin Temple under Sifu Shi Yan Ming.

Eric is an internationally recognized creative force, design scholar, and gadfly pundit on game design and game culture.

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