Donna Williams Powell (born 10 December 1978) is a British

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

and businesswoman. She is the co-founder of

Neopets ''Neopets'' is a free-to-play virtual pet site, virtual pet browser game. First launched in 1999, the game allows users to own virtual pets ("Neopets") and explore a virtual world called "Neopia." Players can earn one of two virtual currency, v ...

and Meteor Games.

Biography

Williams-Powell grew up in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

where she met business partner and then-boyfriend Adam Powell while they were high school students. Williams-Powell attended the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

and from September 1997 to July 1999 she ran marketing and web design for Powell's company Shout! Advertising, which operated the third largest click-through program on the Internet by mid-1999. From July 1999 to early 2000, she worked at Speedyclick.com, handling website development and Internet advertising services.

Neopets

In September 1999, Williams-Powell created

with Powell. She led site management and operations, which included content planning and game design but later expanded to include managing product promotions and licensing. She expanded Neopets into previously-untapped offline markets, including console games, soft toys, fast-food promotions and

collectible card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. The genre was introduced with ''Magic: The G ...

s. In 2003, she helped establish the partnership with

Beckett Media Beckett Media, LLC is a firm dedicated to covering the sports card, comic book grading, collectibles, and sports memorabilia sectors. Established in 1984 by statistician Dr. James Beckett, it was originally known as Beckett Publications. Hist ...

to publish the bi-monthly ''Neopets: The Official Magazine''. Under Williams-Powell's management and product expansion, Neopets went from its initial launch to over 140 million accounts and 5 billion pageviews per month, and in 2005 was sold to

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...

for US$160 million.

Meteor Games

In 2008, she and Powell launched Meteor Games, an independent game studio in West Hollywood, California. Meteor Games' first project was

Twin Skies Meteor Games was an independent online gaming studio formed in 2007 by Neopets founders Adam Powell and Donna Powell. It went bankrupt in 2012. According to a statement released by the company, its games will "cross the appeal of social netwo ...

, with the first public demo of the game being shown at the

Penny Arcade Expo PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, and Melbourne. Previously, it was also held in San Anton ...

(PAX) in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. The game was originally planned to be in 3D, but was later changed to become a 2D Flash game. In December 2011, Meteor Games laid off 90% of its staff, shut down the Viacom-backed game ''Treasure Keepers'', and subsequently wound down all operations.

Personal life

Williams-Powell married Adam Powell in 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Donna 1978 births Living people Alumni of the University of Nottingham British video game designers Neopets British game designers Women video game designers 21st-century British inventors British women inventors 21st-century women inventors