Jesse N. Schell (born June 13, 1970) is an American video

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

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, as well as the CEO of Schell Games, and a distinguished professor of the practice of

entertainment technology Entertainment technology is the discipline of using manufactured or created components to enhance or make possible any sort of entertainment experience. Because entertainment categories are so broad, and because entertainment models the world in ...

at CMU's

Entertainment Technology Center The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) is a department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the Pittsburgh Technology Center. The ETC offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology ...

(ETC), a joint master's program between the College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. Schell earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

(RPI) and subsequently, earned a master's degree in Information Networking from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

. His early career consisted of his work as a Software Engineer for IBM and

Bell Communications Research iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identi ...

. He then moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

to work with Disney Imagineering. He has also worked as a writer, director, performer, juggler, comedian, and circus artist for both Freihofer's Mime Circus and the Juggler's Guild.

Career

After graduating from the Information Networking Institute at

CMU Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institut ...

in 1994 with a Master of Science in

computer networking A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

, Jesse Schell went on to work for

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

. In 1995 he joined

Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc.—commonly referred to as Walt Disney Imagineering, Imagineering, or WDI—is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construc ...

, where he worked for seven years in the capacity of programmer, manager, designer, and creative director on several projects. These included rides for theme parks like DisneyQuest and

massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, although t ...

s(“MMOs” for short) like ''

Toontown Online ''Toontown Online'', commonly known as ''Toontown'', was a 2003 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on a cartoon animal world, developed by Disney's Virtual Reality Studio and Schell Games, and published by The Walt ...

''. During his time at Disney, he met Carnegie Mellon professor

Randy Pausch Randolph Frederick Pausch () (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch l ...

, who was taking a sabbatical in the lab where Schell worked. When Pausch founded the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU, he invited Schell to become a faculty member. Schell joined the faculty in 2002. In 2002, Schell founded Schell Games, and is its CEO. At Tech 50 in 2016, Schell was awarded CEO of the year, and the year prior, Schell was named one of Pittsburgh's 50 most powerful people. In 2008, Schell published a book titled ''The Art of Game Design''. A second edition was later published in 2014, and a third edition in 2019. Schell is known for his talks on game design, but is best known for his DICE 2010 talk, "Beyond Facebook", which was adopted as a TED "Best of the Web" talk. In 2015, Schell was awarded with a Carnegie Science Award in the entrepreneur category. The program celebrates innovators who have distinguished themselves by making contributions to science and technology in various disciplines. The following year, Schell received a 2016 Creator-of-the-Year award at the CREATE Festival. Since 2016, Schell has been in talks with Disney about reviving ''Toontown Online''. As of August 2018, Schell noted that he is actively talking to Disney about obtaining the rights to ''Toontown Online''.

Games and rides

Schell contributed to the development of certain video games and rides.

Games

* ''

'' * '' Pirates of the Caribbean Online'' * ''

Pixie Hollow Pixie Hollow is a character meet and greet attraction at Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland Hong Kong Disneyland () (abbreviated HKDL; also known as HK Disneyland or Disneyland Hong Kong) is a theme park located on reclaimed land in Penny's ...

Rides

* '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold'' * '' Toy Story Midway Mania''

References

External links

General

Schell in a Handbasket
- Official website *

Talks

DICE 2013: "The Secret Mechanisms"
- 2013 talk that expands on his acclaimed 2010 DICE presentation
DICE 2010: "Beyond Facebook"
- 2010 talk exploring the world of game development beyond the Facebook era
TEDxUniPittsburgh: "The Future is Beautiful"
- 2010 talk about using games to improve education * - 2010 talk about gamification
ARE2010 Keynote: "Seeing"
- 2010 talk about seeing augmented reality with new eyes
Unite Conference 2010: "Who will we talk to? Our Virtual Companions"
- 2010 talk that focuses on the future of virtual characters. {{DEFAULTSORT:Schell, Jesse 1970 births Living people American video game designers Carnegie Mellon University alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty American chief executives