Ryan Wyatt (born October 7, 1986) is an American gaming executive. He is the former global head of gaming partnerships at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and head of gaming at

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, where he also led their virtual and

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

business. Wyatt now serves as the CEO of Polygon Studios.

Early life

Wyatt was born in

Canton, Ohio Canton () is a city in Stark County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, eighth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 70,872 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Canton–Massillo ...

, and raised in the neighbouring town of

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudson Rodrigues dos Santos, Brazilian f ...

, going on to attend

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. As a child, he was diagnosed with

Crohn's disease Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea, fever, abdominal distension, and weight loss. Complications outside of the ...

and received treatment at the

Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Academic health science center, academic Medical centers in the United States, medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an O ...

Children's Hospital.

Career

Wyatt began his commentary career working for

Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) was a professional esports organization based in New York City. Founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso, MLG held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The ''Boos ...

(MLG) in 2008, casting at events such as the 2009 '' Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare'' National Championship, as well as working as a referee and head of online tournaments for MLG's online eSports service GameBattles. In 2011, he joined

Machinima Machinima () is the use of Real-time computing, real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. The word "Machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''machine'' and ''Film, cinema''. According to Guinness World Records, ma ...

as head of live and eSports, but returned to MLG in April 2014 to serve as vice president of programming. As part of the deal, Wyatt's personal live video and YouTube channels were aired exclusively on MLG's streaming service MLG.tv, as well as their YouTube channel. In October 2014, Wyatt left MLG again to become the global head of gaming partnerships at Google and head of gaming at YouTube. In May 2016, Wyatt collaborated with

OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming is an American professional eSports, esports and entertainment organization headquartered in Frisco, Texas. The organization currently operates a ''Call of Duty'' team in the Call of Duty League, OpTic Texas, and a Halo (franchise), ...

members Hector "H3CZ" Rodriguez, Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag, Seth "Scump" Abner, Will "BigTymeR" Johnson, Ashley "Midnite" Glassel and Ryan "OpTic J" Musselman in co-authoring the book ''OpTic Gaming: The Making of eSports Champions'', which details the players' individual ''Call of Duty'' eSports careers and their contributions to the team's success. The book became a ''New York Times'' best-seller, and film and television rights were acquired by producers John Sacchi and Matt Groesch. In May 2021, Wyatt backed Bright Star Studios in a $2 million investment deal for the company's

massively multiplayer online 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 open world, although there are games t ...

sandbox game A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objec ...

'' Ember Sword''.

Recognition

In January 2015, Wyatt was featured in the Games category for "Top Young Designers, Executives and Players" on the annual ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 list. In October 2018, Wyatt was recognized by ''

Business Insider ''Business Insider'' (stylized in all caps: BUSINESS INSIDER; known from 2021 to 2023 as INSIDER) is a New York City–based multinational financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Inside ...

'' as one of the "Top Stars Leading Google's Entertainment Empire". In January 2020, Wyatt was nominated for a Shorty Award in the Gaming category. In September 2020, Wyatt was named to Fortune's 40 under 40 list. In November 2020, Wyatt was named to The Hollywood Reporter's 35 Under 35 List.

Personal life

On September 4, 2017, Wyatt announced his engagement to girlfriend Kayla Gish. The two married on August 18, 2018.

Philanthropy

Wyatt is a board member of the

Gamers Outreach Foundation Gamers Outreach Foundation (stylized as Gamers Outreach) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides entertainment to hospitalized families through video games. Gamers Outreach oversees devices and services to help hospitals manage video ...

, which provides recreation to children receiving treatment in hospitals with gaming technology, equipment and software. Wyatt cites his experience with Crohn's disease as one of his motivations for wanting to help others.

Books

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wyatt, Ryan 1986 births Living people American television hosts Esports commentators Google employees People from Hudson, Ohio People from Canton, Ohio Ohio State University alumni