Sean Vanaman

Sean Vanaman (born June 16, 1984) is an IrishAmerican video game designer, writer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader and lead writer of '' The Walking Dead'', and ''Puzzle Agent 2''. He also wrote the third episode of '' Tales of Monkey Island'', and was the designer of '' Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures'', and the writer of the third episode, ''Muzzled''. He was one of the regular hosts of the Idle Thumbs podcast and is one of the co-founders of Campo Santo, the company that produced '' Firewatch''.

Early life

Vanaman was born and raised in Cork, Ireland. He and his family moved from Ireland to the United States.

Career

While studying at University of Southern California, Vanaman interned at Buena Vista Games (later renamed Disney Interactive Studios) in their creative development group. This group put together the initial concept and pitch for '' Epic Mickey'' in 2003. After graduation, he worked as an associate creative development producer at Disney Interactive. In 2008, Vanaman took a position at Telltale Games as a writer and game designer. He worked on '' Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures'', '' Tales of Monkey Island'', and '' Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent'' before becoming project lead on '' Poker Night at the Inventory'' and '' The Walking Dead''.

On September 18, 2013, he and Jake Rodkin left Telltale and joined with Olly Moss and '' Mark of the Ninja'' lead designer Nels Anderson to found Campo Santo.

Recognition

''Tales of Monkey Island'', for which Vanaman co-wrote, was nominated for "Best Artistic Design" and won for the award for "Biggest Surprise" at IGN's Best of PC E3 2009 Awards. After release, it won the '' PC Gamer'' 2009 "Adventure Game of the Year", was nominated for the IGN "Best Adventure Game of the Year" for PC and Wii, won the '' Adventure Gamers'' "Best Adventure of 2009", and was named the "Best Series Revival" by ''OC Weekly''.

''Puzzle Agent 2'' was nominated at IGN's Best of E3 2011 Awards for "Best iPhone/iPad Game". '' The Walking Dead also'' won over 90 "Game of the Year" awards since release.

Vanaman won ''Game (Original Adventure)'' and ''Writing in a Drama'' at the 2017 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards for his work on ''Firewatch''.

Works

Controversies

In September 2017, after known YouTuber PewDiePie said the racial slur " nigger" while live-streaming the game '' PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'', Vanaman called him "worse than a closeted racist". He then said on Twitter that he would be issuing DMCA copyright takedowns on PewDiePie's videos that contained footage of Vanaman's game '' Firewatch'', and urged other game developers to do the same.
This led to backlash and review bombing of ''Firewatch'' on Steam.

In November 2020, a Reddit post accused Vanaman of abusing his administrative privileges as a Valve employee, by manually penalizing a fellow ''Dota 2'' player for not following his recommended playstyle. Vanaman responded by apologizing on behalf of Valve and stating that employees from thereon out would be stripped of their in-game administrative tools – leaving actions explicitly to respondents of formal player reports.

References

External links

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Sean Vanaman
on Twitter

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanaman, Sean
1984 births
Living people
American video game designers
American video game directors
People from Cork (city)
Irish emigrants to the United States
Valve Corporation people