STEPHEN H.
CLARKE-WILLSON, Ph.D.
21916 NE 20th
Way,
Sammamish, WA 98074
E-mail: Stephen@above-the-garage.com
OBJECTIVE
Software
Technology Leadership and Development
EMPLOYMENT
HISTORY
NCsoft, Bellevue, WA - 2/2019 – present
Vice
President, Technology
- Support
Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2
- Lead
Platform Team
- Lead IT
- Integrate ArenaNet processes/procedures with larger NCWest organization
ArenaNet, Bellevue, WA - 9/2005 – 2/2019
Studio
Technical Director (Head of Engineering) -
4/2009 – 2/2019
- Lead
technical development at ArenaNet (110
engineers)
- Improved
Guild Wars 2 uptime from 99.5% to 100% (last three years) while shipping new
content every two weeks
- Integrated
IT into studio development
- Lead team (39
programmers) that developed new engine technology for ArenaNet
- Excellent
software engineering – all systems run independently
- Fast
iteration, including dynamic rendering pipeline (HDR/PBR) specified in
XML
- Support
for massive streaming worlds
- Lead
resurgence of Classic Guild Wars with increasing revenue YoY
Server
Team Lead
- 2/2009 – 4/2013
- Lead team
that developed restartable, dynamically
updatable, multi-threaded, asynchronous, near-real-time, continuously
running, error free highly optimized support servers for Guild Wars 2.
Server
Programmer-
9/2005 – 2/2009
- Develop restartable, dynamically updatable, multi-threaded,
asynchronous, near-real-time, continuously running, error free highly optimized
support servers for Classic Guild Wars.
Above the Garage
Productions, Sammamish,
WA - 5/2004 – 9/2005
Game
Technology Developer
- Thread-safe
multiprocessor execution profile tool for Gas Powered Games
- Downloadable
music system (payment system, database, file server, embedded C++ DRM
player, etc.) using Microsoft DRM technology.
- Integrated
downloadable music system with Guild Wars and Artistry Entertainment to
provide sales of additional music for Classic Guild Wars
- Music
layout for Classic Guild Wars
Amaze
Entertainment - Adrenium Games Studio, Kirkland, WA -
1/2000 – 5/2004
Vice
President and Executive Studio Director
- Developed
Adrenium Games as a new studio within Amaze Entertainment focused on
console development (PS2, Xbox, GC)
- Responsible
for hiring and reviewing 70+ full-time staff across Adrenium and Black
Ship studios
- Responsible
for managing core technology group, which developed a fully general,
cross-platform game engine (no middleware), which Activision rated in the
top 5% of engines they had seen
- Responsible
for game development process across design, art, programming and
sound/music.
- Developed
Azurik: Rise of Perathia for Xbox
launch (Microsoft); Samurai Jack for PS2, GC (Sega); Lemony Snicket’s A
Series of Unfortunate Events for PS2, GC, Xbox (Activision).
Amaze
Entertainment - Black Ship Games, Kirkland, WA - /2003 – 5/2004
Head
of R&D
Digimon
Rumble Arena 2
(PS2, Xbox, GC)
- Responsible
for product development within Black Ship Games, an Amaze studio that
focused on console development for Asian publishers
Cavedog Entertainment, Bothell, WA - 3/1998 – 12/1999
Sr.
Lead Client Programmer
Total
Annihilation, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, Amen: The Awakening (PC)
- Interface programming
and project management for ‘Boneyards’ online matchmaking system for Total Annihilation and Total Annihilation: Kingdoms
- Lead
Developer for Kingdoms 2.0 upgrade which resulted in 2x-7x performance
improvement over version 1.0 (and the entire project only took five
weeks!)
- Compatibility
programming for Amen: The Awakening
graphics (ported DX6 implementation to roughly 20 different video cards)
Above the Garage
Productions, Sammamish,
WA – 4/1994 –
2/1998
Game
Technology Developer
(Consulting)
- Developed
new 32-bit game engine (SuperSet™) for Windows
- Programmed
all low-level game services using Microsoft Direct3D, DirectSound,
DirectInput; complete collision and motion system; scripting language;
integrated game layout editor
- Developed
multiple applications using the SuperSet engine for multiple clients
- 3D Hardware
Analysis: in-house experience with
all major 3D accelerators (some that never shipped) including 3Dfx Voodoo
1/2, Rendition V1000 and V2100, Oak Technology Warp 5, PowerVR 1&2;
ATI Rage I/II/Pro; S3 Virge (VX/DX/GX/GX2), Nvidia Riva 128, TNT, TNT2,
and others (basically everything through DX6)
- Consulting:
Intervista Software - Direct3D and S3 graphics implementation (complete
conversion from D3D Retained Mode / Immediate Mode in six months to S3
hardware) for VRML 2.0 Browser (millions of copies distributed by
Microsoft with Internet Explorer 4.0)
- Other
clients included Virgin Sound and Vision, DreamCatcher Interactive,
Extreme Audio Reality, Cavedog Entertainment
Virgin Interactive
Entertainment Inc.,
Irvine, CA - 1990 – 1994
Vice
President, Worldwide Product Development
- Expanded
product development staff from four producers, three programmers, and one
artist (total eight staff) to180 staff worldwide in three locations
(Irvine, Las Vegas, and London)
- Additionally
supervised $10M in external product development worldwide
- Gross
(wholesale) sales increased from approx. $30M to $180M in 3 1/2 years
- Key
products produced by the internal studios included Disney’s Aladdin for
Sega Genesis (4.0M units), Disney’s Jungle Book for SNES and Genesis, and
Demolition Man for 3DO, a groundbreaking product incorporating specially
shot, live footage of Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes
- The
internal studios in Irvine,
which I supervised, accounted for about half of all revenue generated,
worldwide
- Instrumental
in the acquisition of Westwood Studios
- Supervised
budgets at Westwood Studios
Producer / Executive Producer
- Products
produced or executive produced included "Global Gladiators"
[Product of the Year award from Sega], "The Seventh Guest" [1.5M
unit CD-ROM virtual reality game], "Cool Spot" [one of the five
highest rated games ever according to Sega's own rating system,
approximately 1M units worldwide]; "Double Dragon" [a
defect-free product (no A, B, or C class bugs) according to Sega's own
testing]; "Monopoly Deluxe" for Windows and DOS [several hundred
thousand units]; and many others
PDA Engineering (Patran Division), Costa Mesa, CA - 1988 – 1989
Software
Architect
- Software
architect for Patran-3 MCAE (Mechanical Computer Aided Engineering)
software system
- Designed
all high level module interfaces for 3-D MCAE system portable across five
workstation vendors (SGI, Dec, Sun, HP/Apollo), including vendor-specific
accelerated graphics processing, and interface to SQL database system
- Also
project manager for "Core" (portable I/O, Graphics, GUI and
Database) subsystems. (Total system
size: 2M lines of code)
Northrop
Research and Technology Center, Hawthorne,
CA - 1986 – 1988
Research
Scientist
- 3-D
modeling and image processing for Advanced Technology Bomber
("Stealth") target acquisition on SGI equipment
- Served on
Corporate Software Practices Committee reporting to the president of
Northrop Corporation, which surveyed software development practices over
all seven Northrop divisions
Contract
Programming (while pursuing
Ph.D.) - 1981 – 1986
- Free-format
editor for DayFlo free-form database system
(C/PC); tiny Basic interpreter written in Tiny C (plus assembly language)
for Z80; Ada Library manager for Irvine Compiler Corp.
Lab Manager, UC
Irvine
- 1977 – 1981
- Maintain
mini-computer lab for Department of Information and Computer Science, UC
Irvine, and implement various projects for the department, including: Port of UCSD Pascal P-System from PDP-11
to Lockheed SUE computer (completely in binary – no source changes);
maintain Varian 620 hardware; Lockheed Sue hardware; Distributed Computer
Operating System (DCOS) link hardware; various Unix systems; port of “F”
editor from MLisp to C (which became basis of DayFlo database editor); Lisp programming; Pascal
programming support for various classes; Ada parser in Lisp; Dec-10
programming…
EDUCATION
University of California,
Irvine
Ph.D. in Computer Science; specializing
in Software Engineering
M.S. in Computer Science
B.S. in Computer Science (cum laude)
OTHER
Juror, Milia
d’Or Multimedia Awards, Cannes,
France 1996