BIO:
For those that don’t know me, my name is Dave Zdyrko and I’m currently working as a Producer / Lead Designer at Visual Concepts / ESPN Videogames / Sega Sports / 2K Sports as a Producer / Lead Designer. At the company, I’ve been an integral part in the development of All Pro Football 2K8 for Xbox 360 & PS3, ESPN NFL 2K5 & ESPN NFL Football for PS2 & Xbox as well as Sega Sports NFL 2K3 for PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

Before lucking my way into this job, I had been working as an Editor for IGNPSX and IGNPS2, a job that I had for a little over two years. It was an awesome job, a dream job if you will, and it was preceded by a stint at Working Designs where I served as everything from Lead Tester, System Administrator, VP of Web Development (it’s what I got to put on one of my E3 badges, at least), to “Vic’s Bitch”.

I guess what really started it all were my fan sites called Dave’s Sega Saturn Page and Eidolon Gamers’ Society, which has completely fallen off of the face of the ‘Net, so I don’t have a link for you to check out. I did both of those Websites while living at home with my parents and it’s safe to say that my work on these two sites helped me get my foot into the door of the videogame industry, as they like to say.

Prior to starting these fan sites, my life included some college at the University of Delaware, a felony conviction for sticking multiple hamsters in my anus and lighting them on fire and jobs at places like Taco Bell, various grocery stores that have changed their names several times, a few warehouses, a moving company and various other forms of torturous manual low-wage labor.

For a while I even picked beans with this nice Mexican family until they realized that I was eating away all their day’s wages at McDonald’s when I’d go order a couple of quarter pounders with cheese and bacon, a Big Mac with bacon, a 20 piece Chicken McNuggets with honey mustard sauce, 3 large fries, a large Diet Coke, and two small Cokes just for myself. I usually just threw out the two small Cokes because they were only purchased to trick the drive thru cashier into thinking I was getting this for a group of people and not just myself. Didn’t want a stranger to think that I was fat because I at an assload of fast food, but rather I was a victim of my metabolism.

Considering that I’m a game geek through and through that loves all games, especially sports and RPGs, the jobs at Working Designs, IGN and Visual Concepts all could be considered dream jobs of sorts. I’m a lucky guy, I guess.

Over the years I’ve somehow developed a bit of a reputation as a “pimp” or even a “player” at times, but I personally don’t see it. Sure, I’ve banged out some babes that are out of Tom Brady’s league, but my hand is taking care of my business way more than any chick by a 1500 to 1 ratio. I won’t complain, however, as my sexual frequency is a lot more than ZERO times I got laid during the entire Clinton administration. Hell, I’ve even managed to luck into a pair of threesomes, a feat I thought never attainable for me. Sure, I felt like a confused little kid in a candy store not knowing where to put my hands, my mouth or my penis at times, but it was a confusion that I didn’t mind experiencing. I just went with the flow and enjoyed the whole “real-time strategy” element of trying to keep all body parts and all parties involved constantly aroused and happy.

Comparing a threesome with a couple of hotties to playing games undoubtedly will make you think that videogames are a huge part of my life. Thinking that would be pretty on target. My life revolves around gaming, both at work and at home. I’m extremely addicted to getting up my Xbox Live Gamerscore and I’ve come to the conclusion that if real life activities could get me Achievements Points that I would be able to accomplish so much more.

Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Hopefully, I won’t have to update this again for another two or three years. For those wanting more of an insight into who I am, feel free to check out these links to some of my most memorable articles over at IGN.com:

• My Britney Spears Dancing Video

• Big Dave In Little China, Part I

• Big Dave In Little China, Part II

• Nude Picture of Britney Spears (don’t click)

• Comprehensive Guide to PS2 Baseball

• Football Frenzy: Madden NFL 2001 vs. NFL 2K1

In all, I probably wrote more than 10,000 articles for IGN and processed a million or so screenshots and movies. So there’s a lot more than this for you to check out — it’s just that these are the articles that I’ve gotten the most feedback from when bumping into strangers who notice me on the street. My favorite was this one reader who asked, “Are you Dave Z of IGN?” and after I nodded yes, he responded with “I read your article called Big Dave In Little China…you’re crazy!” Yes. Yes, I am.