David Zdyrko

Senior Producer
[Strong Design and Technical Background]

Ø 15+ years experience producing, designing and developing successful games for mobile, social, and consoles platforms.

Ø Shipped 14 titles to date. Live produced an additional two titles and designed and produced another two that did not launch.

Ø Multi-genre experience – casino, sports, role-playing, adventure, shooter, action, strategy, cooking, and both casual and core games.

Ø Established track record of managing projects through the complete development process to ship on time and on budget.

Ø Experienced at managing small or large internal development teams. Managed external teams on two projects.

Ø Known for ability to solve complex design, production or team chemistry issues. Consistently played this role at Majesco / Quick Hit, and 2K Sports / Visual Concepts. 

“Dave is a rare combination of deep understanding of video games and leadership skills. Like most who start their career as a journalist, he has deep game knowledge and is as comfortable discussing control mechanics from sports games on the Sega Genesis as he is the viral loop of Cityville. As a leader, he combines a brutal honesty that gives him complete credibility with a drive and dedication that spreads to everyone he works with. He has amazing bandwidth, often managing a whole team working to tweak retention on a released game while simultaneously cranking out enough design docs for a game in the works to support a whole separate team. I was fortunate to work so closely with him, and hope to get a chance to do so again.”

Trevor Stricker, President, Disco Pixel

§  iOS, Android, Web, Xbox, PlayStation, & Nintendo

§  Internal and External Development

§  Large and Small Team Leadership

§  Project Scheduling and Milestone Management

§  Project Troubleshooting

§  Gameplay Tuning and Balancing

§  Team-Oriented Game Development Philosophy  

§  Improving Monetization, Virality, and Retention Through Evaluation of Metrics

§  Comprehensive Development Knowledge

§  Game Architecture Design & Documentation

§  Game Systems & Mechanics

§  Avid Player of Mobile, Social, Web, and Console Games

Majesco Entertainment / Quick Hit                                 2008 – 2013

Senior Producer (2011 – 2013)

Managed internal and external development teams of up to 15 to produce and design original games for Facebook, iOS and Android, reporting to VP of Social and Mobile. Tracked project schedules, set milestones, managed budgets, and liaised with QA, Marketing and Executive. Accountable for as many as six projects concurrently.

§  Produced and led the design of Kaboodle Pop, a scratch card / casino game hybrid for iOS and Android. Managed the budget, set milestones, and oversaw the entire development process.

§  Externally produced the version 1.2 release of Sci-Fi Heroes for iOS and port to Android. Came up with new feature set and liaised with the Chinese Development studio to hit milestone goals.

§  Analyzed the live metrics for Sci-Fi Heroes and made tweaks to the funnel, gameplay balance and economy to help increase D1 retention from 30% to 40% according to Flurry Analytics and 18% to 28% according to our internal platform data.

§  Produced, designed and live-produced Mini Putt Park for Facebook. After launch, the game became a part of the Zynga Network and then worked with Zynga’s third party strike team to add new features and implement an AB testing system to help efficiently improve the game’s retention, virality and monetization.

§  Externally produced the port of Mini Putt Park to iOS and Android. The title was completed on time, but was never launched because of financial concerns caused my Majesco’s lower-than-expected Q4 console sales.

§  Live Producer on Cooking Mama Friends’ Café for Facebook, which was previously developed by an external development team. Tweaked the game’s economy to triple its ARPU.

§  Live Producer on Parking Wars 2 for Facebook, which was previously developed by an external development team. Developed feature set and made economy tweaks that doubled monetization and increase virality by more than 500%.

Producer (2010 – 2011)

Took over the production duties of the company’s lone title and managed the development team that was as large as 35 people. Managed every facet of the development process and reported directly to the company’s CEO.

§  Designed and managed the development of features that helped increase QUICKHIT NFL Football’s daily ARPU from $0.04 to $0.10 and monthly ARPU from $0.13 to $0.45.

§  Managed sprint schedule to release new features to the live game every two weeks.

§  Worked with the NFL to ensure features and all game updates were approved by the licensor.

Lead Designer (2008 – 2010)

Responsible for the full game design of QUICKHIT NFL Football, an online football coaching strategy game available at www.QUICKHIT.com. Worked with the artists and programmers to ensure the designs were developed properly and reported to the Director of Design.

§  Designed all of the football simulation’s AI and behaviors.

§  Designed all of the UI components in the Flash game, as well as the Website that supported the game with features
related to team management, live game lobbies, matchmaking, and social interaction.

Visual Concepts / 2K Sports                               2002 – 2008

Producer (2007—2008)

Managed internal development team with more than 50 artists and programmers for one title that was launched on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii and another that was cancelled shortly after I left the company.

§  Managed the schedule, feature set, and milestones for NHL 2K8, which was successfully launched on Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii on time and within budget.

§  Managed the motion capture shoots and came up with the animation lists for all of the in-game animations.

§  Designed 50% of the features that made it into the game.

§  Created the initial schedule and feature set for NHL 2K9 before leaving the company. The game was eventually
cancelled.

Assistant Producer (2009 – 2011)

Aided the game’s Producer in managing the internal development team of 50+ individuals, while handling the majority of the
day-to-day management tasks. Directly managed the full gameplay team.

§  Worked with the producer and other assistant producers to come up with the full feature set for All-Pro Football 2K8.

§  Designed the AI, behavior and gameplay features and managed the artists and programmers directly that worked on the features.

§  Gameplay and feature design for NFL 2K3, ESPN NFL Football, ESPN NFL 2K5, and NBA 2K6 that were released on multiple platforms.

IGN.com                                                  1999 – 2002

Editor (2011 – 2013)

Editor on IGN.com’s PlayStation and PlayStation 2 sites, directly reporting to the Editor-in-Chief. Helped grow the site from
IGN.com’s fourth largest to its largest and most profitable within the first year on the job.

§  Played and reviewed more than 1000 games for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast.

§  Managed the site’s Mailbag section, which grew to one of the most popular facets of the entire site due to my unique personality and the way I was able to interact with the readers.

§  Worked with more than 100 developers to get exclusive editorial content for the site.

Working Designs                                      1998 – 1999

Swiss Army Knife (1998 – 1999)

Wore several different hats on a small development studio that had no more than 12 people at any time.

§  Created the company’s Website and setup its servers.

§  Handled all of the company’s IT duties.

§  Wrote text for LUNAR: Silver Star Story, a role-playing game for the Sony PlayStation.

§  Helped with QA, Production, Design and Localization for LUNAR: Silver Star Story, Silhouette Mirage, Elemental Gearbolt, ThunderForce V and Magic Knight Rayearth.

EARLY CAREER: Owner of Sega-Saturn.com and Eidolon Gamer’s Society, two of the premiere video game web sites at that time.
(1994 – 1998)

“Mini Putt Park is a fun, multi-faceted game that deserves to enjoy more success thanvit has seen to date.”

Inside Social Games

“Quick Hit Football is the football game … for everybody.”

Joystiq

ESPN NFL 2K5 – Voted Best Sports Game of All-Time by the Editors and Users (2008)

Operation Sports