Mike Johnston
Senior Development Director at Electronic Arts
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
- Industry
- Computer Games
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Mike Johnston's Overview
- Current
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- Senior Development Director at Electronic Arts
- Past
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- Director of Engineering, Social Games at PlayFirst, Inc.
- Development Lead at Mayhem Game Studio at Playdom / Disney Interactive Media Group
- Co-Founder at Storybook Anytime
- Director of Engineering at Millions of Us
- Founder at MajikWidget
- General Manager at Radius3
- Principal Consultant at MikeJSolutions
- Director of Interactive Services at Abovo Group
- Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Soholaunch
- Co-Founder and VP of Engineering at The About Time Group
- Recommendations
-
38 people have recommended Mike
- Connections
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500+ connections
- Websites
Mike Johnston's Summary
I am considered a social gaming veteran and have been creating web based applications for over two decades.
I led the technical development of "Sony Home" for Playstation 3 and co-founded the interactive entertainment company Storybook Anytime where I created the family-friendly casual game "Sam's Interactive Reader" and the hit Facebook game "Reef Life".
I led the development effort for Playdom on the successful Facebook game "Market Street" as well as initial engine development for “ESPN Sports Bar & Grill”. After the acquisition of Playdom by the Walt Disney Company, I worked on strategic and tactical initiatives for the International expansion of titles such as "Social City" and "City of Wonder".
In late 2010, I joined the team at PlayFirst and led the development of the award-winning “Diner Dash” game for Facebook.
I currently serve as Senior Development Director for Electronic Arts (EA Games) in Redwood Shores, California.
Specialties
Agile Game Development [Certified Scrum Master], Kanban, Social Game Development & Design, Process Creation, Internet Business & Social Media Strategy, User Interface [UI] & User Experience [UX] Design.
Core Technology: Adobe Air, Actionscript 3.0, Flex, LAMP Stack [Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP], Facebook Platform, W3C XHTML [web standards], CSS, Javascript [AJAX].
Mike Johnston's Experience
Senior Development Director
Electronic Arts
Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; ERTS; Computer Games industry
August 2011 – Present (6 months)
Electronic Arts Inc. is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. EA develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet.
Director of Engineering, Social Games
PlayFirst, Inc.
Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry
October 2010 – July 2011 (10 months)
PlayFirst is a leading publisher of the world-renowned and award winning “Diner Dash” game series. At PlayFirst, I led the social team in the development of "Diner Dash" for Facebook. Once on board, I was able to quickly double the social team's productivity and move to daily product builds for the first time in the company’s history. This was achieved by effectively implementing agile and scrum based development processes while emphasizing the adoption of social game design best practices and Flash game architecture. I also played a pivotal role within the entire organization as a champion for small teams and rapid prototyping. In addition to providing engineering direction I was intimately involved in the creation of feature specifications, tool development, monetization strategies and the overall leadership within the entire social division.
Development Lead at Mayhem Game Studio
Playdom / Disney Interactive Media Group
Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Computer Games industry
January 2010 – October 2010 (10 months)
As Dev Lead for Playdom's Project Mayhem Studio, I led front end development team on hit Facebook game, "Market Street" and initial development of Flash engine for the recent "ESPN Sports Bar" title.
Fueled by explosive growth on Facebook and an expanding pipeline of new games and features, Playdom was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in September 2010 and became part of the Disney Interactive Media Group.
After the acquisition, I joined the International team to work on strategic and tactical development initiatives for the global expansion of Playdom's social gaming titles- including "Social City", "Market Street" and "City of Wonder" for the Chinese, Portuguese and European markets.
Co-Founder
Storybook Anytime
Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry
May 2007 – January 2010 (2 years 9 months)
Storybook Anytime is an interactive entertainment company focused on creating family-friendly casual and social games. Its mission is to develop immersive experiences with educational nuances that are fun to play with your friends and family.
Storybook's flagship product, "Sam's Interactive Reader," is featured in the Adobe Air Marketplace as a Staff Pick and has been used as a featured case study by Adobe at the Max Developers conference in Milan. The company also created "Reef Life", a fully immersive underwater world and social game on Facebook in 2009.
Director of Engineering
Millions of Us
November 2007 – February 2009 (1 year 4 months)
Millions of us is an interactive-social media agency. The company specializes in a broad range of services from virtual world and massive multi-player online game [MMOG] development to social media strategy and execution. During my tenure I created, implemented and managed the development processes for a team comprised of both local and outsourced engineering resources [including off-shore].
I was responsible for the technical specification, development and delivery of large scale projects for our clients. These included back end development for Second Life customer projects, custom flash-based virtual worlds, and most notably- content and mini-game development for the Sony "Home" initiative on Playstation 3.
I had the pleasure of working on significant projects for clients such as Coca-Cola, Cisco, Dreamworks SKG, Fox, Google, National Geographic, Nike, Sony Playstation, Warner Brothers, and Toyota.
General Manager
Radius3
Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry
August 2006 – October 2007 (1 year 3 months)
In charge of U.S. based web site production center for the worlds largest web site franchise company WSI (Based in Toronto). Managed product development and sales channel operations. Created brand strategy, project delivery methodology and process as well as overall corporate growth strategy.
Principal Consultant
MikeJSolutions
March 2004 – October 2007 (3 years 8 months)
Worked to evangelize standards-compliant, user-friendly web sites using XHTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. Developed and implemented detailed product delivery process, methodology, brand and sales strategy for clients. Routinely created and executed online marketing and search engine optimization strategies. Created user interface designs, information architecture plans and requirements for medium-large scale web commerce and business applications.
Direct clients included Turner Broadcasting, Cartoon Network Latin America, TNT Latin America and ADP. Integral part of high profile projects for Earthlink, Intellisync [acquired by Nokia], Marketworks, Friedman's Shoes, City of Smyrna and the Technology Association of Georgia.
Director of Interactive Services
Abovo Group
July 2004 – January 2005 (7 months)
Worked with clients and sub-contractors to create and deliver web sites, flash product demos, corporate and trade show videos, email marketing campaigns, and online ads. Developed an email marketing campaign for ADP [US] that increased conversion from 3% to over 22% in under four months. Architected and developed web site projects for companies such as Glenayre Electronics, SCI Systems and Terranova Forrest Products [acquired by Masisa].
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Soholaunch
January 2000 – February 2004 (4 years 2 months)
Architected and developed the first browser-based web site builder and content management system [CMS] leveraging PHP and MySQL. Product featured ground-breaking [for its time] features such as a drag-n-drop page editing and a WYSIWIG word processor. The product was [and still is] marketed through global hosting companies. Worked directly with Web.com and Via Networks to develop custom provisioning systems for the product through Sphera and Ensim platforms. I retain ownership of the product code and have licensed use to Soholaunch and Radius 3 respectfully.
Co-Founder and VP of Engineering
The About Time Group
February 1998 – December 1999 (1 year 11 months)
Created software products EZCheck2000 and PCFix2000 to address Y2K PC re-mediation. Grew company to over $2M in revenue in less than one year. Product was used by companies such as AT&T, Lucent Technologies, CSX railways and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Appeared in numerous industry magazines and television programs, including "The Computer Chronicles" and "Business Week" as an expert in my field.
Mike Johnston's Skills
- Video Game Development
- Casual Games
- Computer Games
- Flash Games
- Resource Management
- P&L Management
- Certified Scrum Master CSM
- Agile Project Management
- Kanban
- Facebook API
- Process Development
- Scalability
- Mobile Games
- Internet Strategy
- User Experience
- ActionScript
- W3C
- High Performance Teams
- Strategic Planning
- Forecasting
- Social Games
- Resource Allocation
- Business Strategy
- Game Programming
Mike Johnston's Additional Information
- Websites:
- Interests:
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Social Gaming, Casual Gaming, Facebook Application Development, Rich-Internet Application Development, Virtual Worlds, Virtual Goods, User Interface Design, Graphic Design, Social Networks, Mac OS X, Photoshop, Flash, Twitter, Social Media, Product Development, Photography, Cycling, Hawaii, and Boating
- Groups and Associations:
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Web Standards Group (webstandardsgroup.org), Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA), National Association of Photoshop Users, NO!SPEC, Flickr!, Atlanta IT Alliance, Save The Net!, Center for Biological Diversity
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- Honors and Awards:
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Certified SCRUM Master, Featured Adobe Air developer for my work on "Sam's Interactive Reader", The Daily Slurp Website Design of the Day, Design Melt Down Featured Site
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