Mike McShaffry , a.k.a. "Mr. Mike," is a video game programmer,[1] entrepreneur and author. He is known as the director of Ultima VIII: Pagan. He graduated from the University of Houston and began his video game industry career working for Origin Systems in 1990. He worked on titles such as Martian Dreams, Ultima VII: The Black Gate, Ultima VIII: Pagan, Ultima IX: Ascension and Ultima Online. In 1997 he formed his own company Tornado Alley. After that, he worked at Glass Eye Games for a while on Casino games, which were notable for being the first games he worked on that his mom enjoyed playing.[2]
Michael Lawrence McShaffry | |
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Born | |
Other names | Mr. Mike |
Alma mater | University of Houston |
Occupation(s) | Video game director, producer, and programmer, author |
Notable work | Game Coding Complete, Ultima VIII |
Spouse | Robin Chenowith McShaffry |
Mike McShaffrey got his start as a video game programmer when he saw the new Austin, Texas address of Origin Systems on the back of the Ultima VI box, and sent them his resume.[3] The first game he worked on was Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 - Martian Dreams. In addition to developing and managing many games, Mike did the voice acting for Nicola Tesla in Martian Dreams, and a character named Gordo in Ultima VII.
Since 2003, his book, Game Coding Complete, a comprehensive hands-on guide to developing commercial quality games has been updated and reprinted four times, expanding with each iteration.
After spending seven years at ArtCraft working on CrowFall, as of 2020, he now works as a Cloud Architect at Wave on the servers for Wave's live, virtual concerts.[4]
Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Central Texas - Mike benefitted as a "Little" in 1979, and reengaged with the Austin chapter of the group in 2000 as a fundraiser, recruiting teams for an annual event called Bowl for Kids. “No matter how you choose to use your time,” Mike is quoted as saying, “try allocating a little bit to making the world a better place than you found it.”[5][6]
(List from Moby Games developer sheet)