People at Pocketwatch

Andy Schatz – CEO, Founder
Andy was the sole programmer, designer, and producer on the company’s first two titles, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa and Venture Arctic.  Venture Africa was built in 10 months on a budget of $8,000 and has sold over 80,000 copies worldwide, while Venture Arctic is receiving tremendous critical acclaim and continues to sell in stores across the United States.  Andy also served as the Executive Producer of the kid’s eco-themed website, Green.com.

As a leader in the world of “indie games”, Andy hosted the 2007 and 2008 Independent Games Festival awards ceremonies, which were attended by thousands and broadcast to 21 million viewers on the internet.

Andy has been published in Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra.com. His design and development skills have been specifically praised in Game Developer Magazine post-mortems, Gamasutra’s Media Consumption column, BusinessWeek Online, and more. He was a keynote speaker for the Game Career Seminar at E-for-All in 2008 and at the Austin Game Developers Conference in 2007.

Prior to Pocketwatch Games, Andy worked as a Designer, an Artificial Intelligence Engineer, a Lead Programmer, and a Development Director. Among other things, he wrote the first Xbox Live code to ship to the public (Whacked!) and the first implementation of EA’s multiplatform internet layer (Goldeneye: Rogue Agent). He graduated from Amherst College with a degree in Computer Science and Fine Arts.

Pocketwatch Games employs a small number of contractors to make our games. Andy is the sole full-time employee of the company.