Andy Schatz – Owner

Since founding Pocketwatch Games in December 2004, Andy’s biggest success came when his co-op heist game Monaco won the Grand Prize in the 2010 Independent Games Festival.  While the Monaco team has grown, at the time he was the sole programmer, designer, and artist on the project.

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 90,000 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, 2008, 2009, and 2012 Independent Games Festival awards ceremonies, which were attended by thousands and broadcast to millions of viewers on the internet.

Andy has been published in magazines ranging from Game Developer’s Magazine to PCGamer, and he has given lectures all over the world about being an independent game developer.  His talk “How to Win the IGF in 15 Weeks or Less” was one of the highest rated talks at the 2011 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

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.

The Rest of the Team

A number of other people have contributed to Pocketwatch Games. In particular, Andy Nguyen, Austin Wintory, Empty Clip Studios, Adam deGrandis, Dylan Marquez, and Donnie Bugden have been major contributors to games produced by Pocketwatch Games.