People
Rick Nelson
Engineer
Rick Nelson (Programmer) was born in Naperville IL, where he became entranced with video games playing PacMan at the local arcade with his father when he was 3. He earned his B.S. in Computer Science/Computer Engineering from USC in 2003, and went on to earn an MFA in interactive media design from USC's school of cinematic arts in 2007. While there, he worked on award winning student games such as Dyadin and Cloud, but still keeps PacMan close to his heart.
A little bit about us…
thatgamecompany was founded in the Spring of 2006 by Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, two graduates of the University Southern California Interactive Media MFA program. They had worked on several projects together, including the multi-award winning student game, “Cloud,” and decided to continue working together on small, experimental games by forming a game studio that would focus on these projects.
At TGC (thatgamecompany) our goal is to make video games that communicate different emotional experiences the current video game market is not offering. We encourage innovation and experimentation and believe that our creative games will appeal to new, yet untapped, audiences.
We call our games “core games.” Core games appeal not only to existing hardcore and casual gaming markets, but also to dormant gamers and even non-gamers. Core games reach these new markets because they are easier and less time consuming, yet possess emotionally rich and powerful interactive experiences.