Simon, Erik (Avator)

Thema: "Kooperation statt Kleinkrieg: Gute Beziehungen zwischen Publisher und Entwickler als Grundlage zum Projekterfolg am Beispiel von Anno 1701"

Starting out as a gamer as early as 1979, Erik Simon has hands-on experience with every aspect of game development except hard-core programming. He worked as a Graphic Artist, Game Designer, Level Designer, and Project Lead on over a dozen of released titles and has been responsible as a Development Manager for many more.

Today, his main focus are modern production and project management methods. Most of his work has been done on home computer formats, although he's been involved in console development.

As a co-founder of Thalion Software in Gütersloh, Germany, Erik worked from '88 to '94 as a Graphic Artist, Game Designer, Project Lead and later Head of Development on a range of titles on Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and PC.

From 1994 to 2000 at Blue Byte Software in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, he's been a Graphic Artist, Game Designer, and Project Lead there, taking on the role of Head of Development in 1998. There, he worked on titles like The Settlers III and IV.

Erik has been with JoWooD Productions from 2001 to 2003as Head of Development where he's been responsible for over 100 in-house developers and the producing department that leads external teams. Well known games of this period are Gothic 2, The Guild and Spellforce.

As Sunflowers' Head of Development from 2003 to 2007, Erik was working on the production of ParaWorld and the hugely successful Anno 1701.

Currently, he's Development Director at the newly formed Avator production company and oversees the creation of next gen MMO titles.