James Niesewand Email and Phone Number

Illyriad Games was founded largely to allow me to fulfil my vision of making the best massively multiplayer, browser-based strategy game while still being able to tell my wife I am actually working. Our first title (the eponymous "Illyriad") is a free-to-play game in the massively multiplayer, online real-time strategy genre. In game speak, that's a MMORTS.We're a UK-based indie game studio, and Illyriad has seen significant success – in fact, we are coming up on the 15th anniversary (of our first title!) with a large number of players who have been with us the entire time; almost unheard of in the online gaming world.illy is described by wise and brilliant journalists at immensely important media outlets as:"...a fantastic browser-based city-builder... a ton of depth, a great community... perfect gameplay... absolutely wonderful Lore... the map is incredible... reminds me of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones; those great big epic stories." (massively.com)We have won numerous awards, including:• Geek.com/mashable 10 Best Games To Play At Work 2016 & 2020• The Windows Club's Top 10 Free Fantasy RPGs of 2019• Best Grand Strategy Game 2014 & 2015 at IndieDB• Top Indie MMO of 2011 by IndieDB• Finalist for Online Innovation at 2013's Develop Awards• Shortlist for "Indie Developer of the Year" at the 2013 AppstersWe're working on a second title called "Age of Ascent" which is a space-based MMO, running in the browser via Azure. As MMORPG.com wrote: "Age of Ascent is poised to become something special, one of those games that players will point to years down the road and say, 'Yep, that was the one that changed everything'.”

I took a couple of years off to write an album of ambient, dance and electronica music.Yes, really - you can still get it on Spotify & iTunes under my own name. If you listen to it and feel the need to comment on it, I would ask that you be gentle as I'm a sensitive soul. And vengeful.To help support this completely crazed endeavour, I took a variety of freelance positions with a variety of companies.My favourite of these was working with my old OTC crew at Marshall Wace LLP, one of Europe's leading hedge funds, where I designed, built and deployed an application that NDAs forbid me from talking about, but that the trading floor named "The Crystal Ball". I am proud of it to this day, but question its legality. I jest, of course.

For a period of a few years after leaving OTC (following the acquisitions by lastminute.com and Travelocity) I was able to continue to leverage my online travel expertise by working for the newly formed group on what was called “Global Convergence”, but was generally understood to mean "globally converging my job out of existence". I may have been doing a bit of what is often - entirely correctly - said about consultants, putting both the "con" and the "insult" into all my work; but it was also an opportunity to support the business transformation, post-acquisition.My areas of focus included:• Merging / optimising technology platforms • Creating a consistent, joined-up customer experience across brands• Realising ROI potential by streamlining and integrating operational components

Online Travel Corporation (OTC) was a startup "clicks-and-mortar" dotcom, founded in 1998, and floated on AIM on the London Stock Exchange in 2000. It became the UK's largest online travel supplier and retailer, owning and powering websites with over 1.6m users a month - which in those days was *a lot*. The company provided travel content, booking and fulfilment services to over 60 leading online forces, including Expedia UK, BTInternet, The Times, The Guardian and the Telegraph newspapers. I was able to get in at the ground level and helped build the entire operational “middleware” layer of the online platform as a custom solution, given that there was nothing readily available on the market. OTC went on to not only successfully manage its own online travel business, but to white-label for numerous other large travel businesses and we also launched the first “build your own” holiday service in an online travel environment.OTC was acquired by lastminute.com in 2004, who in turn sold to Sabre/Travelocity in 2005. Startups that went to IPO just as the dotcom bubble burst were fun, weren't they? Actually, on a more serious note, this was the best time I've ever had working for someone else. Love you all, ex-OTC’ers.