Jason Mai Email & Phone Number

Seattle, WA, US

Seattle, Washington, US

• Steer games through the greenlight process across 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-party development
• Counsel the New Games Division in its pursuit of an incubation pipeline
• Perform due diligence and creative collaboration with external publishing partners
• Recruit, engage, and level-up the internal Design, UX, Art, Narrative disciplines
• Serve various duties associated with the executive leadership team at Big Fish
• Own the staffing, budget, org chart, ops plan across new games for the fiscal year

• Incorporated Tinkerton Inc to craft playful pastimes for mass audiences
• Built 12 mobile prototypes in 12 months using Unity and C#
• Explored Word, Puzzle, Poker, Arcade, and Hyper Casual
• Pitched to Netflix, Apple Arcade, Pogo, and angel investors
• Released limited market test of Christmas Cookie Chomp

Redwood City, California, US

• Managed designers and led creatives on The Sims 4 live service team
• Helped early transition of TS4 from its DLC focus to Sims-as-a-Service with a higher-frequency content cadence
• Pioneered live service in-game events, like “The Sims Sessions” summer concert series
• Refactored and re-energized the portal for player-generated content

Redwood City, CA, US

• Worked cross-studio on the Evergreen Leadership Team for PopCap, Pogo, Slingshot, Firemonkeys.
• Advised on strategic planning, prioritization, staffing, product positioning, and communications across multiple studios.
• Tackled one-off projects like Apple Arcade pitches, third-party licensing deals for PopCap IP, and internal game jam events.
• Coached designers at Slingshot in Hyderabad India during their exploration of mobile titles in the Match-3, Racing, Strategy and Puzzle genres.
• Partnered with Pogo leads to sketch a multi-year vision for its casual game subscription service.
• Cultivated connections between senior designers and creative directors at different studios.

Seattle, WA -- Washington, US

• Invented new products and rebuilt live services for PopCap’s renowned IP
• Brought the all-new “Plants vs. Zombies 3” to greenlight and an early access test on Android.
• Led a five-person Design team, steering a 100+ person game team, through prototyping and the first 12 release cycles.
• Practiced people management, executive presentations, release planning, vision setting, prioritization, scope tradeoffs, brainstorm sessions, user research, and communications.
• Also owned studio-wide design initiatives, recurring craft meetings, recruiting parameters, and the voice of Design across PopCap.
• Rebuilt the live service Design teams for F2P mobile games "Plants vs. Zombies 2" and "Bejeweled Stars” for iOS and Android.

Seattle, WA, US

• Incubated AAA game concepts for Amazon Game Studios first-party team
• Pitched full-fledged racing, strategy, casual, social, and narrative adventure games.
• Showcased different Amazon platforms like Kindle, FireTV, AWS, and Lumberyard.
• Served variously as Designer, Producer, or Product Owner depending on the game.
• Led teams of 5 to 15 to create prototype software and greenlight pitches.
• Identified vision, pillars, feature set, scope, key differentiation, and unique Amazon advantage.

Seattle, WA -- Washington, US

• Pitched, prototyped, tuned, and launched games for PopCap.
• Explored innovative new concepts for social and mobile platforms.
• Designed and shipped Solitaire Blitz, a social game for Facebook.
• Collaborated with exceptional creatives to take it from a sketchy game jam prototype from a team of 6, to a top-quality launch by a team of 45.
• Operated it profitably in live service, including the “Lost Treasures” saga expansion.
• Explored fresh sequels for beloved brands like PvZ, Bejeweled, Peggle, Zuma, and Bookworm.

Foster City, CA, US

• Coded mini-games for kids and casual players
• Returned to my engineering roots, coding multiple mini-games in ActionScript, C# and Java
• Took over sole ownership as the engineer for “Shanghai Express”, a standalone Mahjong saga game for PC.
• Built prototypes in Flash to explore and pitch possible deals with Hot Wheels, Barbie, Marvel, Harry Potter, and other kids brands.
• Authored multiplayer game modules in Unity and SmartFox for the browser-based kid-oriented MMO, “Marvel Superhero Squad.”

US

• Breathed new life into Bella Sara, an online world of magical horses, unicorns, and pegasi
• Oversaw projects in production for this browser-based collectible toy and card game.
• Drove the feature roadmap to compete with Club Penguin, Webkinz, and Pixie Hollow against an aggressive timeline
• Built the production calendar, wrote the internal process bible, and assembled an SDK for external partners.
• Ran producer meetings, coached junior producers, and participated in “Studio Council” leadership team.
• Took direct responsibility for design and production of the site’s Awards System and Code Activation Pages.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Shipped high-quality casual games for Microsoft’s services on the web, PC, and Xbox
• Managed producers and programmers to ship Solitaire In Motion, HopIt!, Uno, Tinker, and the Fable II Pub Games
• Produced games for MSN, Windows Vista, XBox, and XBox Live Arcade
• Helped set direction for Microsoft's first-party casual games studio

Redmond, Washington, US

• Shipped high-quality casual games for MSN:
• Established the look and quality bar for original first-party games
• Produced multiplayer internet card and board games like Hearts, Backgammon, Checkers, and Texas Hold’Em
• Pioneered high-impact, low-cost skinning solutions for our advertising sponsors, like the “All-In Moment” of Bicycle Texas Hold’Em, “brought to you by Degree Antiperspirant.”
• Patented novel game mechanics

• Ran my own shareware game company, specializing in card games and word games
• Designed original casual games like Loch Ness Solitaire, Rummy Drop, and Word Solitaire
• Coded the software (.cpp), built their installers (.msi), produced the art (.psd), and authored all the content (.htm).
• Built the web site and responded to customers, including an online store and print-on-demand CD-ROM service.
• Expanded reach through partnerships, e.g. online dictionaries, word-a-day mailing lists, game bundle publishers, press releases, and aspiring designers.
• Designed and iterated on Google Ads campaigns and keyword bids.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Worked on “the internet” for Microsoft, which was a new thing in 1995
• Prototyped interactive television shows for kids using Visual Basic and a proprietary tech stack.
• Produced web sites for the “Kids channel” on MSN 2.0, including chat, pen pals, zines, comics.
• Programmed Win32 MFC code for FrontPage 98 and FrontPage 2000, the original website authoring tool for Microsoft Office.
• Produced and shipped in-box the 5 multiplayer internet games that are built into Windows ME and Windows XP (Internet Hearts, Spades, Checkers, Reversi, and Backgammon), which ran in live service for 20 years on Win2K.

Master Of Science - Ms, Systems Engineering

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Systems Engineering