Mission

Hothead Games is committed to creating top quality games for the experienced gamer, self-publishing its titles with a focus on offering accessible game play and episodic content through digital distribution.

Studio Profile

Hothead was founded in March 2006 as a privately funded independent game development studio and publisher in Vancouver, Canada. In April 2008, Hothead expanded its capabilities by announcing, in partnership with Penny Arcade, the creation of the Greenhouse digital game distribution platform to help other independent developers bring their titles to gamers. Hothead currently employs a team of 35 veteran developers.

Developer Bios

Vlad Ceraldi - CEO Hothead Games

Vlad still owes his parents about a million quarters from long ago visits to the arcade. He has a decade of experience in video game production with roles as lead programmer, technical director, producer and senior/executive producer on critically-acclaimed games such as The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and The Simpsons Hit & Run. His love of playing, programming and making games started in the old-school era with the TI99/4A, continuing with the Timex Sinclair, Commodore 64 and Amiga to the present day. His first and best love is the Half Life series, but he will always have a soft spot for the moment when Eternal Darkness spoofed deleting his saved games.

Joel DeYoung – COO Hothead Games, Producer: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

Joel started programming as a kid, but still marvels that he gets paid to make video games. He has filled roles as lead programmer, technical director and producer. Joel has devoted his free time to designing and implementing flight simulation software and has participated in the development of an online community focused on air traffic simulation. He holds a Masters of Science in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. Joel’s favorite game is the contemporary Rock Band, but traces his best gaming moment all the way back to beating the final boss in Dungeons of Daggorath and realizing that his heart was actually pounding.

Ron Gilbert – Creative Director Hothead Games, Design Consultant: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

Ron has been designing games for way too many years and still hasn't told his parents what he really does for a living. He was the creator and designer of countless adventure games including Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island 1 and 2. He was also the co-founder of Humongous Entertainment where he designed and produced some of the most memorable children's adventure and sports games. Ron also produced the critically acclaimed Total Annihilation RTS game. He was inducted into the Computer Game Hall of Fame in 2002, has been a Game Developer Conference board member and has been listed in GameSpy's and Computer Gaming World's Most Influential People in the Industry. Ron is currently designing and directing his new IP, the upcoming episodic game DeathSpank. Not only is Animal Crossing his favorite game, but Ron’s dedicated enough to cherish the times he set his alarm clock for 5am so that he could get up and fish, realizing how stupid that was, and doing it anyway. “I’m a purist and I refuse to ever change the DS clock.”

Awards

• The Canadian New Media Awards (CNMA) recognized Hothead as the “Most Promising New Company of the Year” (May 2007).

• Swarm(in development) was selected as a finalist in the Telefilm Canada’s Great Canadian Video Game Competition (March 2007) and won the “People’s Choice” award.

• Business in Vancouver awarded Hothead CEO Vlad Ceraldi a spot in its 2007 Forty Under 40 list as one of Vancouver’s outstanding entrepreneurs (Jan. 2008).

• Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One was nominated as a “Best Downloadable Content” finalist in G4TV’s GPhoria 2008.

• Hothead was recognized as one of The Gamasutra 20’s list of “Breakthrough Developers” (Aug. 2008)