examples

John helped bring to market the following partnerships and programs throughout his career

Duracell & Nintendo - Wii Partnership

John partnered Duracell with Nintendo which brought players an on-pack promotion and sweepstakes featuring Nintendo Wii prizing. The program included an Integer managed code campaign inside specially marked AA battery products.

AT&T & World of WarCraft, BlizzCon

While managing AT&T blue room gaming, John expanded AT&T’s relationship with Blizzard to sponsor BlizzCon around the Machinima competition.

This supported blue room gaming and an ongoing buy-get offer for AT&T U-verse subscribers and World of WarCraft players. Blizzard supported the relationship even further with a unique 14-day trial to explore Azeroth.

Gillette & EA - Champions of Gaming

John guided Gillette to work directly with Electronic Arts and created the architecture for a multi-year international tournament. Managed by BBDO, the program centered around Madden NFL Football, FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and co-branded Gillette Fusion shaving products.

Wii Games Summer 2010

John provided the tournament architecture for Wii Games Summer 2010, a first of its kind national Nintendo Wii tournament. Player categories included Teen, Adult and Super Adult, plus combined categories in which adults and younger players could compete together with friends or as a family. Games included Wii Sports™, Wii Sports Resort™, Wii Fit™ Plus, New Super Mario Bros.™ Wii and Mario Kart™ Wii.

The Quest

John co-created The Quest - an FWA award-winning game that included a mystery flavor Doritos LTO product, episodic online puzzle games developed by RED Interactive, and a live in-person event.

While winning FWA awards was amazing, the highest form of compliment was fans confusing The Quest, given the mystery around it, for an ARG launching the latest Indiana Jones film - true testament to the team’s bar for high quality.

GameStop & The Guild - Season 3

John was approached to review an interesting proposal - a local store as the set for web series The Guild. John watched Seasons 1 & 2 beginning to end and that week setup Felicia Day and Kim Evey with resources to idenify the perfect GameStop where the Knights of Good meet up for the launch of their new Expansion, kicking off Season 3.

Cisco & Harmonix - Rock Band 2 Docuseries

John partnered Cisco with MTV Games, with both parties collaborating and arriving at an around-game program featuring a 10-part episodic documentary following Harmonix around the launch of Rock Band 2. Filming on location from Cambridge, MA to across the globe was directed by Matt Checkowski with a killer soundtrack from Harmonix dev team’s real-life bands.

GameStop, AIAS & SMU Guildhall - Indie Game Challenge

John co-created the Indie Game Challenge on behalf of GameStop with Terrence Myers at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and Ron Jenkins at SMU’s Guildhall. The experience brought together industry advisors and judges and created an annual event that delivered over 30 indies significant exposure, over $500,000, and opportunities to get published or fundraise around their objectives.

Pwnit!

John co-founded Pwnit! which built a video clip based social network for players to celebrate their best gaming moments and win prizes, partnering with EA, Respawn, Team NINJA, Turtle Beach, Ubisoft, Wargaming and more.

OMEN Rewards

John is a co-inventor of a patented SDK that brought sweeps and contests in-game, which Lee Itzhaki at HP and Christian Miranda at Versus Systems integrated across desktops and laptops under the brand OMEN Rewards, providing real world rewards from sponsors and partners including Activision Blizzard, PUBG, Cloud 9, and more.

esports

John has partnered with and/or represented multiple esports events and leagues

• The first tournament John sponsored was on behalf of NYKO for Counter-Strike in 2003

• John brought Dead or Alive to the WCG and CGI, introducing and working with Roderick Alemania (IGN) and Amber Dalton (PMS Clan) ensuring each team had a pro female player

• John was the first publisher sponsor of EVO (Tecmo), then helped formally connect SFIV’s launch tournament to provide an official bye to EVO (GameStop) and an officially licensed EVO PlayStation Faceplate (TIER1) “Utlimate Chamionship”

• Speaking limited Japanese, John would support international players before their matches, including Daigo before Official EVO Moment #37 - sadly, John only heard the crowd erupting from the hallways - it felt like an earthquake struck Cal Poly Pomona’s cafeteria - thankfully the unadulterated madness was filmed :)

• John secured Ford and Dr. Pepper to trial initial non-endemic sponsorship of League of Legends around the Riot Games Invitational, which was followed by “Season 2” and the LCS

• John co-managed national tournaments for GameStop for years, including Call of Duty World at War, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and Call of Duty Black Ops, partnering with MLG to level up their respective finals, as well as Street Fighter IV, Fight Night Round 4 and more

• If you played in any of these tournaments please stop John at any industry or fan event - your coffee is on him and he’d love to hear about your experience as a player!

parents

• Now a parent, some of John’s best memories are of conversations with parents who supported their kids’ competitive play he would meet while managing various tournaments

• Parents recognizing Wednesday nights and weekends at local Street Fighter tournaments provide community around practice

• Parents who themselves traveled to new countries or cities for the first time while supporting their kids play

• Parents who made sure their kids would eat healthy while training for Call of Duty finals, etc. when they noticed communication, skills and discipline are both required and leveled up through play

• John’s all time personal favorite program* is Indie Game Challenge - opportunities for indie devs were very few, thankfully now there are significant resources, college programs and ongoing industry entry points. If your child is interested in game development check out resources at the bottom of the indies page here on knight’s path!

  *tied for John’s all time favorite program is Nintendo’s Wii Games Summer 2010 - while competitive in nature, the approach was inclusive - structured around multiple player categories, which included Teen, Adult and Super Adult as well as combined categories in which adults and younger players could compete together with friends or as a family

• If you’re looking for fun with family and friends you can play through the official Wii Games Summer 2010 Home Edition that the National Champions trained with - the course Mushroom Gorge is available in Mario Kart 8 for the Switch as a part of the Booster Course Pass in Wave 2!