Andy Schatz

Andy Schatz (born March 9, 1978) is a video game designer based in San Diego.

He began developing video games at a young age and graduated from Amherst College.

His work on game development led to an invitation to the 1995 California State Science Fair.

In the same year, Schatz began working on Netplay, an online gaming portal, which acted as his introduction to the video game industry.

He later enrolled at Amherst College, where he graduated with a degree in Computer Science and Fine Arts.

Schatz' first job after college was at the viral marketing firm e-tractions, where he helped create a virtual Christmas snowglobe.

After his work at Netplay, he worked on his first commercial release at Presto Studios, where he helped develop Star Trek: Hidden Evil (1999) as a level builder.

After leaving Presto Studios, Schatz moved to Santa Cruz to work for TKO Software, and in the early 2000s helped develop Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Breakthrough (2003) and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (2004) among other games.

During a time when the development team had nothing to work on, Schatz proposed a prototype of a game he had been working on described as "a house-robbing game" where players would build a home and defend it, then attempt to break into other players' homes.

He sent this prototype to Microsoft, but it did not interest them.

He left Presto Studios temporarily to work for e-tractions again, only to return later to help with the AI on the Xbox Live version of Whacked! (2002).

After graduation, he worked for various video game development companies, including TKO Software, before founding his own independent video game development studio Pocketwatch Games in 2004.

Attempting to expand his company, Schatz tried enrolling into business school; all applications were rejected.

As a result, he began working on games he was passionate about.

Schatz has released four video games under Pocketwatch Games: Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, Venture Arctic, Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, and Tooth and Tail.

Monaco 2 is currently in development.

His design philosophy revolves around taking inspiration from already existing media, such as films, and transforming it into a video game.

Andy Schatz was born in San Diego.

His father was a geophysicist, his mother a philosophy professor.

At the age of four, Schatz received a Commodore 64, which sparked his desire to create video games.

By the age of seven, he had designed maze games and applied BASIC scripts to make them work.

When he was in seventh grade, he developed code for a game he called Servants of Darkness, a "Warlords-esque game" for the Commodore 64.

Schatz founded Pocketwatch Games, an independent video game development studio as a sole proprietorship in December 2004, before TKO shut down in 2005.

The first game Schatz developed and released was Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa (2005), a tycoon game designed to appeal to the same audience as Zoo Tycoon (2001).

Set in the African wilderness, the game focused on a number of themes including balancing the ecosystem, species' relationships and weather cycles.

It was a success and became an Independent Games Festival (IGF) finalist helping Schatz' secure the budget for the sequel: Venture Arctic (2007).

Venture Arctic had the same premise as Venture Africa.

While some critics praised it, and it won Gametunnel's simulation game of the year in 2007, it had complications that players did not enjoy.

As a result, it was a commercial failure compared to Venture Africa.

Schatz was then hired by Jim Safka, co-founder of Match.com, to develop a flash game for Green.com.

This contract slowly waned, and Schatz began to work on Venture Dinosauria.

It was cancelled before its 2009 release date.

Looking back Schatz said he had failed to find "a way to make it both fun and open-ended, but also a small, self-contained experience at the same time".

Throughout this period Schatz wanted to expand Pocketwatch Games from a studio to a business and applied for enrollment in various business schools.

He was never accepted, something he now considers "the biggest blessing of [his] entire career".

In 2009, Schatz, feeling despondent after the failure of Venture Dinosauria, began learning Microsoft XNA to enable him to develop games for both PC and Xbox 360.

Having been rejected by business schools, he slowly discarded that idea and focused on making "whatever game [I'm] passionate about in the moment".

In 2009, he was low on cash and gave himself one last chance before getting "a corporate job".

He began to code a game inspired by Hitman and other games that resembled Pac-Man without the ghosts.

This was the foundation of Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine (2013) and within a week Schatz had added enemies, ambience, and abilities.