The Onverse Crew
As you can see, we are a small team here at Onverse, but you will also see how much a small team can produce when they dream big. Every team member here has made sacrifices to make Onverse a reality. We are extremely happy with our product and will continue to be motivated towards making Onverse a place we can all be proud of.
Steve Pierce - "The Designer"
Steve obtained his Information Technology degree from
San Diego State University in 2001, where he also found
his passion for online games. He went on to work for
Sony Online Entertainment, a leader in the online gaming
market, where he quickly climbed the ladder to become a
design manager on the critically acclaimed sequel to
what many have called the founder of 3D MMOs, EverQuest 2.
Steve left SOE and founded Onverse, LLC in December of 2006.
Since then he has put together the following team of
extremely talented professionals to build the Onverse.
In addition to being the CEO, purchasing manager,
accountant, legal team, plumber, cleaning crew and
generally good guy, Steve has been the lead designer
of Onverse. From early concepts to everything you can
see in Onverse has a good chance that he put it there,
so if you get stuck in a bush, see a barrel floating
above the ground or get annoyed by the sounds around
you, you know who to blame.
Wes Macdonald - "The Engineer"
Oh how we wish we could clone Wes. Wes would probably
like to clone himself at this point, as he's been working
overtime for more than a year. Wes joined the crew in
August of 2007, where he has single-handedly engineered
the entire Onverse from a multiplayer FPS game engine
into a massively multiplayer environment. Every major
system was built by Wes from the ground up. He's a
self-taught engineer who started coding when he was
10 years old and realized that "Hey, the books they
use to teach at MIT are available to everybody."
Previously to working at Onverse, he worked various
engineering positions with other companies, including Intel.
Eric Hoefer - "The Artist"
Eric is a 3D artist. He started as an intern in January
of 2008 just after graduating from Collins College with
a Bachelors of Visual Arts with a concentration in Game
Art. We call this guy the Closer, simply because he gets
things done. He has either created or touched-up almost
every art asset in the Onverse. His determination for
high quality in our art has left us with a beautiful
game world and you with hundreds of objects you can call
your own. In addition to his art, Eric is also an avid
gamer and musician. He has won multiple gaming competitions
from Street Fighter to Guitar Hero, but when it comes to
Rock Band, never, ever challenge him. You will lose and
possibly cry. Eric is a stellar guy and an invaluable
team member.
Ben Steele - "The Animator"
Ben is an amazing artist and animator. He joined the
team in May of 2008. Ben has created and re-created
everything to do with our avatars, as well as many
other assets for the web, UI, housing, sounds, tools,
and more. Ben brings creative thought and style to
Onverse and you can thank him when you say "Wow, my
Avatar looks sweet!" Ben’s artistic vision and 'can do'
attitude are second to none. His talent has been
recognized and awarded every time he has laid hands
on a project, including a win for Best Animated Film
at the Sedona International Film Festival in 2005 with
his world-renowned animated short "Fragile Machine."
In addition to receiving Special Honors for Animation
at both Imaginaria in Italy and Future Imprint in Taipei,
Ben's work has seen exhibition at the National Museum of
Art in Rome, the Aoyama Spiral in Tokyo, the Thierry
Mugler Gallery in Paris and a Biennal presided over by
Spain's Queen Sophia. Ben is also the owner of Aoineko,
a studio stretching the boundaries of animation and
creative visualizations.
Scott Mitting - "The Web Engineer"
Scott is an engineer here at Onverse. He joined the team
recently in February, 2009. It's not always easy to accept
a job when in the interview you are told that you need to
build an entire fully-featured social network in one month,
but Scott was confident with his abilities and passed the
test with flying colors. This has to be a record, right?
Scott has recently begun in-game engineering as well,
helping us to implement our tools system and whatever else
he can get his hands on. Aside from Onverse, Scott owns
two companies, Mitting Consulting and Mitting UK, as well
as being a part owner in 2 other companies, Cardbiller and
GSD Software. Needless to say, Scott not only brings his
engineering skills to the table, he also brings a ton of
start-up experience.
