Mark Cooke

Founder

United States23 yrs 1 mo experience

Most Likely To SwitchAI Enabled

Key Highlights

Founder of award-winning game studio Shiny Shoe
Lead programmer on EA's Shadows of the Damned
Expert in game development and product management

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Video Game Development expert with strong leadership and programming skills.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Game DevelopmentProduct ManagementGameplay ProgrammingProject ManagementProgrammingTechnical DesignTeam ManagementSoftware Engineering

Other Skills

Business DevelopmentGame DesignStrategyLeadershipProduct DevelopmentMarketingMiddleware CommunicationIntegrationZ80 AssemblyVideo Game DesignC++C#Unity3DScriptingXbox

Experience

23 yrs 1 mo

Total Experience

3 yrs 10 mos

Average Tenure

14 yrs 8 mos

Current Experience

Shiny shoe

Founder & CEO

Aug 2011 – Present · 14 yrs 8 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

Mark is the Founder and CEO of Shiny Shoe, a game development studio based in San Francisco, CA. His focus is on strategy, production management, and business development.
We are best known for our award-winning original title Monster Train, out now on PC, Xbox, and Switch.
Prior to starting Shiny Shoe, Mark worked in a variety of roles in production management, engineering, and game design in both the United States and Japan. In addition, he has often acted as a company/team spokesperson, performing press interviews and public speaking engagements.

Product ManagementBusiness DevelopmentGame DevelopmentGame DesignStrategyLeadership

Nihilistic software

2 roles

Lead Systems Designer

Promoted

Nov 2008 – Aug 2011 · 2 yrs 9 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

After returning to Nihilistic Software, Mark worked in a number of roles including lead gameplay programmer, project lead, marketing (low budget guerrilla style), and ultimately as the lead systems designer on two large scale games for consoles.

Gameplay ProgrammingProject ManagementMarketing

Lead Gameplay Programmer

Aug 2004 – Oct 2007 · 3 yrs 2 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

During his time at Nihilistic Mark wrote gameplay code and tools while managing a small team of experienced programmers on multiple console games.

Gameplay ProgrammingTeam Management

Grasshopper manufacture, inc.

Lead Programmer

Oct 2007 – Oct 2008 · 1 yr · Tokyo, Japan

Mark worked as a lead programmer on a programming team that grew to seven members. He wrote the majority of the technical design document for the EA-published Shadows of the Damned and worked closely with EA to develop key technical processes. Finally, Mark was responsible for contacting and working with middleware vendors where he bridged the communication gap between the English-speaking vendors and the Japanese-speaking development team.

Technical DesignProgrammingMiddleware Communication

Plumtree software

Software Engineer

May 2003 – Aug 2004 · 1 yr 3 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

Mark worked as a software engineer in the integration products group at Plumtree Software incorporating third party products into Plumtree's corporate portal. Plumtree was later acquired by BEA Systems.

Software EngineeringIntegration

Digital eclipse software inc

Intern

May 1999 – Aug 1999 · 3 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

While writing Z80 assembly code for the Game Boy Color Mark had the opportunity to learn a lot about the games business from the talented team at Digital Eclipse.

Z80 Assembly

Lucasarts

Intern

May 1997 – Aug 1997 · 3 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

As a teenage intern at LucasArts Mark had the opportunity to work on some fantastic games as a young aspiring engineer. During that time he earned credits on Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 and Grim Fandango.

Ign entertainment

Intern

Jan 1997 – Jan 1998 · 1 yr · San Francisco Bay Area

As an intern at Imagine Media (now IGN), Mark wrote reviews for the games full-time staff were not interested in. He also performed the soul crushing work of collecting cheat codes for the back of the magazine in the era where cheats were still distributed in print.