Game Education Summit North America

Dave McCoy has been creating computer graphics for print, television, films, and games since 1983. He moved from creating graphics for post-production and special effects to creating cinema and real-time visuals for the game industry in 1991, joining Virtual World Entertainment to head art production and graphic R&D for their Battletech location based entertainment systems as well as leading the design and production of VWE’s new generation of award winning Tesla entertainment simulators.

When Virtual World merged with its sister company FASA Interactive, Dave served as the combined company’s Creative Director, continuing to lead the art department on multiple projects as well as collaborating with Jordan Weisman to develop new LBE experiences and PC games based on FASA properties, including the Mechwarrior and MechCommander series. He also oversaw production of computer generated sequences for the Battletech animated television show, one of the first TV programs to use CGI for its episodic content. When FASA was contracted by the Walt Disney Company to develop an interactive ride for their theme parks, Dave art directed and led design and production on the project, collaborating with Imagineering to develop and deploy the attraction.

FASA Interactive was acquired by Microsoft Corporation in 1999 and Dave continued in the role of Creative Director for Microsoft Game Studios, providing direction on both art and design for multiple titles and co-creating the award winning Crimson Skies franchise.

He later joined Microsoft’s Xbox Advanced Technology Group and advised multiple studios on art and graphics techniques and helped to launch the Xbox video game console. In this role he provided artistic guidance on more than 80 titles for both the original platform and the Xbox 360. He frequently spoke at conferences and visited game studios around the world to help them create more compelling visuals for their games.

Just before the launch of the Xbox 360, Dave returned to Microsoft Game Studios as a Technical Art Director with the publishing arm of the studio and contributed to all five of Microsoft’s launch titles for the new platform. His final project with Microsoft was the original Crackdown where he worked with the Real Time Worlds art team in developing the unique visual style of the game.

In 2006 Dave partnered with three of his former Microsoft colleagues and the former CFO of FASA Interactive to form Hidden Path Entertainment, an independent game studio located in Bellevue, WA. Dave serves as Hidden Path’s Art Director. Hidden Path Entertainment is probably best known for its highly rated game Defense Grid: The Awakening as well as its work with Valve Corporation on updates of Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2 as well as the recent Portal 2 ARG.

Dave is a co-developer of three patents and has authored multiple articles in books and periodicals, as well as online regarding art direction and production as well as graphics techniques for games.