Ernest W. Adams

Who is Ernest W. Adams?

Ernest Adams is a game design consultant, author on game development, founder of the International Game Developers Association, and a regular lecturer at the Game Developers Conference. He holds a Ph.D. from the School of Computing and Mathematics at Teesside University for his work on interactive storytelling. His work on interactive storytelling began in 1995 with the lecture "The Challenge of the Interactive Movie," delivered at the Computer Game Developers' Conference, and continued through a variety of lectures and articles for another 16 years. From 1997 to 2013 Adams was also a paid columnist for the Gamasutra game developers' webzine, writing a regular column called "The Designer's Notebook."

Adams entered the game industry in 1989 as a software engineer, and joined Electronic Arts in 1992. He was lead designer on John Madden Football for 3DO, and served as the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL product line from 1993 to 1999. In 1999 Adams moved to Bullfrog Productions, and for one year he worked on a new game in the Populous series, and Dungeon Keeper 3, but both games were cancelled.

He is also a frequent speaker at Animex Festival held annually in Middlesbrough, UK.