Creative Director

Creative Director

Mr Leach

Creative Director / Chief Consultant

A dynamic, creative, yet results driven director seeking new creative challenges. Spending the last 10 years building businesses, harnessing digital marketing and creating amazing products. An energetic adept creative problem solver.

Experience:

BeefJack Ltd, Creative Director / Founder Mar 08 – Jun 17
Key Projects: Iron Fish, Surf Ratz, Hot Tub Heist

I started working on BeefJack as a hobby in my spare time. My specialities for the business was in overseeing Production, Marketing and Sales. I found it a fascinating way to learn about the games business and ultimately develop my game design and development skills. Through the years I steered the business from a group of volunteers, to a profit generating, incorporated business in 2012. From here I evolved the business further into 3 success arms working together. Promote, Create, and Agency. These business allowed us to provide full cycle support to clients, and integrate games design into businesses that had some fantastic results. Since incorporation I have always been a dual Managing Director and Creative Director for the business. I designed and developed major game IP such as Iron Fish, Surf Ratz, Verminator.

  • Original Founder of the BeefJack Group
    • BeefJack Promote – a games marketing agency
    • BeefJack Agency – a b2b development agency
    • BeefJack Create – a games design agency for indie developers
    • BeefJack Magazine – an indie gaming magazine
    • BeefJack Studio – a game studio (web games)
    • Businesses sold in 2017
  • Originated from and game studio and game magazine I ran in my spare time, back in 2008. Over time it grew and evolved into the businesses I sold.
  • BeefJack Magazine: Mar ’08 – ’12 Managing Director
    • At the magazine’s peak, it was rated the best indie online magazine for games. Our staff writers were frequently scouted by bigger magazines.
    • Some of the ideas we implemented influenced game magazines today such as having no scores, but badges for game reviews.
  • BeefJack Studio:  Mar ’08 – ’12. Creative Director
    • Verminator Released on Micro budget, received ⅘ scores and 4 million plays in 2 months.
    • Nimball Released on Micro budget received ⅘ scores and 2 millions plays in 2 months.
    • Hot Tub Heist Released on micro received ⅘ scores and 3 million plays in 2 months.
  • Incorporated BeefJack Ltd in 2012
    • Generated 250k in revenue in first year full time.
    • I was a Tech Entrepreneur finalist 2012 – International competition held in the UK.
    • Received Snowflake Award Tiga Nomination
  • BeefJack Agency: Mar ’12 – ’17. Creative / Marketing Director
    • Designed the business to work around gamification and advertising within games. This also lead to work with other businesses teaching and supporting them in there own game building endeavours, even building games for events.
    • Clients I brought in and serviced, Camelot, News UK (The Times, The Sun), Xfactor, Cadbury’s, Liverpool Victoria, etc
  • BeefJack Create: Mar ’12 – ’17.   Creative Director
    • Designed this business to assist with indie developers finishing game projects.
    • Developed my unique process for designing games, Iron Fish being a highlight, it was the
      3rd fastest game ever to be ‘greenlit’ by steam.
  • BeefJack Promote: Mar’12-17.  Managing Director
    • Beefjack promote was a great opportunity to work with game developers looking for good marketing solutions.
    • We found our niche was in marketing unusual, quirky or genre busting games. This provided a challenge for us marketing wise to create new audiences, but gave us some truly unique case studies to help further grow and develop the business.

Sony Playstation, Planning & Release Manager Jan 08 – Feb 12
Key Projects: Singstar Franchise, Little Big Planet, Uncharted, Killzone 3

I worked at Sony leading the Planning and Release Team. I really enjoyed my time at Sony, I received a promotion nearly every year and was being trained up for a directorship. The Planning and Release was designed to mitigate risk from all First Party products during the release phase of production. Analysis was also fundamental, using data to measure organisational effectiveness and identify inefficiencies. My team provided support to all European First Party studios during the release phase, while developing processes where needed to promote consistency. The team was also responsible for ensuring information was flowing to the rest of Sony Playstation to assist in executive level decision making. This was done through reporting and designing and developing global systems.

  • Created and established Planning and Release Team for Europe
  • Collaboration and direction to International release teams in US and Japan
  • Provided support during game releases for European Studios
  • Developed and supported internal global systems for tracking and reporting on production
  • General Systems and Tools Development to support production process (global)
  • Production scheduling, budgeting
  • Data analysis and reporting

TT Games, Project Lead Mar 07 – Oct 07
Projects: Lego Star Wars

I worked at TT Games as a Project Lead to help setup a new QA team as part of a publishing function for TT Games. Tasks included leading a single team of functional and compliance testers and working with outsourced localisation vendors. Other duties involved ensuring that test sweeps were in line with milestones, organising meetings, events and/or days out. The role also involved liaising with development teams, producers and console manufacturers. General duties I performed involved recruiting and interviewing staff, purchase new equipment, asses testing practices to identify and improve on weak areas.

SEGA, Project Lead Dec 05 – Mar 07
Projects: Super Monkey Ball, OutRun, Football Manager ‘06

My main duty was to manage multiple teams of testers, ensuring products were thoroughly tested by the teams prior to release. I created test plans, liaised with development, localisation and in house producers. This role gave me an insight into development and publishing big budget video games.