Louis Castle

Louis Castle as part of BAFTA 2011 .

Louis J. Castle II , also known as "Lou", is an American computer game developer , entrepreneur and manager. Together with Brett W. Sperry , he founded the company Westwood Studios , which helped the genre of real-time strategy games to make a breakthrough.

Career

Castle's interest in computer games aroused according to his own statements already during his school days. After high school, he studied fine arts and computer science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas , even though he had received an offer for a scholarship to study architecture at Arizona State University . In 1983/84 Castle, who was working as a seller of the Century 23 Apple store in Las Vegas at the time, met the programmer Brett W. Sperry. In March 1985, he and Sperry founded Westwood Associates in Las Vegas, which was renamed Westwood Studios in 1992. After some publications in the field of computer role-playing games ( Eye of the Beholder , Lands of Lore ) and Adventures ( Legend of Kyrandia ), the company helped the genre of real-time strategy games to break through in the early 1990s with the titles Dune 2 and Command & Conquer . When Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1998 for $ 122.5 million, he and Sperry were given a five-year contract. From 2000 to 2003 he headed the studio as general manager. While Sperry left the company after his contract expired, Castle continued to work for EA. After Westwood's dissolution in 2003 and the relocation of previous activities to EA Los Angeles , Castle was responsible for the studio's creative direction as Vice President until June 2009. His duties included overseeing EA's Blueprint Studio. On July 15, 2009 it was announced that Castle would join InstantAction as the new CEO for GarageGames . After InstantAction closed in November 2010, Castle became a consultant for Premium FanPage in January 2011, eventually joining Zynga as Vice President of Studios. After only six months, however, he left the company again to take a position as Chief Strategy Officer for the casino supplier and gaming table manufacturer Shuffle Master. Castle previously served on Shuffle Master's board of directors for six years , including chairing the Audit Committee .

Personal

Castle lives in Las Vegas with his family .

Ludography (excerpt)

• Mars Saga (1988)
• BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception (1988)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989)
• Dragonstrike (1990)
• Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun (1992)
• The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate (1993)
• The Lion King (1994)
• Lands of Lore 2 (1997)
• Blade Runner (1997)
• Lands of Lore 3 (1999)
• Command & Conquer: Renegade (2002)
• Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat (2002)
• Boom Blox (2008)
• Boom Blox Bash Party (2009)

Awards

• In 1999 he received the award for his life's work at the Game Developers Conference as part of the Spotlight Awards.
• 2002 Governor's Arts Award from the State of Nevada
• In 2009 he was named one of the 100 most important game developers by the US online game magazine IGN .

Web links

• Louis Castle at MobyGames (English)
• Adjunct faculty page at USC

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.forbes.com/profile/louis-castle/
2. ↑ A New Dawn: Westwood Studios 15th Anniversary ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . Retrieved January 13, 2013.
3. ↑ Edge editorial team: Retrospective: The Making of ... Dune II ( English ) In: Edge magazine . Future Publishing. December 9, 2008. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved on March 29, 2011.
4. ^ Westwood co-founder Louis Castle leaves for InstantAction
5. ^ Hayes, Trevor (October 30, 2000). "Computer games: They got game," Las Vegas Review-Journal , p. D1.
6. ↑ Chris Morris: EA buys Westwood ( English ) In: CNN Money . Time Warner . August 17, 1998. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
7. ↑ Dean Takahashi: Brett Sperry's Jet Set Games to launch Highborn game for iPhone, iPad ( English ) In: GamesBeat . VentureBeat . March 29, 2010. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
8. ^ EALA management team ( Memento of August 28, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), official website.
9. ↑ Forbes profile ( Memento of the original from February 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ^ EA Blueprint Studio Head Neil Young Departs Company
11. ↑ Lou Castle to Head Up InstantAction as New CEO ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ↑ GamerLiveTV interview, Louis Castle joins team Xiha ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ^ Former head of InstantAction joins Zynga as VP of Studios
14. ^ Zynga VP Lou Castle Leaves for Shuffle Master ( Memento from April 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
15. ↑ http://gamechoiceawards.com/archive/lifetime.html
16. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
17. ↑ 78. Louis Castle ( English ) In: IGN . News Corp . 2009. Archived from the original on May 6, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 5, 2011.