Samson Mow

Samson Mow
Born Victoria, British Columbia
Citizenship Canadian
Education Management Information Systems & Marketing
Alma mater Simon Fraser University
Occupation Video game developer
Years active 2005-present
Employer Relic Entertainment
Ubisoft
Sitemasher
Pixelmatic
Known for Video game development
Notable work Company of Heroes
Might and Magic: Heroes Kingdoms
Castle & Co
The Smurfs & Co
Home town Victoria, British Columbia

Samson Mow (born in Victoria, British Columbia) is a Canadian Chinese video game developer and founder and CEO of Pixelmatic, a game development company established in 2011 and based in Vancouver and Shanghai.

Early life and education

Mow was born in Victoria, British Columbia.[1] In 2002, he obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Simon Fraser University in Canada.[2]

Career

Relic Entertainment

Working at Relic, Mow was in charge of game balance for franchises such as Dawn of War and Company of Heroes,[3] the latter being the highest rated strategy game of all time and 6th best PC Game of all time.[4] Later he was involved in Relic’s online division, where he launched Relic's website and was responsible for the development of the Relic Online platform.[2]

Sitemasher

Mow was the business and operations manager at Sitemasher Corporation, a Vancouver-based start-up that created an online web development platform.[5] Sitemasher was acquired for $20 million by Salesforce.com.[6] Mow represented Sitemasher at the British Columbia Technology Summit in Beijing as part of a Canadian trade mission composed of high-tech companies in the information/communication, clean energy and environmental sectors.[7]

Ubisoft

In May 2009, after working in Vancouver for four years, Mow decided to move to China, where he joined Ubisoft’s newest studio in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. There he served as an executive producer, and led the development team that worked on The Smurfs & Co, Ubisoft's social network game listed as one of the fastest-growing games by Monthly Active Users,[8][9] and launched the game alongside The Smurfs movie.[10] Mow was also responsible for the development, launch and operations of Might and Magic: Heroes Kingdoms in China,[11] Taiwan, and Korea.

Pixelmatic

Main article: Pixelmatic

In September 2011, Mow founded Pixelmatic, a Vancouver-Shanghai-based company, together with a group of friends from Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Relic.[12] With a Canadian management team, Pixelmatic’s primary development centre is set in Shanghai, which is supported by a team based in Vancouver, Canada.[13] The company has been fully operational from June 2012 after closing a seed funding round.[14] Pixelmatic launched their first title, Gem Wizard, in late 2013 in Japan.[15]

Conferences

Mow is a frequent speaker and panelist at many game development conferences. His topics usually cover online games, future trends, and efficiency.

In 2011, he was featured in Game Developers Conference's Social Games panel named "The Road to HTML5 Games: Challenges and Opportunities" held in Shanghai, China, which featured five Chinese and Western web and mobile developers on the possibilities and implications of HTML5. Panelists who were included, aside from Mow, were GameHouse's Alexander Mendelev, Kabam's Andy Riedel, Kano Applications' Tim Teh, and RockYou Asia's Jia Shen.[16]

In July 2012, he was featured in the Taipei International Digital Content Seminar named "Digital Taipei", alongside Jason Della Rocca, the former executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and James Hursthouse, CEO of Roadhouse Interactive.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "VAN Tastemaker: Samson Mow". 12 February 2014. View The Vibe. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  2. 1 2 Hui, Stephen (27 March 2009). "Geek Speak: Samson Mow, director of Pixelmatic Entertainment". Geek Speak. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  3. ↑ "Samson Mow Game Credits". MobyGames. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "Company of Heroes Reviews". GameRankings. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
  5. ↑ Guseva, Irina (9 October 2008). "Sitemasher Releases Web Dev Collaboration Platform". CMS Wire. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  6. ↑ Lewis, Rob (16 July 2012). "Salesforce Loves Canada and is Here to Stay". TechVibes. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  7. ↑ "International Business Summit in Beijing Features Sitemasher". PC District. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  8. ↑ Webster, Andrew (19 August 2011). "Ubisoft brings The Smurfs to Facebook with The Smurfs & Co". GameZebo. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  9. ↑ Glasser, A. J. (8 August 2011). "Ubisoft, RockYou Games Lead This Week's List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU". Inside Social Games. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  10. ↑ Webster, Andrew (19 August 2011). "Interview: Ubisoft brings The Smurfs to Facebook with The Smurfs & Co". Gamezebo. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  11. ↑ ""Magic: The Kingdom," Ubisoft studio big decryption" (in Chinese). Tancent. 21 October 2010. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  12. ↑ Jordan, Jon (14 November 2013). "Canadian-Chinese dev Pixelmatic looks to create "truly social" mobile games". PocketGamer. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  13. ↑ "Pixelmatic Team Hits The Launch Button". Village Gamer. 14 November 2013. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  14. ↑ "New start-up Pixelmatic to focus on 'true social games'". iGaming Business. 15 November 2013. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  15. ↑ Yu, Francisco (16 December 2013). "Developing for Japan from China: an interview with the makers of Gem Wizard". GamesInAsia. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  16. ↑ "GDC China 2011 Debuts Square Enix, Kabam, HTML5 Sessions". Gamasutra. 5 October 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  17. ↑ "Digital Taipei 2012 "Taipei International Digital Content Seminar" invited three Canadian game industry representatives to Taiwan to join the festivities". canada.org.tw. 4 October 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
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