Matt

Community Manager

Matt is a newbie to the games industry, but not a newbie to games. He has been participating in and running game communities for over 12 years while working at his primary jobs in the telecommunications industry as a Network Engineer. He joins the Red 5 team in order to foster better communication between the community and the developers.

Matt is an avid PC gamer and makes sure to remind everyone how much better the PC platform is compared to consoles. With his combination of technical knowledge and insight into the minds of gamers everywhere, we feel Matt will really make his mark here at Red 5.

Q: What was your reaction when you got the offer to start at Red 5?
A: To be honest, I was in shock. I had been trying to get into the industry for years and had finally given up hope that I ever had a shot. I was at a good job at a good company and got a message from Scott Youngblood that Red 5 was looking for a community manager. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go in for an interview and a little over 6 weeks later I was sitting down for my first day on the job.

It has been an amazing experience so far and I can’t wait to share everything we have in store with the gamers out there. There’s definitely a lot of potential for a community to grow around what we’re making.

Q: What’s your fondest gaming memory?
A: I’ve been playing games for a long long time, but it wasn’t until the summer of 1997 that I really got involved with a gaming community. Sure, I had played on ladders for games like Quake and Duke Nukem 3D, but I was never really part of the community, I would play a match and then log off (getting phone time was a hassle).

In the summer of ‘97 though, I started reading articles about a game called “Starsiege: Tribes“. I dove in head first. I got my own computer and my own phone line, started hanging out on IRC, joined a “tribe”, talked with the developers of the game. I was hooked. For over 12 years, I have been a part of the Tribes community. I’ve made life-long friends, flown to LAN parties around the country, been to weddings of people I only knew from playing games, and generally found a whole new community to be a part of. It was amazing.

Q: What do you enjoy most about working on games?
A: Watching game features progress from an idea in someone’s head to a design document to a prototype to a finished feature is an amazing experience. Every morning I get to patch the latest build and play around with features that were nothing more than a twinkle in someone’s eye just a few days prior. Being a part of that, even in a small way, is awe inspiring.