Featured in 100 Rising Stars of the UK Games Industry

I'm a rising star!

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/top100/2018/i-k (Mirror #1)

I was asked a few questions via email, but somebody also appears to have spied on my Twitter and LinkedIn, and they produced this short piece about me!

It was clear from a young age that Jamie Holding was destined for success in the games industry - his determination to blag his way into E3 during its industry-only years is indication enough of how keenly he pursued his career of choice.

Experimenting with development before he even entered university, he created Facebook Chess as soon as the social network made its API available. This title became such a hit that it was later purchased and further developed by Chess.com, and remains the most popular chess applications in the world.

The NDreams staffer is described as “one of the most naturally inquisitive programmers”, with his strong technical knowledge allowing him to deliver “even the most complex of networking backends”. And this expertise also translates into passion for his products.

“I'm immensely proud of every game I've shipped,” says Holding. “I'm most proud of when we shipped The Assembly at NDreams for the launch day of PlayStation VR, which was quite an effort. But well worth the energy to get it released on time.”

Holding is keen to warn other developers about the impact of crunch and burnout.

“It can seriously damage developer mental health, and when it becomes commonplace within organisations, doesn't gain you anything at all,” he says. “I've been lucky enough to very rarely have to work extra hours myself, and work at a company which has no general expectations of crunching.”

It's an honor to be part of such a fabulous list. Over half the nominations and final recipients were women, which is fantastic and suggests that the "up and comers" are going to bring a lot more diversity to the industry for the next generation of game developers.