Steve Pierce - "The Designer"
Steve obtained his Information Technology degree from San Diego State University in 2001, where he also found his passion for online games. He went on to work for Sony Online Entertainment, a leader in the online gaming market, where he quickly climbed the ladder to become a design manager on the critically acclaimed sequel to what many have called the founder of 3D MMOs, EverQuest 2. Steve left SOE and founded Onverse, LLC in December of 2006. Since then he has put together the following team of extremely talented professionals to build the Onverse. Steve was the CEO, purchasing manager, accountant, legal team, plumber, cleaning crew and generally good guy, Steve was the lead designer of Onverse. Unfortunately, Steve is no longer with us.
Onverse username: StevEO
Wesley Macdonald - "The Engineer"
Oh how we wish we could clone Wes. Wes would probably like to clone himself at this point, as he's been working overtime for more than a year. Wes joined the crew in August of 2007, where he has single-handedly engineered the entire Onverse from a multiplayer FPS game engine into a massively multiplayer environment. Every major system was built by Wes from the ground up. He's a self-taught engineer who started coding when he was 10 years old and realized that "Hey, the books they use to teach at MIT are available to everybody." Previously to working at Onverse, he worked various engineering positions with other companies, including Intel.
Onverse username: Wes
Eric Hoefer - "The Artist"
Eric is a 3D artist. He started as an intern in January of 2008 just after graduating from Collins College with a Bachelors of Visual Arts with a concentration in Game Art. We call this guy the Closer, simply because he gets things done. He has either created or touched-up almost every art asset in the Onverse. His determination for high quality in our art has left us with a beautiful game world and you with hundreds of objects you can call your own. In addition to his art, Eric is also an avid gamer and musician. He has won multiple gaming competitions from Street Fighter to Guitar Hero, but when it comes to Rock Band, never, ever challenge him. You will lose and possibly cry. Eric is a stellar guy and an invaluable team member.
Onverse username: Eslayer
Ben Steele - "The Animator"
Ben is an amazing artist and animator. He joined the team in May of 2008. Ben has created and re-created everything to do with our avatars, as well as many other assets for the web, UI, housing, sounds, tools, and more. Ben brings creative thought and style to Onverse and you can thank him when you say "Wow, my Avatar looks sweet!" Ben’s artistic vision and 'can do' attitude are second to none. His talent has been recognized and awarded every time he has laid hands on a project, including a win for Best Animated Film at the Sedona International Film Festival in 2005 with his world-renowned animated short "Fragile Machine." In addition to receiving Special Honors for Animation at both Imaginaria in Italy and Future Imprint in Taipei, Ben's work has seen exhibition at the National Museum of Art in Rome, the Aoyama Spiral in Tokyo, the Thierry Mugler Gallery in Paris and a Biennal presided over by Spain's Queen Sophia. Ben is also the owner of Aoineko, a studio stretching the boundaries of animation and creative visualizations. Ben is no longer on the Developer team.
Onverse username: Ben
Scott Mitting - "The Web Engineer"
Scott was an engineer here at Onverse. He joined the team recently in February, 2009. It's not always easy to accept a job when in the interview you are told that you need to build an entire fully-featured social network in one month, but Scott was confident with his abilities and passed the test with flying colors. This has to be a record, right? Scott has recently begun in-game engineering as well, helping us to implement our tools system and whatever else he can get his hands on. Aside from Onverse, Scott owns two companies, Mitting Consulting and Mitting UK, as well as being a part owner in 2 other companies, Cardbiller and GSD Software. Needless to say, Scott not only brought his engineering skills to the table, he also brought a ton of start-up experience. Scott no longer works on the Development team.
Onverse username: Smitting