Rachel Bernstein is a video game designer and developer based in San Francisco, USA.

Rachel Bernstein
Alma materPrinceton University
Occupation(s)Video game developer, Video game designer
Known forFrog City Software
Imperialism
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove
Trade Empires

Education

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Bernstein graduated from Princeton University with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1987.[1]

Career

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From 1987 to 1994, Bernstein worked as a software engineer. In 1994, she co-founded the company Frog City Software with the brothers Bill and Ted Spieth. Bernstein wrote the code and assembled a development team for a prototype that later became the game Imperialism. The project received funding from Strategic Simulations in 1995, with president Chuck Kroegel describing it as, 'the thinking man's Civilisation'.[2] Imperialism was released in 1997 and has an IGN community rating of 7.8/10.[3] Bernstein oversaw the development of games Imperialism II and Trade Empires, for which she wrote a detailed project breakdown.[4] In 2003, Bernstein sold Frog City to Take-Two Interactive, but continued to run the company as Take-Two's subsidiary.[5]

Bernstein joined Electronic Arts in 2007 and became an executive producer for Maxis, overseeing the development of the Wii version of MySims Agents (2009) and The Sims Medieval (2011).[6]

Since 2013, Bernstein has served as an executive producer at Google for the Android Play Studio.[7]

She has been a speaker at South by Southwest,[6] TEDxYouth,[5] and the 2016 Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit in San Francisco.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Meet Our Speakers". Astra STEAM. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  2. ^ "History". Sidecar Studios. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  3. ^ "Imperialism". IGN. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  4. ^ "Postmortem: Frog City's Trade Empires". Gamasutra. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  5. ^ a b "TEDxYouth@Castilleja - RACHEL BERNSTEIN". TEDxYouth. 6 June 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  6. ^ a b Glasser, AJ; Rynak, Allison; Ely, Cara; Bernstein, Rachel (12 March 2013). How Women Are Driving the Gaming Industry Forward. South by Southwest. Hyatt Regency, Austin, TX.
  7. ^ Paul, Ian (3 May 2013). "Android Play Studio hires, Google I/O 2013 lineup hint at game-filled future for Android". Green Bot. Retrieved 13 December 2016.