Joel Breton

Joel Breton (born 1971) is an American video game producer, video game designer, film producer and entrepreneur. He has worked as a producer on multiple award-winning video games, including Unreal PC,[1] Bomberman Live,[2] and Pirates of the Caribbean.[1] In 2016, Breton became the head of virtual reality content for HTC Vive,[3] where he manages both internal and external content development for the HTC Vive virtual reality platform.[4] In October 2018, Breton premiered the world's first feature length VR film, 7 Miracles, [5] at the Raindance Film Festival, where it won the VR Film of the Festival award.[6] Joel Breton is a member of the Steering Committee for the Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR), where he works to advance AR/VR technology in the global marketplace.[7]

Joel Breton
Joel Breton speaking at Game Developers Conference
Born	Joel Breton (1971-09-26) September 26, 1971
Occupation	Video game producer, Video game designer, Film producer, Entrepreneur

Breton is a video game industry veteran who began his career in 1994 when he landed a role at Sega of America in Product Development. Since then, he has produced, designed and created more than 250 video games across 22 console platforms.[8] He has also created more than 100 online games that have been played more than a billion times across the web.[9]

Joel's first role as a video game producer was for GT Interactive, where he produced Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes,[1] Unreal, Blood 2, Anno 1602, Baseball mogul, Deer Hunter, along with several other video games. While at GT, Breton successfully green-lit and launched the development cycle for No One Lives Forever.

Breton produced several games for Bethesda Softworks, a game publisher based in Bethesda, Maryland. He worked as a producer on Sea Dogs,[1] Echelon,[1] and IHRA Drag Racing,[1] while serving as Producer and Studio Head of Bethesda West Studios in Olympia, Washington.

Joel then moved to Moscow, Russia, to create and manage Bethesda's European development operations. While stationed in Moscow, he worked as a producer on Pirates of the Caribbean[1] for the Xbox which was the first U.S. console game developed in Russia.[10]

Breton founded the game development company Kozmo Games to develop casual games for the global market. Kozmo Games has since developed and released Ice Cream Tycoon[11] and War Chess[11] for the casual game market.

Breton returned to California in 2005 where he joined Take Two Interactive and worked as a producer on World Poker Tour for the PS2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox, and Game Boy Advance platforms. He also worked as a producer on Amped 3,[1] a launch title for the Xbox 360. He led the Major League Baseball 2K6 team and produced the PlayStation Portable version of the exclusive Major League Baseball game which was released in Spring of 2006.

Joel next appeared as a Senior Producer with Hudson Entertainment in 2006 and produced Bomberman Live[1] among several other console titles for the U.S. division of Hudson Soft.[12]

From 2007 until 2010 Joel held the position of Director of Content for AddictingGames.com, MTV Network's leading website[13] with more than 30 million monthly visitors.[14] During that time he established the site as an original game IP factory, creating and launching more than 100 original game franchises and publishing more than 800 new games on the site.[15]

Joel is a frequent speaker at game industry conventions and he represented MTV Networks and AddictingGames by speaking at the Casual Connect conference in Kiev in 2008.[10] Joel was a speaker and on the steering committee for the Flash Gaming Summit in 2009,[16] at Casual Connect Seattle 2010.

Breton also pioneered the production of viral news games and he designed and created more than 10 viral news games that were each played millions of times.[17] Hero On The Hudson[18] was one of the first viral news games[19] he launched, celebrating the heroism of Captain Sully Sullenburger's perfect plane landing on the Hudson River. Oiligarchy,[20] was another viral news game which examined the oil industry for the first time in a video game. Joel and his team at AddictingGames also produced Where's the Naughty Governor,[21] a news game that was highlighted by the LA Times in the article "Web games, ripped from the healdines".[17]

In August 2010, Joel was appointed Executive Vice President of North America for Zattikka Ltd., a social game company[22] focused on the high growth platforms of social, mobile and online games.[23]

From 2012 to 2015, Joel moved to the global video game publisher, 505 Games, where he served as Senior Vice President of Product Development.[24] During his time as head of 505 Games' product development division, the company launched a string of highly rated and successful games, including Payday 2, Terraria, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, How To Survive, Gems of War, and Battle Islands.

In January 2016, Breton was appointed Vice President of Virtual Reality Content at HTC Vive,[25] where he and the HTC Vive content team are responsible for creating virtual reality content across ten categories, including healthcare, education, cinematic/live video, gaming, design, real-estate, retail, media, social, & theme-park experiences.[26] Joel believes that game players are going to be blown away by the full immersion that they can experience in virtual reality games on the HTC Vive platform.[27]