Mastiff - about

Mastiff is a developer and publisher of video games and a licensee of Sony Computer Entertainment, Microsoft and Nintendo of America.

We take a great deal of pride in producing some of the very best localizations in the video games industry, together with original products.

Our goal is not to compete with the large, publicly traded video game companies. Instead, we seek to produce specialized, quality products for narrower audiences that the larger companies can not effectively serve.

Bill got his start in the industry as part of the product development group for Koei in Japan and then as one of the founders of Koei America. He subsequently joined Activision, went back to Japan and, over the course of twelve years, took Activision Japan from a single desk to the company's most profitable operating unit.

Bill's goal with Mastiff is not create a smaller version of a big publisher. Instead, Mastiff seeks to provide gamers with a high quality but nitchey or unusual gameplay experiences.

That includes everything from hard-core Japanese RPGs with the best localizations in the business to quality, original products based on cool but less well known licenses or concepts.

With more than 12 years experience as Executive Producer and Head of Development Mika heads Mastiff's Tokyo office.

An industry veteran, Mika has been responsible for completing more than 50 games including and worked with major franchises like Tony Hawk, Tenchu and Shanghai . Previous to Mastiff she was in charge of development at Activision Japan. She is perhaps the only producer in the industry to have gotten first-pass hardware maker approval for 23 consecutive titles.

She is pictured here with her friend Cielo, a Polish Lowland Sheepdog. Cielo has repeatedly volunteered to help Mastiff change its business model from video game development and publishing to sheep herding. Cielo's suggestion is not under active consideration, but we've promised to get back to her if we change our mind.

Van The Man brings to Mastiff a great background in public and private accounting.

Charles was a Senior Accountant at Price Waterhouse for 6 years and at Moore Stephens for 2 years. He also served 2 years as Assistant Controller at Novel Enterprises, a $160 million distributor; and 5 years as CFO for a $150 million Bay Area bedding company.

For fun, Charles teaches Financial Accounting at City College of San Francisco in the evenings. Charles holds a BS in Accounting and a Masters in Taxation.

After cutting his teeth on licensing and development in Japan's pachinko industry, Tom entered the rough-and-tumble world of video game publishing in the summer of 2007 as the newest pup in the Mastiff litter.

What does he think of working in the entertainment business? "It's easy to work hard but it's hard to work smart." Nevertheless, he loves the challenge and he's been having a blast working hard and smart with the rest of the dogs at Mastiff.

Tom holds a BS in mathematics from Stanford University and has excellent hand-eye coordination.