Derek French

Derek French is a software development professional with over 18 years of experience in the video game industry.

He has shipped thirteen titles to millions of customers. Derek excels at providing technical analysis and team support in the areas of development, publishing, and user experience.

Derek is currently working as the Live Ops Producer at Beamdog.

Past work involved game development and publishing on franchises such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Anthem on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Professional Experience and Skills

Technical

• Managed the technical requirements for the legal, publishing, and marketing aspects of title development and was a trusted authority in these areas
• Took ownership of republishing five previous BioWare titles on the Steam digital sales platform and freed up central publishing
• Completed the redesign and architecture for the common public facing utilities
• Designed and architected common public facing utilities to create reusable, data driven solutions for future projects
• Designed and architected the original community site, master server, game updater, patch installer, and download manager systems; these systems were some of the first of their kind for titles of that era

Leadership

• Helped form the new Studio Operations (later renamed Developer Publishing Support) team
• Established and led the Live Team for launch and post-release support of early titles
• Led the Live Team through three title releases

Customer Relations

• Supported teams by being the single point of contact for all central teams and external resources
• Recognized as a knowledgeable and reliable contact both internally and externally
• As a member of the Live Team, worked with external development contractors for two titles
• As a member of the Live Team, provided direct customer support for early titles
• Managed a dedicated Customer Support representative for 5 years

User Experience

• Acted as the Production Coordinator for User Experience Research for our last title
• Passionate about the user experience and consulted with many groups on changes and improvements
• Advocated for accessibility improvements for color blind customers and others with physical limitations
• Recognized for expertise on the Windows versions of software