Jez Nicholson (Web Development Manager) englisch

Jez Nicholson (Web Development Manager)

What is your name and what is your field of activity at NCsoft?

My name is Jez Nicholson and I am the Web Development Manager. This means that I am responsible for selecting and implementing the technology behind the scenes for how NCsoft Europe uses the web. I normally describe it as ‘everything that we do on the web that isn’t the game itself’.

How did you come to NCsoft?

After university in Brighton I worked at a number of multinational companies designing and building computer systems, ran my own IT consultancy for 4 years then worked for a couple of startups building web applications for education and for the hotel business. I was looking to work for a big company again when I saw a job advert for NCsoft Europe and just knew that I had to come and work here. Luckily, the people interviewing me thought the same thing and I got the job.

What are you working on presently?

At this exact moment I am flying to Seattle to visit ArenaNet to talk to them about how we can use the web for Guild Wars 2. Taking a peek out of the window I can see that we are over the snow and mountains of Iceland.

I get to travel a bit, including going to Korea last January to find out how we are going to build the back end web systems to support Aion: The Tower of Eternity.

What do you like most at your job?

I believe that we are at a turning point with how games will use the web and that the line between the game and the web will become increasingly blurred. This starts with things like pulling data from the game and presenting it on character web pages, which is mainly a technical challenge, but moves on to things like publishing raw data feeds so that gamers could build their own applications or making some areas of code open source. These later examples are an embodiment of how the community is an intrinsic part of the games that we publish.

…that and eating octopus tentacle sushi in Korea that was so fresh that it was still moving.

What is your favourite NCsoft title and why?

I enjoy playing Exteel because I’m a twitch gamer at heart. I love being able to leap into battle as a robot wielding a samurai sword and machine pistol.

What other game genres (except MMOs) are you interested in and what are your favourites?

I like online multiplayer shoot-em-ups and am hooked on Day Of Defeat Source. I play nearly every day and am either a sniper or an assault troop depending on whether I can get my mitts on the sniper rifle before someone else gets it.

What is your favourite TV show or series? What are your favourite films?

There aren’t many TV shows that I would be upset to miss but I’ll watch House or The Apprentice if it’s on. Favourite films: Cyrano De Bergerac, Sean Of The Dead, 28 Days Later

Do you like reading? If yes, what kind of books do you have in your bookcase?

I love reading but don’t get to do as much now that I don’t commute to London every day. My bookcase includes crime fiction by James Ellroy (the whole set, including L.A. Confidential), Jim Thompson (stories like The Grifters and The Getaway) and Ian Rankin (the Inspector Rebus novels) as well as the Gormanghast trilogy and stuff by Charles Bukowski.

What are you doing in your spare time?

Being the singer in Rock Band in the Monkey Ranch, our office games room

McDonald’s or Burger King?

I’d rather eat my own liver.

Coca Cola or Pepsi?

Neither. St Emilion.

If you would have one year free time and enough money: Where would you spend your time and what would you do?

I would buy a Range Rover and convert it to include a water tank then I’d drive down through Europe, cross over from Spain to Morocco and keep going round Africa and into the Middle East.

Meet the Devs Overview