We are a Team
Tim Smith - Editorial Director
Tim Smith is a man of many talents - none of them involve being any good at video games playing. This, however, has not stopped from him playing them since before you were born. He began writing about them about two hours after playing his first one. He worked on magazines such as Amiga and PC Formats, Sega Power and Edge before moving into book publishing (Superstars of the World Cup anybody?) before spending a few happy and drunken years at Team17 where he was discovered hiding in a cupboard and thrown out for not buying a full round. Asked about his committment to SPOnG, Smith ranted, "I moved back from Australia to work on SPOnG... from bloody Australia where beer is free, the sun always shines and the ocean laps your front door clean every morning. Don't bloody ask me how much SPOnG means to me, you daft beggar. And where the flip is that review?" Tim Smith is 108 years old.
Adam Hartley - London Correspondent
Adam is a professional wrangler of PR cattle, having spent the last eight years heading up PR for major European publishers. He's also a qualified journalist, which means he writes many words that we've never see before. The result? We remove all that wordy crap in favour of single syllable replacements - why use a long word when a diminutive one will suffice?
Stefan Walters - Advertising Sales Executive
Stefan heads up SPOnG's advertising sales. If you want to get your product in front of SPOnG's readers, opinion-forming adult gamers, don't bother spamming the forums with thinly veiled guerilla marketing, get in touch with our Stef.
Andrew Micklethwaite - Content Researcher
One of the first contributors to SPOnG.com, and the company's first full-time employee, Andrew has seen SPOnG's development at close quarters since the whole thing came to life in 1999. Soon after joining, he found himself at the sharp end of a team of passionate gamers, and, sensing anarchy was in the air, took charge. To this day, Andrew is the man with his finger in the drawstring that ties everything together. All the pretty pictures, the words of wisdom that you see on site, they're all made suitable for consumption by Andrew.A level-headed character with not the slightest hint of a short temper, Andrew has come to be known as SPOnG's anchor - well, that's what we thought we heard his staff say.
Erica Jayne Pemberton - Staff Writer
Erica combines two firsts as SPOnG staff go. She was the first 'Mercan to join our staff, and she's also the first woman to write for SPOnG, giving us that elusive and valuable insight into the woman's perspective (Apparently, video games would be better if they had more pink, and shoes).Erica sometimes leaves the office in a hurry to attend a casting or a shoot, because she moonlights as a high fashion super-model. She's about 100ft tall, and has a distracted air of sophisticated ennui.
Greg Platt - Staff Writer
Shunned from society for having a fourth eye protruding from the small of his back, Greg has taken up residence in a small shack in the woods just outside the Los Angeles borders. While technically labeled as a 'Mercan, Greg has chosen to eschew democracy and has formed his own country, Quadroctica, from which he submits game reviews via carrier pigeon.He is currently accepting applications for various positions of the Quadroctican parliament as well as someone to man the counter at the Starbucks.
Joseph Mitchell Chagan - Staff Writer
Jo is about the craziest person on SPOnG's staff, and that's saying something! He's also a hardcore gamer, and a prolific writer. Better to have him on your side, if you know what we mean!JoMitch (as he would doubtlessly be known if he was a Walton) is another 'Mercan. Can we see a pattern developing here? What is this? You let one foreigner come work for your company, and before you know it they are bringing their friends, relatives, and complete strangers with a similar accent to the party. Soon, their pets will be walking round the office stinking up the place leaving their little "presents" in the corner behind the pot-plants (that's plants in pots, we don't grow pot in the office, for God's sake, this is a place of work).
Svend Joscelyne - Staff Writer
When Svend wakes up in the morning, he likes to think about how much he can further emphasise his Viking heritage. Thankfully this has yet to result in any pillaging of villages or sacrificing annoying clerks from the local Co-op. He usually gives up by lunchtime and instead covers press events for SPOnG, along with quizzing developers about their new releases.He is a massive Sonic the Hedgehog fan, and runs a website to showcase this. The rest of SPOnG still aren't sure how to react to that.
Rory Joscelyne - Photographer
Rory can be a crafty one - his acting skills means he can take the form of many different personalities and evade capture from the SPOnG Team when they come asking for that fiver back that he owes.He is rather dandy with a camera however, resulting in his position as SPOnG Photographer. And a fine one he is too.
Marcus Dyson - Chief Executive Officer
One of the old-skool wild men of gaming, Dyson paid his dues editing the magazine/doorstep that was Amiga Format - in the days before editorial values flew the coop.He then spent time hardening his liver at Team17 Software, where he first thought up SPOnG. He used to claim to have started SPOnG to prevent him ever having to wear a suit again - but more recently, in acknowledgement of the increasing corporatisation of gaming (and all the awards ceremonies he is forced to attend) he has actually bought some rather nice bespoke suits, which make his big scary bald self look somewhat like a bouncer.
Dyson likes snowboarding, skateboarding, mountain biking, Harley Davidsons and AC Cobras, and loud music with guitars. He's quite scary.
Gareth Edwards - Chief Technology Officer
Gareth was standing close to Marcus when he thought up this whole monsterous thing. Instead of discouraging him, Gareth encouraged him, and even took a share of the company. The fool!Aside from "doing the back-end" (ahem) and trafficking (adverts, that is), Gareth is especially responsible for testing the vehicle deformation dynamics for screenshots of driving games, and is a world grand master at GTA3, Vice City & San Andreas. His fastest GTA:SA "speed run" comes in at under 3 minutes 37 seconds. He's taken to measuring the playability of the "real world" by spinning cars at high speed at busy intersections, driving toward oncoming traffic, and watching how people react to his drive-by shooting antics.
Gavin Dodds - Technology Consultant
Gavin was also standing nearby, and being a games freak of the highest order, and some sort of registered computer genius, he wanted a piece of the action too. Gavin does the bits that are very very hard, and technical. He is a wizard who knows about Unix!
Amanda Cook - Art and Design
We thought we could do this all in wurdz, but it luckt bad, so we had to get an experienced crayon wielder in to draw some pictures. Amanda used to do the pictures on Mega! Magazine, Amiga Power, GamesMaster and some others, probably.
Phillip S Atkinson - Business Editor
If this were the eighties, Phil would be a yuppie, he has a mobile phone, suit, tie, brief case, the lot. He probably spends most of his time day-trading tech stocks on Charles Schwab. He helps us present a responsible face to other suits, in the hope that they will give us money. Hurrah for Phil.!
Kathryn Lunn - Account Director
Kathryn possesses that rarest of all things in the SPOnG office... boobs. Initially we thought this was pretty strange, but then we found out that she was a female, and it's quite normal, apparently. She doesn't play games much, but she does keep us organised, and she's great at talking to customers.A girl... who'd of thunk it.