JVC

Jon Van CaneghemJon Van Caneghem - series founder and spiritual father. Currently developing mobile games, for his company VC Mobile Entertainment and his game Creature Quest

In 1983 he founded New World Computing, where he developed Might & Magic, King's Bounty and from it later become Heroes of Might & Magic series.  In addition to these games, there are other similar games, along with console (NES) and Apple ports. (Check mobygames.com to see an exhaustive list.)

The first title was Might & Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum (First releasd for Apple II. in 1986, single-handedly coded only by JVC), one of the first RPG games. And corner stone of the genre, which make it famous.

As time passed, he sold NWC to 3DO (1996), to focus on creating new MMO game, which was however never realised. As 3DO, due to some bad financial resolution, went bankrupt. The last games he worked on with NWC were Heroes of Might & Magic IV and Heroes of Might & Magic V (not released).

After 3DO bankrupcy, the franchise was split in two. King's Bounty was aquired by 1C Entertainment and Might & Magic (including Heroes) by Ubisoft.

Apart from programming and doing CEO stuff, he's also avid race care driver, winning several awards. ;) (Take a look here. There's he is in his Mazda MZR-Powered DP-02 where he just won Super Unlimited Championships 2013)

At CH we have several interviews with him.


Trivia:

  • Do you know that Sheltem was named after his dog, he was calling him like that when he was a bad boy.
  • "Crag Hack was one of my most played paper AD&D characters. He was a LVL 16 Human Neutral Fighter, 18/00 strength, used 2 one handed swords, acquired Psionics and among other things one of his hands was replaced with the "Hand of Vecna"... it’s a long story. : )" (Hand of Vecna - +20 Strength, this is quoted from RPG Codex Interview)
  • As it was several times mentioned, Jon is also known for being perfectionist.
  • His wife Michaela Van Caneghem stays behind King's Bounty and Heroes I - III, as map maker and wise adviser. Without her, Heroes would never come about.


  • Ubisoft is being eyed?

    According informations from Bloomberg and later the article from MMORPG, Ubisoft is being eyed for acquisition, possibly by a private equity firm.

    Ubisoft is not playing any negotations, so it's unclear how it would be

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  • Creature Quest Q&A - Final Round 2

    Creature Quest - Q&A - Final Round 2

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  • Creature Quest - Question & Answers - Round 1

    Creature Quest - Question & Answers - Round 1

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  • JVC Skype Interview on Matt Chat 366

    A very good video interview with JVC about old things and new available on Matt Barton's Youtube channel. Thanks to Quantomas for the tip.

  • JVC Interview Released

    JVC 2016You have waited patiently, submitted your questions and now it's time. Our latest Q&A with the creator of the Might & Magic franchise, has been released for public viewing and commentary. He talks about his current work on VCME's mobile game, as well as a few things about the plans he had at NWC... and about the future.

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  • Interview with Jon Van Caneghem

    Jon Van Caneghem
    January 2017
    JVC 2016


    Regular readers will know this name well: as one of the original founders of NWC and creator of the Might & Magic games, Jon is considered the

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  • JVC's Creature Quest Goes Global Jan 26

    CreatureQuestAs promised, we have been keeping tabs on the development of JVC's new operation: the mobile game Creature Quest developed by VC Mobile Entertainment. For a while, the game has been running a so-called "soft launch", being available only in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands and Hong Kong. On January 26th,...
  • GamesBeat Interview JVC

    Creature Quest headGamesBeat did a really nice interview with JVC some days back, about the new Creature Quest game and some other stuff.

     

    Read the whole

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  • JVC's Creature Quest

    JVC Creature QuestJon Van Caneghem's new game, Creature Quest, now has its own website and a trailer. Currently available "Down Under", you can sign up to the site to keep tabs on the development and further availability.
     
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  • JVC Interview on Twitch

    Today's Twitching session about the H7 map editor also featured an interview with Jon Van Caneghem, who had some interesting things to say about the early days of the franchise and the road it has taken to today.

     

  • JVC at GamesCom

    Gamescom2013.jpg

    As seen on the Facebook page, JVC met the developers at Gamescom.
    Thanks to Avonu.
  • JVC Opens a Mobile Studio

    There is a report on gamesindustry.biz (thanks Marzhin) about the new mobile studio that was launched by Jon Van Caneghem, called VC Mobile Entertainment. He hopes to apply his experience in the gaming industry in a market where RPGs and strategy games have been very popular:

    "Never before has there been a way to get to so many consumers so easily and so many people who are actually playing games on mobile...
  • JVC Available?

    The free-to-play Command & Conquer title Victory Studios were working on, has been cancelled. While not clear from the cancellation post on the studio's website, EA have confirmed to Polygon that this means the Victory Studios team are being disbanded.

    With that in mind, maybe Ubisoft should...
  • Open Dev Blog: JVC Interview

    In this interview on the open developer blog's "Meet the Ancients" series, M&M creator Jon Van Caneghem gives us some quick answers to questions about the series and himself.

    "Originally, the Might and Magic story ended with World of Xeen. But with the popularity of Heroes and a demand for new MM games, we started it all up again and took things in many directions. And yes, we had plans to...
  • JVC Q&A at RPG Codex

    RPG Codex have released a retrospective interview with M&M creator Jon Van Caneghem. In it, JVC reveals that he also had to compromise on the quality of his games to consider the economy; strengths and weaknesses of the series; the basis of M&M lore; the basis of names like "Sheltem" and "Crag Hack" and several other things.

    Have a good read....
  • JVC Interview & Ashan Compendium

    In this week's news, we give you this interview with Jon von Caneghem from this year's E3. During the quick pit-stop he made at the Ubisoft booth, he managed to shoot off a few words about his views on the 25th anniversary of the series. Also included are some cool shots of some of the games, ranging from the first M&M game ever created to the one coming out this September.

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  • Like Tears in Rain

    Like Tears in Rain: The Untold Chapters of Might and Magic

    Foreword


    Rare indeed is the franchise which runs for 25 years without amassing a few lost tales or unproduced instalments along the way. By no means can Might and Magic boast as such; the series has undoubtedly seen a very fair share of forgotten, unannounced, heavily-altered or incomplete games and products.

    To take stock on the 25th anniversary and summarise the lost possibilities

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  • JVC Working on a New C&C

    There were news today of a new Command and Conquer game, a franchise familiar to many of you I'm sure, developed by Victory Games. This studio was formed specifically for the development of strategy games at Electronic Arts. Worthplaying notes that Victory Games is headed by none other than Jon Van Caneghem, the creator of the Might and Magic series. Jon is joined by many Command and Conquer veterans to bring the series online. Prior to joining EA, JVC worked with...
  • JVC Leaves Trion

    The word is currently spreading across the web that the former M&M and Heroes designer Jon Van Caneghem has left his role as President and Chief Creative Officer of Trion World Networks.

    Joystiq has the breaking story, having followed up on an anonymous tip that JVC had been let go from the company. An...
  • JVC Working on a Fantasy MMO

    Jon Van Caneghem's new company, Trion, has revealed their new project and announced a partnership with the Sci-Fi Channel. The first game will be a fantasy massively multiplayer online game. Trio CEO Lars Buttler told Shacknews the following:

    "Trion's San Diego studio and our platform and publishing groups in Austin and Redwood City will work closely with Sci Fi's creative team in developing a dynamically evolving, massively social, connected entertainment...