JVC
Jon 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.
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