Elan Lee

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American game designer (born 1975)

title: "Elan Lee" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["american-game-designers", "living-people", "designers-from-los-angeles", "rochester-institute-of-technology-alumni", "year-of-birth-missing-(living-people)"] description: "American game designer (born 1975)" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_Lee" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American game designer (born 1975) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox writer "]

FieldValue
nameElan Lee
imageElan lee 05 on white 0592-2.jpg
captionGame designer
birth_dateJanuary 26, 1975
birth_placeLos Angeles, California, U.S.
alma_materRochester Institute of Technology
occupationGame Designer
spouseRamona Pringle
::

| name = Elan Lee | image = Elan lee 05 on white 0592-2.jpg | caption = Game designer | birth_date = January 26, 1975 | birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | alma_mater = Rochester Institute of Technology | occupation = Game Designer | influences = | influenced = | spouse = Ramona Pringle Elan Lee (born January 26, 1975) is an American game designer, developer, and creator. He has designed games for the Xbox; helped create the world’s first Alternate Reality Games; and with Matthew Inman created the card game Exploding Kittens, whose Kickstarter campaign was the most-backed of its day. He and Inman founded the Exploding Kittens company in 2015.

Biography

Lee began his career as a character designer at Industrial Light and Magic, where he worked on several movies, including the computer special effects for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Lee was then hired by Microsoft Game Studios as Lead Game Designer, designing and directing games for PC and Xbox. While working for Microsoft, he was the Executive Producer and Lead Designer for The Beast, one of the world’s first Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) used to promoted the Steven Spielberg film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.{{Cite web | title = The intricate plot behind 'A.I.' Web mystery | last = Kornblum | first = Janet | work = USA Today | date = 28 June 2001 | access-date = 2015-03-04 | url = http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/2001-06-22-ai-plot.htm | language = | quote =

Lee has co-founded several gaming start-ups. In 2003, he co-founded 42 Entertainment, whose alternate reality games include I Love Bees to promote the Xbox game Halo 2 and Year Zero to promote the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero. He, Shane Small, and Dawne Weisman later co-founded EDOC Laundry to produce ARGs using clothes as the primary platform. Consumers deciphered codes hidden within garments and entered the results into the game's main website to reveal pieces of a distributed story. EDOC laundry is the world's first interactive apparel line.

In 2007, Lee founded Fourth Wall Studios to create entertainment experiences. Lee developed a new form of interactive programming that engaged audiences across multiple platforms via new technology he created. Projects such as the Emmy Award-winning series “Dirty Work” brought viewers into the show with interactive elements such as “integrated phone calls, texts and emails” as part of the viewing experience.{{Cite web | title = Games That Use The 'Ubernet' | last = Caulfield | first = Brian | work = Forbes | date = 1 April 2009 | access-date = 2015-03-04 | url = https://www.forbes.com/2009/04/01/ubernet-videogames-internet-technology-personal-tech-ubernet.html | quote =

In addition to his work in interactive media, Lee helped create one of YouTube's most viral videos, Where the Hell is Matt?. He traveled the world with Matt Harding, serving as the cameraman for a video that became the second-most popular on YouTube at the time, cementing its place in internet history. This project not only provided Lee with valuable experience in social media and viral content creation, but it also led to his introduction to Matthew Inman, with whom he would later co-found the popular card game Exploding Kittens.

Lee returned to Microsoft as the Chief Design Officer for Xbox Entertainment Studios soon after the launch of the Xbox One game console in 2013.

By 2014, Lee had left Microsoft to build a new technology-based TV studio; he raised about $5 million, assembled a team, and built a prototype.{{Cite web | title = Elan Lee Named Chief Design Officer For Nancy Tellem's Xbox Entertainment Studios | last = The Deadline Team | work = Deadline Hollywood | date = 2013-06-20 | access-date = 2015-03-04 | url = https://deadline.com/2013/06/elan-lee-named-cxhief-design-officer-for-nancy-tellems-xbox-entertainment-studios-525889/ | quote =

''Exploding Kittens''

In 2015, Lee, Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), and Shane Small created the card game Exploding Kittens. Originally called Bomb Squad, it became the most-backed campaign on Kickstarter at the time, raising $8.78 million from 219,382 backers. “When Exploding Kittens launched, I thought it would be a side project on the weekend. It’s so weird when the side project dwarfs the scope and scale of the main project. And so I decided to return the money I raised [$5 million for the "main" project, a "technology-based TV studio"]. I realized that if I didn’t turn all my attention to this, it would become the biggest regret of my life.”

Later in the year, Lee and Inman founded Exploding Kittens Inc. The company released its second tabletop game, Bears vs. Babies, in 2017, after raising more than $3 million from 85,000 Kickstarter backers.

In 2018, the company released You’ve Got Crabs; in 2019, it released Throw Throw Burrito after another Kickstarter campaign and On a Scale of One to T-Rex exclusively on Amazon.

In October 2019, the American businessman and investor Peter Chernin, CEO of The Chernin Group, invested $30 million for a minority stake in Exploding Kittens Inc. Inman said the company planned to use the funds to mount a live gaming convention, Burning Cat, inspired by the Burning Man festival; hire more artists; and produce three and five new games a year.

Credits

With Microsoft:

With 42 Entertainment:

  • I Love Bees Lead Designer (2004)
  • Last Call Poker Lead Designer (2005)
  • The Vanishing Point Lead Designer (2007)
  • Year Zero Designer (2007)

Acclaim

Lee and his projects have won several industry awards for both design and marketing.

In 2005, I Love Bees won an Innovation Award from IGDA, and a Webby Award.

In 2008, Year Zero won the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Grand Prix Award for "Viral Marketing" and a Silver Award for "Integrated Campaign". The game also won a bronze Clio Award, and two Webbys: Peoples Voice Award (Branded Content) and Peoples Voice Award (Integrated Campaigns).

In 2012, Lee won a Creative Arts Emmy for Original Interactive Programming for the web series Dirty Work. The same year he won the Trailblazer Award from IndieCade.

In March 2022, The Beast received a Legacy Peabody Award for Interactive Journalism.

References

References

  1. [https://www.rit.edu/alumni/notable-alumni Notable Alumni]. Rochester Institute of Technology
  2. "Discover » Most Backed — Kickstarter".
  3. Krotoski, Aleks. (2006-03-15). "edoc Laundry interview". The Guardian.
  4. Hall, Charlie. (2015-01-23). "$3.5 million for a card game? We talk with Exploding Kittens co-creator (correction)".
  5. Erlichman, Jon. (2015-02-20). "How 'Exploding Kittens' became the most insane Kickstarter campaign ever".
  6. (2019-04-11). "L.A.-based tabletop game company Exploding Kittens wants you to throw (foam) burritos at your friends and family".
  7. Chen, Connie. "Exploding Kittens is the most-backed project on Kickstarter to date — here's how a $20 card game became an internet phenomenon".
  8. Bergstrom, Frank. (2017-05-16). "The Top 10 Most Funded Kickstarter Board Games of All Time".
  9. "Throw Throw Burrito".
  10. (2019-02-28). "Throw Throw Burrito is a card game that weaponizes Mexican food".
  11. "On a Scale of One to T-Rex, a hilarious new party game from Wolfgang Warsch".
  12. (11 October 2019). "Exploding Kittens Laps Up $30 Million Investment".
  13. Spangler, Todd. (2019-10-10). "Exploding Kittens Raises $30 Million From Peter Chernin's TCG Capital".
  14. "2008 Cannes Lions Grand Prix Winners".
  15. "2008 Cannes Lions Silver Award Winners".
  16. "2008 Clio Award Winners".
  17. "2008 Webby Award Winners".
  18. [http://www.emmys.com/shows/dirty-work Dirty Work]
  19. (October 12, 2012). "IndieCade 2012 winners announced, Unmanned takes the top prize". [[Eurogamer]].
  20. "2022 Peabody Winners, The Beast, A.I. Transmedia Experience".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

american-game-designersliving-peopledesigners-from-los-angelesrochester-institute-of-technology-alumniyear-of-birth-missing-(living-people)