Tork Shaw

“Tork is fantastic to work with and I'm very glad to have gotten the chance to at Mediatonic. His fantastic understanding of design has been invaluable in shepherding our Mediatonic Labs teams through ideation and prototyping for UEFN games. The way he's given those teams feedback and helped them dial in on exactly what works and doesn't in their prototype ideas has been brilliant to see. As has his commitment to delivering as clear feedback as possible and when that wasn't possible being upfront about why. As a peer, his openness and willingness to ask why and make sure we're supporting the teams correctly and honestly has been very appreciated. His communication skills are fantastic, his points are never ego-driven but always about what's best for the team or game. He's got a great sense of self-worth and is aware of what he's great at but actively looks for and listens to feedback, giving it due consideration even if he's not going to take it. Talent and hard work combined with empathy, humour and charm is how I'd describe Tork. His presence is a massive boon to anyone lucky enough to work with him.”

“Tork was instrumental in overhauling Mediatonic's creative pipeline to be open and bottom-up. He produced detailed requests for pitches, sourced pitches from across the studio, and worked tirelessly to develop them into commercially-viable products. He has an incredible ability to cut right to the core of any pitch or prototype, dig out its most interesting facets and polish them until they shine. On Mediatonic Labs (MT's incubation team that created original games in UEFN), Tork was responsible for leading teams through ideation and prototyping. Throughout this time, he demonstrated great creative instincts and a high bar for quality. He was able to drive his teams towards the most interesting and innovative aspects of each game, and also wasn't afraid to say when something wasn't working out. I trusted Tork's judgement implicitly and knew that if he liked something then it was worth paying attention to. Tork also drew on his academic background and deep experience to run an inspirational series of workshops to mentor our design team in creative thinking, product strategy and player psychology. He was a confident contributor to conversations about strategy and process, and drove key initiatives to improve team health. To top it all off: he's kind, insightful, funny, optimistic and wise. He's one of the best designers I've ever worked with. Any studio would be lucky to have him and I recommend him a thousand times over.”