Jesse Schell

Jesse N. Schell (born June 13, 1970) is an American video game designer and author, as well as the CEO of Schell Games, and a distinguished professor of the practice of entertainment technology at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a joint master's program between the College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Schell earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and subsequently, earned a master's degree in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon University. His early career consisted of his work as a Software Engineer for IBM and Bell Communications Research. He then moved to Los Angeles to work with Disney Imagineering. and is its CEO.

In 2008, Schell published a book titled The Art of Game Design. A second edition was later published in 2014, and a third edition in 2019.

Schell is known for his talks on game design, and is best known for his DICE 2010 talk, "Beyond Facebook", which was adopted as a TED "Best of the Web" talk.

In 2015, Schell was awarded with a Carnegie Science Award in the entrepreneur category. The program celebrates innovators who have distinguished themselves by making contributions to science and technology in various disciplines. The following year, Schell received a 2016 Creator-of-the-Year award at the CREATE Festival.

Since 2016, Schell has been in talks with Disney about reviving Toontown Online. As of August 2018, Schell noted that he was actively talking to Disney about obtaining the rights to Toontown Online. Schell is fond of Toontown Rewritten, a fan recreation of the game, saying in an article for Wired that the message behind Toontown was "don't let the corporation grind you [down]".

Games and rides Schell contributed to the development of certain video games and rides.

Games Toontown Online Pirates of the Caribbean Online Pixie Hollow

Rides Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold Toy Story Midway Mania