About

Texas-based mobile game development company Newtoy was founded in 2008 by brothers Paul and David Bettner, alongside chief operating officer Michael Chow. The company focused on building high-quality entertainment experiences on mobile platforms. Newtoy has developed some of the most popular mobile social games in the world and its Games With Friends franchise, including Chess and Words With Friends, is the most popular gaming platform on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, with millions of people playing daily.

In December 2010, Zynga acquired Newtoy and became the Zynga With Friends studio. Since the acquisition, Zynga With Friends has launched Words With Friends on Android and has been working on improving and developing new titles for the Games With Friends platform.

Staff

	Dave Bettner Studio Director As studio director of the Zynga With Friends studio, Dave builds on the existing “With Friends” franchise to develop new games for the Zynga network. He previously worked on Halo Wars and the Age of Empires games for Microsoft.
	Paul Bettner Vice President and General Manager As VP and GM of the Zynga With Friends studio, Paul leads the effort to develop new mobile social games for the Zynga network. Paul has been building video games for over twenty years and has enjoyed a lifelong fascination with all forms of interactive entertainment.
	David Calkins Lead Community Manager David spends his time pleasing the sometimes very passionate players and fans of the Games With Friends series. He also makes About pages.
	Dave Calla Principal Engineer As a very small boy, Dave Calla knew that he was destined to be a famed Disney artist who would come to be known the world over as the divine artist behind the next Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, or Home on the Range(?). It’s little surprise then, that he’s currently hacking away as a code monkey slinging 1s and 0s without ever so much as holding a pencil or paintbrush. You see, as a slightly larger very small boy, Dave learned that ‘artin’ shit up’ took something called ‘tal-ent’ which is something he so desperately lacked. He thought better of his future and decided that he could put his anal-ness and OCD to use ‘makin shit work’. A Computer Science Degree from Penn State, and infinity hours of gaming later, and here he sits, at a desk, at Zynga, making games loved by millions.
	David Chow Audio Director David’s first tasks were on Chess With Friends and Words With Friends, which needed a few sounds: moving a piece, plopping it down, etc. A few mouth contortions later, he had the Words With Friends “Bloop.” Since then he’s moved on to many more challenging tasks, such as composing the music and sounds for We Rule and Hanging With Friends.
	Michael Chow Director of Operations Michael was teaching high school chemistry in 2008 when the Bettner brothers reached out and asked him to be Newtoy’s “business guy.” He turned them down out of hand because he wouldn’t know what the hell he was doing — but they kept asking until he got too excited to care. He joined up to become Newtoy’s Chief Operating Officer, where most of his day-to-day responsibilities have included herding llamas, singing too loudly, and wandering around in his underwear. Michael graduated from Harvard University, where he learned more or less nothing about game development, but lots about taking over the world.
	Mike Coker Principal Engineer Mike started at Electronic Arts working on NCAA & Madden Football, then spent 9 years working on Age of Empires for Microsoft. At Zynga With Friends, he happy pursuing his interests in iPhone development.
	Geof Dagley Director & Principal Engineer Geof has been a rocket scientist, an ERP software engineer, a programming instructor, and a web developer. Now he plays games all day… at work.
	Shannon Dees Art Director Artist, nerd, slugabed.
	Brent Dunham Principal Engineer
	Jonathan Duty Principal Engineer
	John Eden Director of Operations Trained as an intellectual property litigator and a transactional lawyer, John leverages his nerveless disposition to ensure that even when the ground shifts beneath his colleagues, they neither feel the earth shake nor the aftershocks which inevitably follow. He is possessed of the uncommon ability to layer metaphors upon each other, optimizing their complementarity and minimizing their dissonance, concentrating their linguistic density into a nugget of thought that soothes conflict and solves problems. In a nutshell, John is passionate about cultivating and protecting Zynga With Friends, not only because he believes mobile is the future, but also because he cherishes the brilliant, kind individuals with whom he travails.
	Andy Gotcher Art Director
	Kevin Holme Director of Design
	Dan Hurd Game Designer A millenia-old homunculus, stitched together from assorted tidal debris, Dan has been known to enjoy a video game or two with his kelp-festooned driftwood “hands.” Using only a crude abacus and a temperamental baby teacup pig, Dan pantomimes his way through various game designs throughout the day, whether or not anyone is watching. His current obsessions include Dominion, Demon’s Souls, King’s Bounty Armored Princess Crossworlds, barbacoa, Pizza Club, rock tumblers, aerogel, 11/11/11, pond hydra, Pin-Bot, graph paper, unsulfered dried apricots, and Abobo. He also enjoys making Magic the Gathering decks based around lobster creatures and other unsuccessful themes. Dan dreams of one day owning a salt-water aquarium with a seahorse in it.
	Shawn Lohstroh Principal Engineer
	Lori Martella QA Manager
	Mike McGary Senior Engineer A former Aggie, Mike has worked in factory and semiconductor fab automation, software testing, pharmacy operations, internet technologies of all stripes and finally (and most happily) the gaming industry. His kindergarten teacher said it best: “Mike plays well with others. Needs to work on keeping his desk cleaner.”
	Belinda Nail Studio Accountant, Analyst Belinda was a contract bookkeeper for 8 years and prior to that an accountant, data analyst, trainer and business analyst in the paging industry. She’s been known to get excited about queries and spreadsheets.
	Jessica Oyhenart Senior Artist A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Jessica has pursued her childhood love of art and Nintendo games into a career as a concept artist for video games, contributing work to titles such as Rockband 2 (Wii), Bomberman Live: Battlefest, and Bonk: Brink of Extinction. For Zynga With Friends, Jessica has brought her unique vision and creativity to several titles, most recently Hanging With Friends.
	Justin Rouse Director of Design
	Eric Shen Director of Operations Daring duck of mystery, champion of the right. Swoops out of the shadows, Darkwing owns the night. Somewhere some villains schemes, but his number’s up. Cloud of smoke and he appears, the master of surprise. Who’s that cunning mind behind that shadowy disguise? Nobody knows for sure, bad guys are out of luck, cause here comes Darkwing Duck! Look out! Darkwing Duck! When there’s trouble you call D.W. Darkwing Duck! LET’S GET DANGEROUS! Better watch out, you bad boys. Darkwing Duck!
	Tony Shih Director of Operations Tony is a recovering corporate M&A attorney who made the leap to working on video games — he now helps plan and manage mobile games (when he’s not writing about himself in the third person).
	Mindy Sloan Manager of Operations As the Manager of Operations here at Zynga with Friends, Mindy’s job is quite similar to herding cats. She works daily to make sure everyone has food and drinks, toys and lots of love and support. Often she will surprise the team with “treats” when they’ve all been good and playing well together.
	Anand Subramani Head of Product Management
	Vijay Thakkar Principal Engineer
	Jeff Wilkinson Principal Engineer
	Dawn Wills Executive Assistant to the Chiefs
	Grant Yang Director of Operations
	Marshall Yount Senior Engineer