Ron Gilbert

Ron Gilbert
Ron Gilbert, July 2013
Born	La Grande, Oregon
Occupation	Video game designer, programmer, and producer

Ron Gilbert is an American video-game designer, programmer, and producer, best known for his work on several classic LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. His games are generally focused on interactive story-telling.

After leaving LucasArts, Gilbert co-founded Humongous Entertainment and its sister company Cavedog Entertainment. After leaving Humongous Entertainment, he cofounded Hulabee Entertainment with Shelley Day. He was creative director at Vancouver-based Hothead Games development studio. In 2013, he announced that he would move on from Double Fine Productions.

Ron Gilbert was born in La Grande, Oregon, as the son of David E. Gilbert, a physics professor and former president of Eastern Oregon University (then Eastern Oregon State College). Initially, he thought of himself going into a career for film direction. He became interested in games when he was thirteen years old thanks to a Texas Instruments TI-59 programmable calculator his father used to bring home. He found the ability to program games on the calculator interesting, citing an example of a Battleship-like game that was included on the calculator, leading him wanting him to learn how to program other games. Gilbert saw the potential to program games as a creative outlet as he continued his studies towards the film industry. Another thing that made him approach the gaming world was a film, Star Wars (1977). His fascination with programming technology, which allowed gamers to interact with characters and situations, mixed with his love for telling stories, like that of "Star Wars", were his main inspirations to start making games.