Sean Vanaman

Sean Vanaman^[1] (born June 16, 1984) is an American video game designer, writer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader and lead writer of The Walking Dead,^[2] and Puzzle Agent 2.^[3] He also wrote the third episode of Tales of Monkey Island, and was the designer of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures,^[4] and the writer of the third episode, Muzzled. He was one of the regular hosts of the Idle Thumbs podcast and is one of the co-founders of Campo Santo, the company that produced Firewatch.

Sean Vanaman
Vanaman at Game Developers Choice Awards
Born	(1984-06-16) June 16, 1984 (age 40) Cork, Ireland
Occupations	Video game designer writer podcaster
Years active	2009–present
Known for	Campo Santo
Notable work	Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures Puzzle Agent 2 Tales of Monkey Island The Walking Dead Firewatch Half-Life: Alyx
Website	camposanto.com

Early life

Vanaman was born and raised in Cork, Ireland. He and his family moved from Ireland to the United States.^[1]

Career

While studying at University of Southern California, Vanaman interned at Buena Vista Games (later renamed Disney Interactive Studios) in their creative development group. This group put together the initial concept and pitch for Epic Mickey in 2003.^[1] After graduation, he worked as an associate creative development producer at Disney Interactive. In 2008, Vanaman took a position at Telltale Games as a writer and game designer. He worked on Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, Tales of Monkey Island, and Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent before becoming project lead on Poker Night at the Inventory and The Walking Dead.

On September 18, 2013, he and Jake Rodkin left Telltale and joined with Olly Moss and Mark of the Ninja lead designer Nels Anderson to found Campo Santo.^[5]

Recognition

Tales of Monkey Island, for which Vanaman co-wrote, was nominated for "Best Artistic Design" and won for the award for "Biggest Surprise" at IGN's Best of PC E3 2009 Awards.^[6] After release, it won the PC Gamer 2009 "Adventure Game of the Year",^[7] was nominated for the IGN "Best Adventure Game of the Year" for PC and Wii,^[8][9] won the Adventure Gamers "Best Adventure of 2009",^[10] and was named the "Best Series Revival" by OC Weekly.^[11]

Puzzle Agent 2 was nominated at IGN's Best of E3 2011 Awards for "Best iPhone/iPad Game".^[12] The Walking Dead also won over 90 "Game of the Year" awards since release.^[13]

Vanaman won Game (Original Adventure) and Writing in a Drama at the 2017 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards for his work on Firewatch.^[14]

Works

Year	Title	Role	Genre	Company
2009	Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures	Writer/designer	Graphic adventure	Telltale Games
	Tales of Monkey Island	Writer/designer
2010	Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse	Episode design – The City that Dares Not Sleep	Point-and-click game
	Puzzle Agent	Writer Puzzle design	Puzzle
	CSI: Fatal Conspiracy	Designer		Ubisoft
	Poker Night at the Inventory	Project leader	Poker	Telltale Games
2011	Puzzle Agent 2	Lead writer	Puzzle
2012	The Walking Dead	Director (Episodes 1, 3 and 5), Project leader, Lead Writer	Graphic adventure
2016	Firewatch	Writer	Adventure game	Panic
2020	Half-Life: Alyx		First-person shooter	Valve

Controversies

In September 2017, after known YouTuber PewDiePie said the racial slur "nigger" while live-streaming the game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Vanaman called him "worse than a closeted racist".^[15] He then said on Twitter that he would be issuing DMCA copyright takedowns on PewDiePie's videos that contained footage of Vanaman's game Firewatch,^{[16][non-primary source needed]} and urged other game developers to do the same.^[17] This led to backlash and review bombing of Firewatch on Steam.^[18]

In November 2020, a Reddit post accused Vanaman of abusing his administrative privileges as a Valve employee, by manually penalizing a fellow Dota 2 player for not following his recommended playstyle. Vanaman responded by apologizing on behalf of Valve and stating that employees from thereon out would be stripped of their in-game administrative tools – leaving actions explicitly to respondents of formal player reports.^[19]

References

1. Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, Sean Vanaman (March 10, 2011). "The Idle Thumbs Conf Grenade 2011: GDC 2011: Games" (Podcast). Event occurs at 44:16–55:34. Retrieved May 13, 2013.{{cite podcast}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. "PAX East 2011: Telltale Talks Puzzle Agent 2". Inside Gaming Daily. Retrieved December 11, 2011.
3. "Puzzle Agent 2 hands-on archived preview". Adventure Gamers. June 10, 2011. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
4. "Comedy in games is no laughing matter". GameSpot. Archived from the original on April 2, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2012.
5. "New studio formed by Walking Dead, Mark of the Ninja devs – Destructoid". Destructoid. September 19, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
6. "Best of PC E3 2009 Awards". IGN. June 11, 2009. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
7. "PC Gamer Game of the Year Awards". PC Gamer. January 2010.
8. "Wii Best Adventure Game 2009". IGN. 2009. Archived from the original on February 29, 2012. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
9. "PC Best Adventure Game 2009". IGN. 2009. Archived from the original on December 18, 2009. Retrieved December 3, 2011.
10. "Best Adventure of 2009". Adventure Gamers. 2009. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
11. Mai, Peter (December 22, 2009). "Best and Worst Video Games of 2009". OC Weekly. Village Voice Media. Archived from the original on January 12, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
12. "E3 2011: Best of E3 Awards". IGN. June 6, 2011. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
13. "The Walking Dead from Telltale Games Now Available at Retail in the UK". Just Adventure. May 10, 2013. Archived from the original on September 4, 2013. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
14. "NAVGTR Awards (2016)". National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers.
15. Sean Vanaman [@vanaman] (September 10, 2017). "He's worse than a closeted racist: he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry." (Tweet). Retrieved May 16, 2019 – via Twitter.
16. Sean Vanaman [@vanaman] (September 10, 2017). "We're filing a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie's Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games." (Tweet). Retrieved May 16, 2019 – via Twitter.
17. Sean Vanaman [@vanaman] (September 10, 2017). "I'd urge other developers & will be reaching out to folks much larger than us to cut him off from the content that has made him a milionaire" (Tweet). Retrieved May 16, 2019 – via Twitter.
18. Walker, Alex (September 13, 2017). "Amid Pewdiepie Controversy, Firewatch Gets Review Bombed". Kotaku AU. Gizmodo Media Group. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
19. Stanton, Rich (November 23, 2020). "Valve employee apologizes for punishing Dota 2 teammate with ban". PC Gamer. Retrieved November 24, 2020.

External links

• Sean Vanaman at MobyGames
• Sean Vanaman on Twitter