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Greetings, MechWarriors!
I'm very happy to announce that I have been hired by Piranha Games as a Senior Marketing and Community Manager for MechWarrior Online and MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries.
For those of you that know me, perhaps as "Bombadil", you'll know that this is my dream job. I have been a fan of BattleTech and MechWarrior since I first purchased BattleDriods in 1984. For 35 years I have immersed myself in the tabletop games, dozens of novels that I've read multiple times, and every iteration of the computer games, from Crescent Hawk to MechWarrior 5.
In late 2012, as part of No Guts No Galaxy with Phil Langenberg, I was very excited to be hired as a contractor by Piranha Games. For the next seven years I got to work as a content creator, community builder, Influencer manager, event host, and as a facilitator of communications between community members and Piranha Games. My work with the community ranged from various daily individual contacts and requests, to community-driven initiatives, town hall style meetings, and various forms of information gathering and dissemination to and from the players and the developers.
My contract ended in January of 2020, and my family and I have spent the Summer hunkered down in the Pacific Northwest. I have been staying safe, taking some online courses, and enjoying the outdoors with my family as much as possible.
When I was offered this position, a chance to come back as a fulltime Piranha Games employee, my family and I knew it was the right move. My time working with Piranha Games and the MechWarrior community have been some of the best of my life. It was certainly my favorite employment experience since I began working at age 13, when I had just discovered BattleTech and thus a need for income.
So Fall is here, and it's back to ‘mech school for me. Over the coming weeks, I'll be jumping into MechWarrior Online. I’ll be watching, listening to, and reading your opinions on MWO, and developing channels of communication and discussion with you. Together we can take a hard look at how Piranha Games can continue to improve the game, the experience, communication, and if practical, build on the resources available for continued development over the coming years.
“With the recent 5-year license extension for MechWarrior, our goal with bringing Daeron back to the to the team is to leverage his previous seven years of experience working directly with the community and Piranha Games, and to reestablish those lines of communication with the sole purpose of helping determine the future development and content for both MechWarrior Online and MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries. We’re very excited to have him on the team!” -Russ Bullock, President of Piranha Games
I'll be focusing on MechWarrior Online for now, but I'll also be playtesting the new MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries DLC, Heroes of the Inner Sphere, and slowly work that into my schedule as well.
As part of the Live Operations team under Matt Newman, our number one priority is to make the future of both MechWarrior Online and MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries as awesome as they can be. Now that I’m working from the inside, and with your direct input and influence, I'm confident we have some truly great years of single player, coop, and multiplayer MechWarrior ahead of us. As I've always said, it's a great time to be a MechWarrior!
I’m looking forward to serving you!
Your Community Manager,
Daeron "Bombadil" Katz
daeron.katz@piranhagames.com
