Mike Booth

Throughout his career, Booth has generally focused on creating cooperative online multiplayer games,^[3] a genre for which he continues to advocate as recently as 2022.^[4] One of Booth's earliest projects was Nox, which he created in his apartment. He brought a demo to the Game Developers Conference, and ultimately, Nox was published in 2000 through the Westwood Studios division of Electronic Arts,^[5] with Booth in the roles of project lead and lead designer.^[6] His career at Electronic Arts continued^[2] with Booth serving creative roles for 2000's Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge^[7] and 2003's Command & Conquer: Generals.^[6]

In 2002, Booth founded Turtle Rock Studios,^[8] where he served as CEO and game director.^[9] In 2003, Booth programmed an official bot that enabled offline multiplayer play in Counter-Strike.^[10] He was project lead and lead designer for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, released in 2004.^[2] In 2004 he began creating cooperative online game Left 4 Dead,^[11] for which he was also lead designer.^[2] Booth created the AI Director in Left 4 Dead^[1] that dynamically adjusted a player's experience of the game during each playthrough.^[12]

Booth also was part of the creative teams for other Counter-Strike games and Team Fortress 2.^[2] After Valve acquired Turtle Rock Studios in 2008,^[13] Booth stayed on with the company until 2012.^[14]

Booth departed Valve and joined Blizzard Entertainment as game director^[14] on an unannounced project.^[15]

From December 2015^[16] until December 2019, he was director of social virtual reality (VR) at Facebook,^[17] working with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer.^[18] In April 2017, Booth led the beta rollout of Facebook Spaces, a social VR product created for Oculus Rift.^[19] Prior to the launch, Booth appeared in live VR demonstrations of the product in April^[18] and October 2016.^[20]

Booth joined the board of directors of Resolution Games in March 2020.^[21] He worked with Resolution on Demeo, a 2021 tabletop role-playing game originally created for VR.^[1]

Booth joined Bad Robot Games in December 2020, managing the company's newly created in-house development studio. He reports to Anna Sweet, CEO of Bad Robot Games.^[6] By February 2022, he had taken on the role of chief creative officer.^[1]

• Booth's game Left 4 Dead received eight nominations at the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, winning Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play and Computer Game of the Year.^[22]
• Booth, along with Left 4 Dead creatives Gabe Newell and Chet Faliszek, won the British Academy Games Award for Multiplayer in 2009.^[23]
• Demeo, which Booth creative directed, was nominated for the D.I.C.E. Award for Immersive Reality Game of the Year.^[24]