John Welch
President and Co-Founder, Making Fun, Inc, a division of News Corp
A pioneer of digital entertainment distribution, John Welch’s direction guides Making Fun as it develops best-in-class games across connected platforms. Before joining Making Fun, John served as co-founder and CEO of PlayFirst, the casual games publisher famous for the best-selling Diner Dash franchise. At PlayFirst, John was responsible for the company’s vision, financing, strategic direction and operations. In a previous role as Vice President of Games and Product at the pioneering online games service Shockwave.com, John was responsible for driving product strategy and acquiring and developing games. Prior to that, John served as Director of Product Development at SegaSoft Online Networks. John is a past Chair of the IGDA Online Games group, and has been a contributor to its well-received white papers. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from MIT and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts.
