| Jon Burton | |
| Birth Place: | Winchester, Hampshire, England |
| Years Active: | 1989–present |
Jon Burton is a British video game designer, director, and programmer. He is the founder of development studio Traveller's Tales and its parent company TT Games.
Burton founded Traveller's Tales in 1989. He worked as a designer on Puggsy, Mickey Mania, Sonic 3D Blast, the Lego Star Wars series, , and A Bug's Life and has served as programmer for many of their early games.[1] He has received five British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards.
Burton founded Traveller's Tales in late 1989 and served as creative director of the games. His first game as designer, Leander, was in 1991; next was Puggsy in 1993. The game enabled Traveller's Tales to expand the company and develop games with bigger companies. In 1994, Traveller's Tales developed Mickey Mania for Disney, initiating a long relationship with the company; Disney later hired them to develop tie-in games for many of its properties. Starting in 1995, Sega contracted the company to develop two Sonic the Hedgehog games, Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R. He also served as creative director and lead designer of . Next, he was served as creative director, lead designer, and writer of the action-adventure video game , which sequels to the game was planned to be a trilogy, but it was cancelled due to the game's commercial failure.
Burton announced in 2005 that Traveller's Tales would merge with Giant Interactive Entertainment to form parent company TT Games. He served as creative director of the Lego Star Wars series based on the toy line of the same name and the film franchise. In 2007, Burton and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that they had purchased TT Games and Traveller's Tales for an undisclosed amount as part of their expansion into the video game industry.[2] Burton served as creative director for both and its sequel, . In 2013, Burton wrote the original story for, produced, and directed based on the Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes video game. He also wrote the story for alongside David A. Goodman, which was released in November 2014. Also, Burton worked as an executive producer for the Warner Bros. 2014 film The Lego Movie and as a producer of the 2015 war thriller film Man Down. His latest game, Lego Dimensions, was released on 27 September 2015; Burton served as creative director, lead designer, and co-writer on this game.
In 2017, Burton began uploading videos demonstrating programming tricks and early prototypes of games that he worked on to his YouTube channel, GameHut,[3] and has since created a new channel called Coding Secrets for the same content, in 2020. In October 2017, Burton announced that he would be creating an unofficial director's cut of the Sega Genesis version of Sonic 3D Blast, which was released in December 2017.[4]
In August 2021, Burton co-founded 10:10 Games, a studio developing Funko Fusion, after he left Traveller's Tales in 2019.[5]
He currently lives in Malibu, California.[6] Burton is a practicing Christian and included an Ichthys as an Easter egg in one of the tracks in Sonic R.
| Year | Game | Role | Notes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Designer | Programmer | Producer | Writer | |||||
| 1991 | Leander | |||||||
| 1993 | Bram Stoker's Dracula | |||||||
| Puggsy | ||||||||
| 1994 | ||||||||
| 1995 | Toy Story | |||||||
| 1996 | Sonic 3D Blast | |||||||
| 1997 | Sonic R | |||||||
| 1998 | Rascal | |||||||
| A Bug's Life | ||||||||
| 1999 | ||||||||
| 2000 | Buzz Lightyear of Star Command | |||||||
| 2001 | Toy Story Racer | |||||||
| 2002 | ||||||||
| 2003 | Finding Nemo | |||||||
| 2005 | ||||||||
| The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | ||||||||
| 2006 | ||||||||
| Bionicle Heroes | ||||||||
| 2007 | ||||||||
| 2008 | ||||||||
| The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian | ||||||||
| 2009 | ||||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2011 | ||||||||
| 2012 | ||||||||
| Lego The Lord of the Rings | ||||||||
| 2013 | Lego Marvel Superheroes | |||||||
| 2014 | The Lego Movie Videogame | |||||||
| Lego The Hobbit | ||||||||
| 2015 | ||||||||
| Lego Dimensions | ||||||||
| 2016 | Lego Marvel's Avengers | |||||||
| 2017 | Sonic 3D: Director's Cut | Director's cut | ||||||
| 2024 | Funko Fusion | |||||||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Producer | Writer | ||||
| 2013 | Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite | Direct-to-video | ||||
| 2014 | The Lego Movie | |||||
| 2015 | Man Down | |||||
| 2017 | The Lego Batman Movie | |||||
| 2019 | ||||||