| Rachel Bernstein | |
| Occupation: | Video game developer, Video game designer |
| Alma Mater: | Princeton University |
| Known: | Frog City Software Imperialism Trade Empires |
Rachel Bernstein is a video game designer and developer based in San Francisco, USA.
Bernstein graduated from Princeton University with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1987.[1]
From 1987 to 1994, Bernstein worked as a software engineer. In 1994, she co-founded the company Frog City Software with the brothers Bill and Ted Spieth. Bernstein wrote the code and assembled a development team for a prototype that later became the game Imperialism. The project received funding from Strategic Simulations in 1995, with president Chuck Kroegel describing it as, 'the thinking man's Civilisation'.[2] Imperialism was released in 1997 and has an IGN community rating of 7.8/10.[3] Bernstein oversaw the development of games Imperialism II and Trade Empires, for which she wrote a detailed project breakdown.[4] In 2003, Bernstein sold Frog City to Take-Two Interactive, but continued to run the company as Take-Two's subsidiary.[5]
Bernstein joined Electronic Arts in 2007 and became an executive producer for Maxis, overseeing the development of the Wii version of MySims Agents (2009) and The Sims Medieval (2011).[6]
Since 2013, Bernstein has served as an executive producer at Google for the Android Play Studio.[7]
She has been a speaker at South by Southwest,[6] TEDxYouth,[5] and the 2016 Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit in San Francisco.[1]