Demystifying Creativity: On Originality in Game Development

About Fawzi Mesmar

Fawzi Mesmar ( ) is an award winning Creative Director Game designer Leader author public speaker and mentor that has been in the gaming industry for over two decades in a career that spanned The Middle East New Zealand Japan and Europe working for companies such as Ubisoft Electronics Arts Activision Blizzard King Gameloft and Atlus to name a few.As a Game Designer / Director he has worked on over 20 titles that have been enjoyed by millions of players world wide most notably games in the Mario+Rabbids Star Wars Battlefield Candy Crush Persona Franchises and many more.As a manager he was in line management and leadership positions in different companies with varied cultures around the world which created a unique blend in management style; overseeing teams of variety sizes.As an author he wrote the first ever text book about game design in Arabic: Al-Khallab on the art of game design . Fawzi co-authored 9 comic books under the men of honor series (sold 5 million copies in MENA). Hes a columnist at Pocket Gamer Arabia and blogs frequently about game design and the business of making games.Fawzi speaks regularly at many global gaming conventions such as GDC Reboot develop Devcom Gamescom congress GIC NZGDC DWGC MEGA MGDC white nights Games Forum Mobile Games forum Quo Vadis Pocket Gamer Casual Connect and many more.As a mentor He also frequently holds lectures at game design and development schools such as London university of fine arts Breda University of applied sciences in the Netherlands Auckland media design school NYU Cologne Design University Auckland university of technology American University in Cairo Berlin Games Academy Jordan gaming labs New Zealand lifeway college and many more. Hes currently serving on the board of education at Future games in Stockholm.He's also a Google mentor a jury member at the BAFTAs IMGA (international mobile games awards) and GDCA (Game developers choice awards) and countless other regional award ceremonies around the world. Fawzi also co-founded the IGDA chapter in Berlin Germany.Together with fellow Arab game developers Rami Ismail and Osama Dorias hes part of The Habibis a popular podcast about Arab culture game development and creativity.Fawzi was the winner of the ambassador award at Game developers choice awards in 2024 and Game Dev Heroes award in 2020 for the category of Game Design for his contributions to the field. Fawzi was named future class by the Game awards in 2022 and he was also one of Gamesindustry.biz 100 game changers of the year 2020.Fawzi holds a bachelor degree in computer science from the University of Jordan and a Masters in business administration from Durham University in the UK.