Joe Ybarra

Professional biography

Joe Ybarra started his career at Apple Computer, then moved in 1982 to Electronic Arts, a new company started by former Apple colleague Trip Hawkins. At EA, he was among the first group of game producers and designers—alongside Stewart Bonn, Dave Evans, Susan Lee-Merrow, and Pat Marriott—in a role that Hawkins essentially invented. Ybarra produced several notable titles there, including Dani Bunten and Ozark Softscape's M.U.L.E. and Seven Cities of Gold, as well as Starflight, Eric Hammond's Dr. J. and Larry Bird Go One on One, and the original version of Madden NFL.

He later served as president of Infocom and produced MMORPGs for Sierra Online and Monolith Productions. More recently, he worked as Senior Vice President of Strategic Operations at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and its subsidiary FireSky on the Stargate Worlds MMO. That company filed for bankruptcy in February 2010, ceasing sales and operation of Stargate: Resistance. In March 2013, Ybarra launched a Kickstarter campaign for Shackleton Crater, a lunar colonization strategy game described as grounded in real science and future aspirations. The project did not reach its funding target.