Creating, empowering, and sharing.

Leaders serve teams, not the other way around. My role is to help clarify, focus, and empower. I work to shape an environment where talented people can do their best work. Compassion and experience drive that, ensuring clear accountability, candor, and the patience to align creative people with work that matters.

Beyond the work, I indulge my curiosity. I learn and teach, listen and make music, read and write, take in and make art. Trail running clears my head; I drink the scenery, a friend to the natural world, animals most of all. Good game design thrives on that same curiosity, and so does a good life. The best work, like the best gameplay, should feel rewarding.

I care about people as much as the games we ship. My career has been a journey among brilliant, bravely generous collaborators — and as long as the road keeps winding, I'm grateful to be on it.

Background

Marc Wilhelm is a game-industry design leader with more than 25 years of experience. He began in 1999 as a digital game artist at Electronic Arts, moved into level design and production, and grew into the work that fulfills him most: building and sustaining empowered creative teams so they can thrive.

Today he is a Sr. Design Manager for Gameplay & UX at Wizards of the Coast, leading design management for Magic: The Gathering Arena across mobile, PC, and Mac. His work reaches 40+ designers and product managers across the Digital Games organization — through mentorship, coaching, and the unglamorous, essential craft of making collaboration work. He built and ran a quarterly management-training program for 30+ cross-disciplinary leaders, and the design team he manages has had zero voluntary attrition in over three years.

Over five years at EA, Marc moved from art to level design, shipping work on the James Bond franchise, The Sims 2, and The Godfather: The Game. From there came level design on Tomb Raider: Legend at Crystal Dynamics, senior design on LAIR at Factor 5, creative direction at SGN, and external development management at Activision.

In 2010 he founded the Colorado independent Game Developers Association — six developers in a Denver café that grew into a community of 1,200+. In 2012 he was appointed Assistant Professor at Champlain College, teaching game design and production. In 2014 he appeared in the documentary Video Games: The Movie. In 2017 he moved to Amsterdam to help build the Hidden Monster Games startup and ship Curve Fever Pro. Back in the U.S., he led design teams on Life Is Strange: Double Exposure at Deck Nine, managed the design department across Iron Galaxy's studios, and in 2022 joined Wizards of the Coast.

For a complete work history, see LinkedIn — or get in touch.