George Fan

Fan served as the designer, Werner served as the artist, and Pfeffer served as the programmer for Octogeddon. Jimmy Hinson provided the soundtrack. Octogeddon was released on February 8, 2018, for the video game digital distribution service, Steam. The game was met with positive reception, having a score of 82/100 on Metacritic. It was ported to the Nintendo Switch on May 16, 2019. Fan is currently listed as the creative director of All Yes Good.

Fan lives in California; he went to University of California, Berkeley, for his college education, was based in San Francisco during the development of Plants vs. Zombies, worked in the San Mateo, California studio of PopCap Games by the time he was fired, and All Yes Good is currently based in Redwood Shores, California. His girlfriend is Shigihara, the composer for Plants vs. Zombies. Fan's hobbies include playing Magic: The Gathering and Lego building. He designed the card Genesis Hydra for the Magic: The Gathering core set Magic 2015.

After his lay-off, Fan created the arcade-style action video game Octogeddon for the 2012 Ludum Dare contest, a contest where developers have to create a game in 48 hours within a specific theme. The 2012 theme was "evolution"; Fan designed Octogeddon to fit that theme by having the octopus gain weaponized limbs over time. The game was met with positive reception in the contest, inspiring Fan to work on the game more. He formed the indie video game company, All Yes Good, along with Werner — the artist for Plants vs. Zombies — and Kert Pfeffer — the programmer of the Xbox 360 port of Plants vs. Zombies. All Yes Good developed Octogeddon for the next four years.

On July 12, 2011, PopCap and its assets were bought by Electronic Arts (EA) for $750 million. EA envisioned Plants vs. Zombies as a major franchise, with the sequel using a freemium model, which resulted in Fan losing interest in Plants vs. Zombies. According to Jason Schreier of Kotaku, when EA directed PopCap towards making free-to-play games with transactions, "Fan no longer fit in." In August 2012, 50 employees either left or were laid off from PopCap's Seattle studio, with studios in Dublin; Shanghai; and San Mateo, California — where Fan worked at the time — closing. Fan was fired during this time after months of discussion from PopCap's management team. A circulating rumor that Fan was fired because of his opposition to EA's freemium model was based on a statement by Edmund McMillen, the creator of The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy. George Fan refused to comment publicly on the truth of this story.

Fan left Blizzard and started developing Plants vs. Zombies. He became a full-time employee for PopCap, who supplied Fan with a team. Upon release in 2009, it became the best-selling game developed by PopCap. EA bought PopCap Games in 2011 and Fan was laid off after his studio was closed down in 2012. Fan started developing Octogeddon and submitted it to the 2012 Ludum Dare contest. Fan formed a developing company named All Yes Good with Rich Werner and Kurt Pfeffer and developed Octogeddon further before releasing it in 2018.

Plants vs. Zombies was released on May 5, 2009, for the PC and Mac OS X. The game garnered positive reception from critics, being assigned an aggregate score of 87/100 by Metacritic. It quickly became the best-selling video game developed by PopCap Games. James Gwertzman, the vice president of the Asia/Pacific division of PopCap, revealed in a presentation at GDC China 2010 that the game had sold 1.5 million copies internationally. Plants vs. Zombies has been ported to various platforms, including the iOS, Xbox 360, and Nintendo DS.

There were various other projects designed by Fan for PopCap that were either canceled or unannounced. One of them was a role-playing video game called Yeti Train, which was rumored to become a new franchise after a trademark for the title was filed by PopCap in 2009, though in March 2011, David Roberts, CEO of PopCap, declined there being any plans to release new franchises. Another game in production was Full Contact Bingo.

At the time, Fan was looking for a job at Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard allowed Fan to work on Insaniquarium on his breaks from working with them. Because he was a freelance video game designer at the time, Fan was forced to do a majority of the programming and designing of Insaniquarium, along with composing some of the music. With PopCap Games as the publisher, Insaniquarium was released on 2004 for the PC, titled Insaniquarium: Deluxe and was met with critical and financial success. The game sold 20 million copies on the PC by April 2006, and was released for mobile phones by Glu Mobile in the United States on April 13, 2006, and in Europe on June 29, 2006. The game was also released for Palm OS smartphones, Windows Mobile phones, and personal digital assistants on August 6, 2008.

Fan first worked as creator of Java video games for the online gaming portal, Prizegames.com, created by the company Arcade Planet. Fan describes the website as "an online version of Chuck E. Cheese". The first video game he designed was the puzzle game, Wrath of the Gopher, released in 2001. Fan said to Chris Carter, editor-in-chief of Destructoid, that before creating Wrath of the Gopher, he was unsure of whether or not he could be a game designer.

While researching Java games, Fan discovered PopCap Games and took a liking to their game library. In 2001, Fan and Tysen Henderson founded Flying Bear Entertainment in California to work on a virtual pets video game project named FishTank. Fan wanted to create a game "that's easy to get into, yet unfolds into something much deeper." Flying Bear Entertainment published it on August 31, 2001, as a free Java-based online game called Insaniquarium. Fan entered the game into the 2002 Independent Games Festival, to which it became a finalist for. At the finalist booth at Game Developers Conference 2002 (GDC 2002), PopCap Games offered Fan help in making Insaniquarium a downloadable game. Insaniquarium won in the category of "Innovation in Game Design".

George Fan (born 1978) is an American video game designer who currently works as the creative director of All Yes Good. He is known for designing Plants vs. Zombies (2009) whilst working at PopCap Games, in addition to developing Insaniquarium (2001) and Octogeddon (2018). Before going into game design, Fan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000 with a degree in computer science. After graduating, he worked under Arcade Planet to develop games for their website, Prizegames.com. He eventually formed Flying Bear Entertainment and created Insaniquarium, which became a finalist for the 2002 Independent Games Festival. He then joined Blizzard Entertainment and worked there while simultaneously developing Insaniquarium further for PopCap Games, releasing the "Deluxe" edition in 2004.

George Fan was born in 1978. Fan grew up with his brother and lived with their father. Fan attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a degree in computer science in 2000.