Former Epic Games leader Ben Board joins CodeDev Group as CEO of The Performance Guys
- Board spent nearly nine years at Epic Games managing the Unreal Engine games business in the UK and Europe.
- He has nearly 30 years of experience across studios, platforms and game development companies.
- CodeDev Group now has more than 60 senior specialists across its three divisions.
CodeDev Group has appointed former Epic Games leader Ben Board as CEO of its optimisation division, The Performance Guys.
Board enters his 30th year in the games industry after spending nearly nine years at Epic Games, where he managed the Unreal Engine games business in the UK and later across Europe during Fortnite’s global explosion.
In his new role, Board will lead The Performance Guys, which focuses on performance optimisation across game engines and launched in June. He will also join CodeDev Group’s senior leadership team alongside CEO Myke Parrot, COO Andy Norman and Chair Rik Alexander.
His career highlights include writing gameplay for Bullfrog Productions on Theme Park World, leading the scripting team on Lionhead’s original Fable, running product teams at BossAlien on CSR Racing, and managing technical developer relations for Microsoft Xbox 360.
Performance focus
The appointment comes as CodeDev Group scales its three divisions: The Unreal Guys, The Performance Guys and Full Spectrum Interactive. The group has more than 60 senior specialists across the divisions.
Board said poor performance is widespread across games and can have an existential impact, while strong optimisation skills remain uncommon even among large studios.
"I've seen time and again that poor performance is everywhere and its impact can be existential, but great optimisation skills are not common, even at big studios," said Board.
He added: "Optimisation is The Performance Guys craft, but that's not an end in itself - what the client is really asking us to add to their product is quality. Faster frames make better games, and help scores and sales."
CodeDev Group CEO Myke Parrot commented: “Bringing Ben in as CEO of The Performance Guys sends an unmistakable message to the market: if your game has a performance problem on any engine, we have the best team on the planet to fix it."