Jon Burton is an English video game designer, director, and programmer. He is the founder of development studio Traveller's Tales and its parent company TT Games.
Burton founded Traveller's Tales in 1989. He worked as a designer on Puggsy, Mickey Mania, Sonic 3D Blast, the Lego Star Wars series, Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue and A Bug's Life, and has served as programmer for many of their early games.
Career Burton founded Traveller's Tales alongside Andy Ingram in late 1989 and served as creative director of the games. His first game as designer, Leander, was in 1991; next was Puggsy in 1993. The game enabled Traveller's Tales to expand the company and develop games with bigger companies. In 1994, Traveller's Tales developed Mickey Mania for Disney, initiating a long relationship with the company; Disney later hired them to develop tie-in games for many of its properties. Starting in 1995, Sega contracted the company to develop two Sonic the Hedgehog games, Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R. He also served as director and lead designer of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. Next, he was served as director, lead designer, and writer of the action-adventure video game Haven: Call of the King, which sequels to the game was planned to be a trilogy, but it was cancelled due to the game's commercial failure.
Burton announced in 2005 that Traveller's Tales would merge with Giant Interactive Entertainment to form parent company TT Games. He served as director of the Lego Star Wars series based on the toy line of the same name and the film franchise. In 2007, Burton and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that they had purchased TT Games and Traveller's Tales for an undisclosed amount as part of their expansion into the video game industry. Burton also served as director for other Lego video games including, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Lego Batman: The Videogame and its sequel, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 and Years 5–7, Lego The Lord of the Rings, Lego The Hobbit, and Lego Dimensions. In 2013, Burton wrote the original story for, produced, and directed Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite based on the Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes video game. Also, Burton worked as an executive producer for the Warner Bros. 2014 film The Lego Movie, as a co-producer for the 2019 sequel The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and the 2017 spin-off The Lego Batman Movie, and as a producer of the 2015 war thriller film Man Down.
In 2017, Burton began uploading videos demonstrating programming tricks and early prototypes of games that he worked on to his YouTube channel, GameHut, and has since created a new channel called Coding Secrets for the same content, in 2020. In October 2017, Burton announced that he would be creating an unofficial director's cut of the Sega Genesis version of Sonic 3D Blast, which was released in December 2017.
In August 2021, Burton co-founded 10:10 Games, a studio developing Funko Fusion, after he left Traveller's Tales in 2019.
Personal life He moved to Malibu, California in 2013.https://www.facebook.com/jontt/about Burton is a practicing Christian and included an Ichthys as an Easter egg in one of the tracks in Sonic R.
Works Video games Year Game Role Notes Director Designer Programmer Producer Writer 1991Leander 1993 Bram Stoker's Dracula Puggsy 1994Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse 1995Toy Story 1996Sonic 3D Blast 1997 Sonic R 1998Rascal A Bug's Life 1999Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue 2000Buzz Lightyear of Star Command 2001Toy Story Racer Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex 2002Haven: Call of the King 2003Finding Nemo 2005 Lego Star Wars: The Video Game The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 2006 Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy Bionicle Heroes 2007Transformers: The Game 2008Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures Lego Batman: The Videogame The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 2009 Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues 2010 Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 2011 Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 2012Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes Lego The Lord of the Rings 2013 Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2014The Lego Movie Videogame Lego The Hobbit Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham 2015 Lego Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin Lego Dimensions 2016 Lego Marvel's Avengers 2017 Sonic 3D: Director's Cut Director's cut 2024 Funko Fusion
Films Year Title Role Notes Director Producer Writer 2013Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite Direct-to-video 2014The Lego Movie 2015Man Down 2017The Lego Batman Movie 2019The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
References
External links MobyGames profile
YouTube channel