Hi! I’m Jon Jones. I’ve had the good fortune to have lived an interesting life, and I’m known for a few different things.
Game developer
I’ve been involved in digital art since I was 8, and modding video games since I was 11. I was doing paid contract work creating art for mods and games at age 12, went professional at 16, and contributed to 50 titles over the span of my career as a developer. I began as an artist, then moved onto building and managing art teams. Because I’m agreeable, curious, and make the most of my circumstances, I was quickly thrust into the role of managing teams of artists and figuring it all out as I go. For whatever reason, I decided to write out everything I’m learning to try to help others in the same situation, and eventually became known for my writing. Eventually, I became known as the go-to guy for art outsourcing production in the game industry.
I did a LOT of writing, blogging, speaking, podcasting, consulting, mentoring, managing events and happy hours, helping organize job fairs, worked as a talent manager, mentoring artists, matchmaking artists and teams to gigs, recruiting, and generally being a very outgoing, gregarious, social dude that was highly visible on social media. All of my writing, speeches, podcasts, and articles are over on my main site at https://www.jonjones.com.
Here’s a link to the best of my game development and artist advice:
Author
I was homeschooled and raised in an abusive household by radical Evangelical Christians that aggressively manipulated, controlled, and isolated me over a period of many years. Fortunately, I was clever, and used the technology available to me to clandestinely develop the career skills and evade their surveillance until I could get a job and and escape. I wrote a book about my difficult but successful escape. It’s called “How I Escaped Evangelical Hell: A Memoir” and it’s available on Amazon. It’s not an easy read, but it’s funny, and I’m proud of it.
Remote Work and Freelancing Advocate
I began my career doing freelance work until I could earn my way into a studio job, and eventually moved onto managing freelancers. I’ve learned a lot over my career and have written and spoken extensively on the subject to help artists build strong, successful careers in an unstable industry. My core inspiration for all of my work was as though I was writing messages to myself in the past, guiding myself on how to correct my mistakes and do better. That authorial conceit is apparently the key to getting me to write a lot and write freely, so I’ve been running with it ever since.
Not a professional fighter
Very long story short: There’s a professional fighting champion that’s enormously talented and successful, but unfortunately has a history of drunk driving, drug and steroid use, and being stripped of his title twice, losing all his sponsors, paying a multi-million dollar settlement to a pregnant woman whose arm he broke in a drunken hit-and-run incident. He has the same name as me — Jon Jones — but I have @jonjones on Twitter. Every time he screws up and is in the news, I get hate mail and violent threats by the tens of thousands from stupid people that think I’m the other guy. I reply to all of this email and respond as ridiculously as I can as fast as possible, receiving hundreds of new mistweets every minute. It’s been happening since 2012, and it’s gotten a LOT of attention over time, including being interviewed on-air on ESPN SportsCenter:
It’s bizarre how far it’s gone. At this point I’ve gotten well over 100,000 mistweets comprising mostly violent threats and hatred meant for the other guy. My good-natured responses to the neverending torrent of flaccid bravado ended up getting coverage by the BBC, USA Today, VICE Fightland, CBS Sports, Kotaku, Yahoo Finance, Daily Mail, The Sun, DeadSpin, MMA Junkie, Bloody Elbow, FloCombat, and been interviewed on Sirius XM radio. When the UFC is in town I usually end up with free tickets, and I even got VIP treatment to attend a Bellator event, all because I have the same name and I decided to turn lemons into lemonade. It’s a fun, weird hobby that happens to me a couple times a year. It took years and despite a lot of stubborn resistance to it, I eventually became a fan of the sport. I’ve made a lot of cool friends out of it, and it’s a part of my life I enjoy very much.
If you’d like to get in contact, check out the Contact Jon page.