Management Team
Patrick Buckland - CEO & Co-founder
Buckland is what can be termed an industry veteran. He has been programming videogames since the early 80s and has been wholly or jointly responsible for a number of bestsellers including Crystal Quest, Carmageddon and State of Emergency. Patrick’s first commercially published game was in 1982. He has also produced a varied range of non-game software over the years, including a security system used by the CIA, NATO and NASA. Aside from his undoubted technical ability, Patrick’s skillset includes strong leadership, planning and design abilities. Patrick Buckland co-founded the original Stainless in 1994.
Jan Lindner - President and CSO
Jan has over 25 years of managerial and entrepreneurial experience in software development and corporate management. He headed the software division of Spin Master, a large multinational toy manufacturer. Before that, Jan served as CTO at two global games publishers, Take 2 (publisher of Grand Theft Auto) and Vivendi (publisher of World of Warcraft). Prior to these roles he co-founded Ironport, serving as CTO and VP Engineering. Ironport was acquired by Cisco for over $800M in 2006. In the late 20th century, Jan enjoyed a long career in the gaming industry at Mattel, Mindscape and Strategic Simulations.
Matt Edmunds - COO
After freelance programming at BT’s research laboratories, Matt became employee number one at the newly-formed Stainless in 1995. Starting out as one of the original Carmageddon team, he progressed from programmer to project manager and producer, overseeing development of a variety of videogames. He assumed his current role of COO in 2003.
Shaun Smith - Creative Director
An Industrial Designer, Shaun moved into the games industry when he joined Stainless as a 3D artist in 1995. Working at Stainless and later at Climax Studios, Shaun continued to develop his deep interest in game art and design, fulfilling senior roles in both disciplines across multiple genres. He returned to Stainless in 2006 as Creative Director to build up both Art and Design departments and now acts as a point of contact for new project proposals and prototypes, with areas of expertise in both vehicle and digital card game genres.
Stuart Bayliss - Production Director
Stuart began in the games industry via the time honoured path as a QA Analyst and has since worked at a number of companies on both the developer and publisher sides in various QA and Production roles across consoles, handhelds and PC. Combining these experiences, Stuart was part of the newly formed team that at NaturalMotion arrive on the scene with a string of chart-topping hits on iPhone and Android. Stuart defected to Stainless in 2013 as a Senior Producer before joining the management team in 2017.
Simon Lacey - Technical Director
Having been involved in professional software development since the late 80s, Simon has a wide range of technical exposure across multiple technologies, specialities, and industries. Working in senior and lead software engineering roles in entertainment, defence, navigation, and telecommunications markets; partnering with companies from Sega to Lockheed Martin, TomTom to the Met Police, Price Waterhouse Coopers to BP, Simon has developed a broad range of experience that gives a very individual outlook when combined with his core passion of game development.
Neil Barnden - Game Director & Co-founder
Barnden – AKA “nobby” – started his career as a Graphic Designer after graduating from Kingston with a BA Hons in Design and Illustration in 1986. After gaining experience working for clients including The Conran Group and The Body Shop (spearheading the latter’s design studios’ move into digital design, both in the UK and US), he moved back to his native Isle of Wight and hooked up with old school-mate Patrick Buckland. The pair began working on videogame and software projects that led to them founding Stainless in 1994. Having sampled early retirement in Cornwall for a couple of years, Barnden re-joined Stainless in 2009 to concentrate on a role dedicated to bringing back the Carmageddon Brand and is now the Game Director in charge of our latest action-driving title ShockRods!
Fergus McNeill - Game Director
Back in the mid 90’s, Fergus was one of the team who signed and co-produced the original Carmageddon. Having run development studios at SCi, InfoSpace, and FinBlade, he’s now Game Director at Stainless Games, working on innovative VR titles and other pioneering projects. He has the distinction of being the first person to work with Terry Pratchett on a Discworld game, and is also a published author in his own right, with a successful series of crime thrillers to his name.
Ben Gunstone - Game Director
Ben Gunstone has extensive Industry experience in a production and management with the beginnings of his career traceable back to time spent at Nintendo UK and SCI during the mid nineties. With his strong background in QA and customer support, Gunstone quickly moved into a producer role within the SCI infrastructure. Ben then spent a few years at Sega of Europe, being involved in the acquisition, and overseeing development of, a number of external projects including OutRun2, Virtua Tennis and SEGA Rally.
Ben spent many years as Production Director of Stainless Games and, after a brief sabbatical, return to the Stainless fold in 2022 as Game Director.