Ben Hayes

Ben Hayes has been a designer, producer, manager and director on a wide variety of games since entering the industry in 2004. Most notably and recently, he was director of game design at Wizards of the Coast from 2013 to 2021. He worked on Magic: the Gathering (more than 20 different set releases) and new digital game development.

He recently joined the team at Second Dinner, a small indie game studio based in Irvine, CA as director of game design. Hayes lives in Seattle and enjoys all types of gaming and food. He typically tries more than 100 new games each year, and his current favorites are Path of Exile and The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine.