Chaim Gingold

Chaim Gingold is an Israeli-American game designer and writer known for designing the creature creation tools of the computer game Spore.

born 1980The Spore Creature CreatorThe interactive book Earth PrimerThe book Building SimCity

Born: 15 January 1980, Haifa
Occupation: engineer, computer scientist
Education: West Virginia University, Georgia Tech, University of California, Santa Cruz

Chaim Gingold was born in 1980 in Haifa

Chaim Gingold was born in Haifa on January 15, 1980. He grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia.

He studied computer science, English and art at West Virginia University. He then joined the Information Design and Technology master's program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where Janet Murray supervised his thesis on games, spaces and worlds. In 2016 he earned a Ph.D. in computer science from UC Santa Cruz with a thesis titled "Play Design."

Gingold worked on the computer game Spore, where he designed its creation tools, including the Spore Creature Creator. He was part of the game's design and prototyping team. He has spoken at the Game Developers Conference and takes part in academic game studies.

In January 2015 he released Earth Primer, an interactive science book that simulates processes of the Earth. His book Building SimCity was published by The MIT Press in 2024. He lives in Berkeley, California.