Draft:Mitch Gitelman

Submission declined on 30 January 2026 by Anachronist (talk). This draft is not adequately supported by reliable sources. Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires that all content be supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources include: reputable newspapers, magazines, academic journals, and books from respected publishers. Unacceptable sources include: personal blogs, social media, predatory publishers, most tabloids, and websites where anyone can contribute. Replace any unreliable sources with high-quality sources. If you cannot find a reliable source for the material, it should be removed. This draft appears to contain text generated by a large language model (such as ChatGPT). You cannot use LLMs to generate article content. LLM-generated pages with certain obvious signs of being machine generated may be deleted without notice. Instead, only summarize in your own words a range of independent, reliable, published sources that discuss the subject. See the advice page on large language models for more information. If you would like to continue working on the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window. If you have not resolved the issues listed above, your draft will be declined again and potentially deleted. If you need extra help, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. Please do not remove reviewer comments or this notice until the submission is accepted. Where to get help If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews. If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed. How to improve a draft Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia. Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Add tags to your draft Editor resources Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs Declined by Anachronist 6 months ago. Last edited by ~2026-37462-34 42 days ago. Reviewer: Inform author. Resubmit Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be declined again.

Submission declined on 28 January 2026 by Athanelar (talk). This draft's references do not show that the person meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion for people. The draft requires multiple published secondary sources that: provide significant coverage: discuss the person in detail, not brief mentions or interviews lacking independent analysis; are reliable: from reputable outlets with editorial oversight; are independent: not connected to the person, such as interviews, press releases, the subject's own website, or sponsored content. Please add references that meet all three of these criteria. If none exist, the subject is not yet suitable for Wikipedia. Declined by Athanelar 6 months ago.

• Comment: The draft is filled with vapid AI vagueness that merely says that the subject has had coverage, and not what the coverage is. You are not permitted to use an LLM to write for you; see WP:NEWLLM. As for sources: this is a biography of a living person, and there are some unsourced assertions, which would never be accepted for publication. Also , interviews aren't valid for assessing notability, and some Geek Wire sources seem to be churnalism rather than actual coverage. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 02:06, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: No sigcov: relevant feedback already given at the teahouse. Athanelar (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Mitch Gitelman is an American video game producer, studio executive, and writer best known as co-founder of Harebrained Schemes and for his work on the revival of the Shadowrun and BattleTech franchises. Over a career spanning more than three decades, he has held leadership roles at Microsoft, served as studio head of FASA Studio, and has been featured in multiple industry profiles discussing studio leadership, crowdfunding, and game production.¹²

Gitelman began his career in tabletop role-playing game design in the early 1990s before transitioning into video game development shortly thereafter.³ He worked with Ray Winninger on Sentient (1997), a science-fiction adventure game for PlayStation and PC.

He later became the Studio Manager for Microsoft's FASA Studio, where he led development on the MechCommander series as the producer with the first MechAssault, and he was also the executive producer on the Xbox game Crimson Skies.³ Gitelman helped develop several licensed tabletop role-playing games into video game consoles and computers.⁴ He was responsible for adapting the BattleTech universe into a real-time tactics format. After Microsoft acquired FASA Interactive, Gitelman worked on MechCommander 2 and later became publishing producer on MechAssault, one of the early titles to support online multiplayer via Xbox Live. He eventually rose to become Executive Producer and Studio Head of FASA Studio.

During this period, he served as executive producer on Shadowrun (2007), a multiplayer-focused first-person shooter notable for its cross-platform play between Xbox 360 and PC players.⁴⁵⁶ Retrospectives later cited the game as ahead of its time in its competitive design and class-based mechanics.⁷⁸

Following the closure of FASA Studio, Gitelman became Director of Digital Download Games at Microsoft, where he led Xbox Live Arcade during its early expansion, including the inaugural Summer of Arcade initiative.

In 2011, Gitelman co-founded Harebrained Schemes with Jordan Weisman. The studio became widely known for its use of crowdfunding, beginning with Shadowrun Returns, which raised over $1 million on Kickstarter and successfully shipped. Gitelman served as executive producer and writer on the Shadowrun trilogy, including Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong.⁹

The studio later developed BATTLETECH, which was nominated for Strategy Game of the Year at The Game Awards. Coverage of the studio frequently highlighted Gitelman’s role in guiding Harebrained Schemes through its Kickstarter-driven development model and its revival of classic game properties.¹⁰

Harebrained Schemes was acquired by Paradox Interactive in 2017 and later returned to independence.¹¹

In addition to his studio work, Gitelman has been associated with experimental and cross-media projects at Harebrained Schemes, including the hybrid tabletop-digital game Golem Arcana.¹²

He also co-founded the Twitch-based entertainment network HyperRPG and appeared as showrunner and performer on the BattleTech actual-play series Death From Above.¹³

Gitelman has appeared in numerous interviews and industry discussions regarding crowdfunding, studio leadership, and game production, including features with outlets such as IGN, GeekWire, and Microsoft’s developer programs.¹⁴¹⁵