Joseph Michael Staten is an American writer. He was born in San Francisco, California. The son of a theologian, Staten originally planned on becoming an actor, but dropped the idea in college. He instead pursued a number of jobs before becoming a staff member at game developer Bungie in 1998 after meeting some of the developers in online Myth matches. At Bungie, Staten served as director of cinematics for the studio's games, including the Halo series; he would write mission scripts and movie dialogue for the titles. He has also been involved in managing the expansion of the Halo franchise to other game studios and producers, including Peter Jackson's Wingnut Interactive. Though not a published author previously, Tor Books approached Staten to write the fifth Halo novelization, Halo: Contact Harvest. Released in 2007, the novel reached #3 on The New York Times bestseller list in the first week of its release and received positive reviews. Staten's latest project was a brand new game series entitled Destiny, a first-person shooter. Staten rejoined Microsoft Studios on January 9, 2014, and is working on Sunset Overdrive, Scalebound and Crackdown. 

1972 in San Francisco