Fergusson grew up in Ontario, Canada, and while he had an interest in video games, he thought the industry was too far out of reach for him, though he had programmed his own multi-user dungeon (MUD).

[5] After a few months exploring a possible new internal studio within Microsoft, Fergusson returned to a producer role to help bring Valve's Counter-Strike to the Xbox, as the project at Ritual Entertainment was behind schedule.

Fergusson described the state of the game as being "on fire" and well behind schedule, which he attributed to Epic having only one producer at the time, splitting duties between Gears and Unreal Tournament 3.

[8] Fergusson, believing that this investment by Tencent would move Epic away from the type of "AAA, big-narrative, big-story, big-impact game" he preferred working on, left Epic and on August 9, 2012, joined Irrational Games as executive vice president of development during the final stretch of development of BioShock Infinite.

[9][10][11] Fergusson had gained a reputation from his days at Microsoft and Epic as a "closer", a management-level position that would help bring a troubled project to completion.

[12] Following BioShock Infinite's release in March 2013, Fergusson announced his plans to depart Irrational that April, though had not confirmed where he would go next and was remaining there for a few months to help on transition.

"[13] Fergusson later said in a 2020 interview that the short period he had spent at Irrational validated the concept that he was a good "closer",[1] someone capable of helping to complete a troubled project to get it released on time, and for which had begun to get an industry reputation for.

[16] During 2013, Microsoft began talking with Epic about acquiring the Gears of War franchise with plans to assign it to Black Tusk Studios.