Jon Radoff

Jon Radoff (born September 17, 1972) is an American entrepreneur, author and game designer. His work has focused on online communities, Internet media and computer games. He is CEO and co-founder of Beamable, a Live Game services platform that enables the creation of online games based on Unity.

Jon Radoff
Photograph of Jon Radoff c. 2016
Born (1972-09-17) September 17, 1972
United States
Alma materHarvard University
Occupation(s)CEO, Disruptor Beam, Inc.

Radoff began his career when he dropped out of college to found NovaLink, an early internet service provider.[1] In 1991, while at NovaLink, he created Legends of Future Past, one of the first commercial MMORPGs.[1]

In 1997, he founded Eprise Corporation, a creator of Web content management software.[2][3] Eprise went public on the NASDAQ stock market in 2000[4] and was acquired by Divine Inc. in 2001.[5]

On September 21, 2006, Radoff founded GamerDNA, a social media company that developed social gaming communities and a videogame advertising network.[6] GamerDNA is now part of Live Gamer.

In March 2010, Radoff started a new social game company called Disruptor Beam that built games for Facebook.[7][8] In February 2013, the company released Game of Thrones Ascent.[9] The company ultimately sold its games to other publishers, underwent a reorganization, and relaunched as Beamable.[10]

Writing

Radoff wrote Game On: Energize your Business with Social Games, which was published by Wiley in 2011. The book discusses social games, which Radoff views as a 5,000-year-old phenomena, and how games can be applied to businesses to make them more engaging and profitable. Radoff is generally critical of the gamification trend, and explains to businesses that they must incorporate story and immersion into their businesses if they really want to take advantage of the unique engagement offered by games.

Early career

Radoff lived in Northborough, Massachusetts and was a 1991 graduate of Algonquin Regional High School. During his high school years, he developed Space Empire Elite, a bulletin board system strategy game for Atari ST BBS systems.[11][12] Much of the money Radoff earned from Space Empire Elite and his other Atari ST game, Final Frontier, later became seed capital which he used to start the company NovaLink.[13]

Later authors who maintained or contributed to SEE include Jurgen van den Handel, Steven P. Reed, Carlis Darby, David Pence, Doc Wynne, David Jones, and Dick Pederson.[14] Also while in high school, Radoff purchased the rights to port the Atari ST BBS software StarLink, which supported FidoNet, to the Amiga; Radoff named the ported software Paragon BBS. After a brief time studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Radoff dropped out to form his first company.

Games

The games developed, co-developed and/or directed by Jon Radoff:

Game Release Notes
Space Empire Elite[15] 1987 Classic BBS Door for Atari ST. Later released/ported for Amiga, VAX, PC and many other computers.
Final Frontier[13] 1988 BBS Door for Atari ST
Legends of Future Past 1991 Multiplayer interactive fiction game played on Tymnet, CompuServe Network
Cyber Corp 1993 Multiplayer online tactical strategy game
True Pirates 2011 Social network game set in the Golden Age of Piracy
50 Cent Blackjack 2012 Social network game in connection with 50 Cent
Game of Thrones Ascent 2013 Mobile game based on Game of Thrones
Star Trek Timelines 2016 Mobile game based on Star Trek
The Walking Dead: March to War 2017 Mobile game based on The Walking Dead
Archer: Danger Phone 2020 Mobile game based on the FX Series Archer

References
  1. Online Company SparkForge Formed, Coins 'MSOGs', GamaSutra, September 22, 2006
  2. Ed Scannell, InfoWorld, February 11, 2000, "Eprise CTO guides businesses through Web maze," "Eprise CTO guides businesses through Web maze". Archived from the original on 2008-09-19. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  3. Jan Stafford, VARBusiness, May 23, 2000, "Eprise CTO Jon Radoff: Content Rules," http://qa.varbusiness.com/article/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EWVN4KK5M2VEKQSNDLUCKHA?articleId=18809992%5B%5D
  4. Eprise Expected To Rocket On Offering, Forbes, March 22, 2000
  5. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=77801 Divine closes acquisition of Eprise Corporation, Divine Inc. press release, December 5, 2001
  6. GamerDNA company website
  7. Rodney Brown, Mass High Tech, Radoff surfaces at Facebook game maker Disruptor Beam Archived 2010-03-23 at the Wayback Machine
  8. Scott Kirsner, Boston.com, Vidgame couple build new venture around 'social gaming' trend
  9. John Gaudiosi (22 February 2012). "Jon Radoff Explains How Game Of Thrones Ascent Opens Westeros To Facebook Fans". Forbes. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  10. Dean Takahashi (23 February 2021). "Beamable raises $5 million for Unity-based live game services platform". VentureBeat. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  11. Jason McMaster (20 March 2007). "Making Games Viral for Fun and Profit". GigaGamez. Archived from the original on March 28, 2007. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  12. "Jon Radoff bio". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 27, 2008. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  13. Josh Renaud (2 February 2016). "Jon Radoff, creator of Space Empire Elite and Final Frontier". Break Into Chat. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
  14. Dick Pederson. "Space Empire Elite v11.34 documentation". Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  15. Wolf, Mark J P (2007). The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond. ABC-CLIO. p. 155.
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