| Jon Radoff | |
| Birth Date: | September 17, 1972 |
| Birth Place: | United States |
| Alma Mater: | Harvard University |
| Occupation: | CEO, Disruptor Beam, Inc. |
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.
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]
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.
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.
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 | 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 |