Jon Radoff


Jon Radoff is an American entrepreneur, author and game designer. His work has focused on online communities, Internet media and computer games.
Radoff dropped out to found NovaLink, an early internet service provider. In 1991, while at NovaLink, he created Legends of Future Past, one of the first commercial MMORPGs.
In 1997, he founded Eprise Corporation, a creator of Web content management software. Eprise went public on the NASDAQ stock market in 2000 and was acquired by Divine Inc. in 2001.
On September 21, 2006, Radoff founded GamerDNA, a social media company that developed social gaming communities and a videogame advertising network. GamerDNA is now part of Live Gamer.
As of March 2010, Radoff was working on a new social game company called Disruptor Beam that would be focused on building games for Facebook. In February 2013, the company released Game of Thrones Ascent.

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 , a bulletin board system strategy game for Atari ST BBS systems. 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.
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. Also while in high school, Radoff purchased the rights to port the Atari ST BBS software StarLink, which supported FidoNet, to the Commodore 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:
GameReleaseNotes
Space Empire Elite1987Classic BBS Door for Atari ST. Later released/ported for Amiga, VAX, PC and many other computers.
Final Frontier1988BBS Door for Atari ST
Legends of Future Past1991Multiplayer interactive fiction game played on Tymnet, CompuServe Network
Cyber Corp1993Multiplayer online tactical strategy game
True Pirates2011Social network game set in the Golden Age of Piracy
50 Cent Blackjack2012Social network game in connection with 50 Cent
Game of Thrones Ascent2013Mobile game based on Game of Thrones
Star Trek Timelines2016Mobile game based on Star Trek
The Walking Dead: March to War2017Mobile game based on The Walking Dead