Company Background

Sparkplay Media was founded in 2006 by the CEO and CTO of the successful niche MMO company Iron Realms Entertainment in order to take the knowledge and expertise we had accumulated while building a portfolio of niche MMOs at Iron Realms and duplicate that success in a much wider market. We've developed an internal platform to allow for the rapid deployment of low barrier-to-entry MMOs. Our first such game - Earth Eternal is currently in Open Beta and available to play.

Our Games

Earth Eternal - our first game - In this 3d MMO, players will encounter an approachable and immersive world of cartoonish characters, high adventure, and social fun. Multiple products are in development but Earth Eternal is the only one we're being public about as of yet. Stay tuned for more info on the new type of experience we're creating. We believe it's the logical evolution of MMOs and virtual worlds.

Management Team

Matt Mihaly - CEO and Creative Director
Matt is a veteran of virtual worlds and MMOs, having gotten started in them in the early 90s. In 1996, he founded Iron Realms Entertainment and pioneered the virtual goods sales model with its first MMO - Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands. As CEO, Matt led Iron Realms to become the most successful company of its kind in the last twenty years in the niche (MUDs) it is in. Under his leadership, Iron Realms released three more successful MMOs: Aetolia, the Midnight Age. Imperian: The Sundered Heavens. Lusternia, Age of Ascension.

Matt is one of the founders of Sparkplay and speaks about the virtual world business model and independent game development at industry events like the Game Developer's Conference and the Virtual Goods Conference, and edited Dr. Richard Bartle's canonical book, "Designing Virtual Worlds." Matt earned a Bachelor's degree in government from Cornell University.

Chris Kohnert - Lead Architect
Chris spent 6 years serving as CTO of Iron Realms, and was the architect of its Rapture game engine. He's one of Sparkplay's three founders and is currently spending most of his time working on the internally-developed platform that powers Sparkplay's games, of which he is the lead architect. Chris earned a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Colorado.

Martin Best - Vice-President of Production
Martin is a production expert whose unique background and expertise has allowed him to help game developers reap the benefits of strategic planning and effective project management. Through his consulting practice, Martin's recent projects have included localizing Sulake's online game, Habbo Hotel, to the Canadian market, working for Xenophile as the Technical Director on the ReGenesis Extended Reality projects (a game tie-in to a cartoon that has won the Interactive Emmy twice), overseeing development of the casual games MLB: Play Ball! and one of the the top Sudoku games in North America and Europe - Ultimate Sudoku. Previously, Martin held the position of Vice President of Production at Poptronik Entertainment where he was responsible for directing all aspects of production undertaken by the Studio and Game Development Group, including 3D online game development, animation, and web site / new media production.

Michael Lehman - Vice-President of Marketing
Michael has a passion for using the internet to engage with consumers.  Prior to Sparkplay, he ran the marketing team at Meez, overseeing customer acquisition, branding, the virtual economy and strategic partnerships.  Before Meez, Michael ran customer marketing for BabyCenter and two B2B start-ups, StockPower and Collabridge Technologies.  He began his internet marketing career at ACCO Brands where he founded a team that oversaw all online initiatives for Day-Timers, Swingline and five other brands.  Michael also spent nine years in advertising, managing accounts including Burger King and the California Dancing Raisins.  Michael holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College.