

Light saber battles: Dan and Tim[/caption]
By mid-1996, Turbine was a company of 30 people: administrators, game testers, game designers, artists, and of course lots of programmers. Putting together an entire online world is similar to setting up an amusement park. It's a huge undertaking, involving tons of artwork, music, gamewriting, and the entire programming infrastructure to make it work.
I'd had a great time meeting people, working like crazy, managing the projects and putting together presentations for outsiders. Together we'd attracted many publishers who were "checking us out". But I wondered whether someone with a business background should be our CEO. In the end, I passed the position over to our sales consultant, remaining chairman of the board, and becoming the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), which gave me member-at-large responsibilities to foster cool technology. This included the artificial intelligence system to drive monsters to and fro in the game's virtual world. Meanwhile, I became the #2 businessperson for guiding the company and negotiating with the outside world. We ended up signing Microsoft as our first publisher. I left the company to go back to MIT to get my MBA, but remained on the board and when the board asked me to write Turbine's next business plan, I managed to get thesis credit for it!
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[post_content] => AC shipped in 1999 to many awards and much praise. Dozens of people contributed to the original Asheron's Call. I'm really glad to have contributed and to have worked with such skilled people.
Being CEO was all-consuming, and I think ultimately led me to neglect my health and social life. As the #2, I got some time to think about my career. Eventually I decided to get an MBA and switch to a more serious industry. I left Turbine in 1997 to go to MIT's Sloan School of Management, staying active on Turbine's board until 2002, including writing the company's business plan and strategy in 2000.
Doing business by phone. Gaining weight was one of the wake up calls that made me re-evaluate my career.[post_title] => History [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => history [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-10-23 18:54:33 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-10-23 21:54:33 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://johnny-monsarrat.com/?p=1020 [menu_order] => 19 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 10 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 943 [post_author] => 4 [post_date] => 2017-05-27 23:33:50 [post_date_gmt] => 2017-05-28 02:33:50 [post_content] => [gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="944,946,950,945,947,948,949"] [post_title] => Noticed [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => noticed [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2017-06-04 12:24:26 [post_modified_gmt] => 2017-06-04 15:24:26 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://johnny-monsarrat.com/?p=943 [menu_order] => 10 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 20 [max_num_pages] => 2 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => 1 [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => 1 [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => c7c25259faacae95d3319c60a1c1f865 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) [query_cache_key:WP_Query:private] => wp_query:ddc640101470d9065ee717fb8f6ff4d3:0.72034000 1764542674 )
Finally we got some recognition by going to an industry conference. Several companies, including America Online and Compuserve, wanted demos and got us to fly out to their headquarters. Meanwhile, we had some new hires.
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Over the next two years we would end up raising everything we needed from private individuals who saw something special in our company. This faith in our future was a real gift that kept our company alive and going. It allowed us to remain independent as the company grew more valuable.
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It seemed inevitable. We were having difficulty hiring enough programmers in Providence, so we decided to move up closer to Boston. Meanwhile, we grew to 20 employees.
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We chose a new office in Westwood, Massachusetts, part of the greater Boston area, but not too distant from Providence. We promptly decorated the back room with a huge mural. Turbine still inhabits this office, but has expanded next door too.
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Here are some shots of the gang blowing off steam. The Mountain Dew Storage Center and Containment Facility was a joke about the "explosive energy" of this soda that the team would drink to keep themselves working late into the nights. Our plan was to create a floating raft of empty 2-liter bottles and sail across the Charles River, making a video and trying to get into a commercial or something. Unfortunately, we never washed the bottles out and even capped they attracted flies. Eventually the bottles were put into the back of Dan's truck and when we were all too busy to build the raft, he later dumped them. I hope he got the 5 cent refund for recycling them!
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Just for fun, and to blow some money (my own), I decided to throw a birthday party for Chris Dyl. Chris was a team leader in computer graphics and physics software, and was the hardest working employee I had. This is saying something in a company where most people enjoy their work and work pretty hard! The whole company got a free lunch in his honor. While he was out a few of us snuck back and decorated the office (and his desk) with Halloween items. You can read about this and other pranks on the Pranks Hall of Fame page.
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Finally, we moved into office space we could be proud of in Providence. It was difficult to hire people in Providence, so in 1996 we ended up moving to Westwood, Massachusetts, just south of Boston. I had too many business responsibilities, and hired longtime gaming friend Rickland Powell to help out, as executive vice-president.
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AC shipped in 1999 to many awards and much praise. Dozens of people contributed to the original Asheron’s Call. I’m really glad to have contributed and to have worked with such skilled people. Being CEO was all-consuming, and I think ultimately led me to neglect my health and social life. As the #2, I got […]
READ MOREIn 1994, Johnny Monsarrat founded Turbine, which created MMO Gamming, now a $20B market.
In 2016, Johnny and many former Turbine staff created Monsarrat, Inc., inventors of Big Movement Gaming.
In 1994, Johnny Monsarrat founded Turbine, which created MMO Gamming, now a $20B market.
In 2016, Johnny and many former Turbine staff created Monsarrat, Inc., inventors of Big Movement Gaming.



