Matt Mihaly

Mihaly attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, receiving a bachelor's degree in political science in 1994. During college, he became involved with MUDs, especially Avalon: The Legend Lives, where he was a god, as well as BatMUD.{{cite magazine

| last = Neely | first = Kim

| title = Caught in the Net

| magazine = Rolling Stone

| issue = 696

| date = 1994-12-01

| pages = 61–66

}}

In 1996, Mihaly founded Iron Realms Entertainment and served as lead designer and producer on Achaea.

In 1997, he pioneered the Virtual Asset Sales (VAS) model, holding auctions for virtual weapons and armor in Achaea, the first business to use this business model.

In 1999, he built the first{{citation needed|date=August 2013}} hard to soft currency exchange in an online game, allowing players to exchange earned in-game gold for purchased credits.

In 2000, he served as Senior Consultant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations-sponsored World Summit of Young Entrepreneurs, in New York, New York, leading development of a system with very low technology requirements to permit entrepreneurs in impoverished 3rd-world countries to participate.[https://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,38340,00.html "Wired Article on World Summit of Young Entrepreneurs"]

He has since overseen the release of four additional successful MUDs. He speaks at conferences like Dragoncon,[http://www.dragoncon.org/people/mihalym.html "Dragoncon session"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061106072717/http://www.dragoncon.org/people/mihalym.html |date=2006-11-06 }} the Game Developers Conference{{Cite web |url=http://schedule.gdconf.com/speaker/mihaly-matt.21111 |title=GDC 2014 Session Scheduler | Speaker: Matt Mihaly |access-date=2014-05-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606083901/http://schedule.gdconf.com/speaker/mihaly-matt.21111 |archive-date=2014-06-06 |url-status=dead }} and the Social Gaming Summit.[http://www.socialgamingsummit.com/ "Social Gaming Summit"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080410103106/http://socialgamingsummit.com/ |date=2008-04-10 }}

He served as technical editor on Richard Bartle's book, Designing Virtual Worlds,{{cite book

| last = Bartle | first = Richard | authorlink = Richard Bartle

| title = Designing Virtual Worlds

| publisher = New Riders

| year = 2003

| isbn = 0-13-101816-7

| title-link = Designing Virtual Worlds }} and contributed an essay to Lee Sheldon's book, Character Development and Storytelling for Games.[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1592003532 "Character Development and Storytelling for Games]

In 2007, Iron Realms announced it was spinning off Sparkplay Media{{Cite web |url=http://www.sparkplaymedia.com/ |title=Sparkplay Media |access-date=2018-12-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071117202414/http://www.sparkplaymedia.com/ |archive-date=2007-11-17 |url-status=dead }} from Iron Realms to produce Earth Eternal, a 3D anthropomorphic MMO built to be largely streamed on demand under his leadership.

In 2008, he raised $4.25 million from venture capital firms Redpoint Ventures and Prism Ventureworks[http://www.prismventures.com Prism Ventureworks] in order to expand the development of Sparkplay's platform and games, and raised another $3 million subsequently.

In 2010, after never leaving Open Beta, Sparkplay Media ran out of money and sold Earth Eternal to a subsidiary of Time Warner in a joint venture in Asia. In the early morning hours of September 1, 2010, the Earth Eternal forums and game were taken offline. A Japanese version of the game, published by Sankando, who had licensed Earth Eternal from Sparkplay, was launched with some changes in 2011.

In 2013, he published a response to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan entitled "Bitcoin and Intrinsic Value".{{cite web|last=Mihaly|first=Matt|title=Bitcoin and Intrinsic Value|url=https://medium.com/bitcoin-btc/56f10f42803b|accessdate=9 December 2013}}

In 2014, he created Burn.Life,[http://burn.life Burn.Life] a site and blog about Burning Man, notably including the History of Burning Man.[http://www.burn.life/year-by-year-history.html A History of Burning Man]

In 2022, he created the Peter Mihaly Foundation, named after his brother who passed away in 1987, to award STEM scholarships to graduates of Ripon High School, in Wisconsin.{{cite web|last=Schulz|first=Joe|url=https://www.riponpress.com/news/ripon-high-school-grad-creates-scholarship-to-honor-memory-of-brother-who-died-tragically/article_d8912ec6-c5b5-11ec-9a6c-a3d67ee77f47.html|date=2022-04-27|title=Peter Mihaly Foundation scholarship created }}

• Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands (Lead Designer, Producer; Iron Realms, 1997–2005)
• Aetolia, the Midnight Age (Creative Director; Iron Realms, 2001)
• Imperian (Creative Director; Iron Realms, 2003)
• Lusternia (Creative Director; Iron Realms, 2004)
• Midkemia Online (Creative Director; Iron Realms, 2009)
• Tears of Polaris (Creative Director; Iron Realms, 2008 - never released and permanently cancelled)
• Earth Eternal (Creative Director, Sparkplay Media 2009)
• Starmourn (Executive Producer, Creative Director; Iron Realms, 2017)

{{Reflist}}

• Wired [https://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,63578-0.html article on Gleam]
• [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdcgw/is_200409/ai_n7182698 Computer Gaming World on Gleam]

{{MUDs}}

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Category:American book editors

Category:American instructional writers

Category:American video game designers

Category:MUD developers

Category:Cornell University alumni

Category:1972 births

Category:Living people

Category:American chief operating officers

Category:American chief executives