David Whatley (born 1966) is the president and CEO of

Simutronics Simutronics is an American online games company whose products include ''GemStone IV'' and ''DragonRealms''. It was founded in 1987 by David Whatley, with husband and wife Tom & Susan Zelinski. The company is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It ...

Corporation, a multiplayer game company in St. Charles, Missouri. He was the co-founder of the company in 1987, and has been a key developer on all of the company's products, including the '' GemStone'' series, ''DragonRealms'', ''Modus Operandi'', ''Alliance of Heroes'', and ''

CyberStrike ''CyberStrike'' is a futuristic 3D combat online game by Simutronics, involving team combat between customizable mechs, each of which is controlled by a different player. Initially exclusive to the GEnie online service, it opened in February ...

'', which won the Online Game of the Year award from ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

'' magazine in 1993.

Early years

Whatley was born August 10, 1966, in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of three children to Oscie Whatley, a day lily hybridizer, and Dorothy Whatley, who ran a miniatures store. Whatley attended

McCluer North High School McCluer North High School (founded 1971) is a public school in Florissant, Missouri, United States in the St. Louis metropolitan area. The McCluer North campus is centrally located in the Ferguson-Florissant School District. Located in a residen ...

, graduating in 1984, and was involved in the early BBS culture, writing the FRPBBS software for his privately owned company, Deep Pan Software. He briefly attended the University of Missouri, St. Louis, in 1985, majoring in communications, but left early to found his own software company.

Simutronics

A passionate gamer, in 1987, at the age of 20, he co-founded

with Tom and Susan Zelinski, and ran the company from his bedroom in his parents' home. Whatley was president, CEO, and chairman of the board. The company grew rapidly to the point of grossing $5 million per year, and made the '' Inc.'' 500 list in 1999 as one of the fastest-growing companies in the country, with offices in Missouri and Maryland.

had approximately 50 full-time employees, and 500 contractors and volunteers. Business relationships were developed with every major online service available at the time, including General Electric's

GEnie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic m ...

America Online AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

Prodigy Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to: * Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer ** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess Arts, entertainment, and ...

, and

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

. Other partners have included Time Warner, Sony, and Universal Studios. Simutronics games were the #1 third-party content on America Online, breaking industry records with 2 million user hours per month. Simutronics' flagship product ''GemStone'' is the longest-running product line of its type in the world, with customers who have been with the company since 1988. Whatley innovated the concept of online 3D action games, developing the ''

'' 3D multiplayer game in 1993. The first of its type, it caused ''

'' magazine to create the new category of "Online Game of the Year" so it could be awarded to ''CyberStrike''. In 2007, ''Inc.'' magazine again cited Simutronics, this time as one of the 5000 fastest growing companies of the year. In 2010, Whatley announced that Simutronics would reorganize into two companies, Simutronics Games and HeroEngine, with Whatley taking over the role as president of Simutronics Games, and Neil Harris as president of

HeroEngine HeroEngine is a 3D game engine and server technology platform originally developed by Simutronics Corporation specifically for building MMO-style games. At first developed for the company's own game ''Hero's Journey'', the engine won multiple ...

Critical Thought Games

In 2009, Whatley founded Critical Thought Games to develop his own line of iPhone games. His first title, ''

geoDefense ''geoDefense'' is a 2008 tower defense game created for iOS devices developed by American studio Critical Thought Games. A sequel, ''geoDefense Swarm'', was released on September 14, 2009, and was listed by ''Time'' magazine as one of the best g ...

'' was a critical and financial success, and has continued to be a top seller on the app store. His second title, ''

geoDefense Swarm ''geoDefense Swarm'' is a tower defense game by American studio Critical Thought Games available for the iOS and Windows Phone devices. Released on September 14, 2009, it is a sequel to '' geoDefense'', released by Critical Thought Games in 2008. ...

'' went on to receive even more critical acclaim, and was named one of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'' magazine's "Top 10 Video Games of 2009".

Products

* ''GemStone II'' (1988) * ''Orb Wars'' (1988) * ''GemStone III'' (1989) * ''

'' (1994) * ''Modus Operandi'' (1995) * ''

DragonRealms Simutronics is an American online games company whose products include ''GemStone IV'' and ''DragonRealms''. It was founded in 1987 by David Whatley, with husband and wife Tom & Susan Zelinski. The company is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It ...

'' (1996) * ''Hercules & Xena: Alliance of Heroes'' (1998) * '' CyberStrike 2'' (1998) * ''

GemStone IV ''GemStone IV'' is a multiplayer text-based online role-playing video game (often known as a MUD) produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a High Fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was kn ...

'' (1998) * ''

'' * ''

'' (2009) * ''

'' (2009) * ''geoSpark'' (2010) * ''Fantasy University'' (2010)

Public speaking

* Keynote speaker, 360 iDev Conference, San Jose 2010 * "From Zero to Time Magazine: App Success", Game Developers Conference, 2010 * "The Massively Collaborative Development Paradigm Shift", ION Game Conference, 2008, Seattle * Austin Game Developers Conference, 2006, MMO Technology Platforms * AAAS 2006, Virtual Worlds * GDC 1994, Programming Commercial Virtual Reality

Writing

* "Towards Photorealism in Virtual Botany" in
GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation
'

Awards

* "Online Game of the Year" for ''CyberStrike'', by ''Computer Gaming World'' magazine, 1993 * "Best of Show" and "Most Original" for ''Hero's Journey'' at E3 2006 * "''Inc.'' 500", '' Inc.'' magazine, 1999 * HeroEngine, "Best Development Tool", 2006 * HeroEngine, finalist for "Best Engine" from '' Game Developer'' 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whatley, David 1966 births Living people Video game developers Businesspeople from St. Louis