Michael Anthony Knox (February 1, 1961 – September 15, 2009) was an American software businessman and expert. Knox was a co-founder of

Park Place Productions Park Place Productions was a corporation founded in 1989 by Michael Knox, Troy Lyndon and Stephen Quinn. History In 1990, contracted by Electronic Arts, the company produced '' John Madden Football'' for the Genesis video game console, describ ...

with

Troy Lyndon Troy A. Lyndon (born November 29, 1964, in New York, NY) is an entrepreneur, game developer, and business coach. Early life Troy Lyndon is the son of Jacquie Edelen, a retired HR professional and David Lyndon, a former Marine, retired Aegis Progr ...

in 1989, which produced such classic video games as

John Madden Football ''Madden NFL'' (known as ''John Madden Football'' until 1993) is an American football sports video game series developed by EA Orlando for EA Sports. The franchise, named after Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and commentator John Madden, has so ...

and Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Boxing. Knox first became interested in the software gaming industry while he was living in

Tracy, California Tracy is the second most populated city in San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County, California, United States. The population was 93,000 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Tracy is located inside a geographic triangle form ...

, with his family. A woman, who lived in the area, introduced Knox to the fledgling

video game industry The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...

. Knox and his older brother, Richard Knox Jr., later enlisted in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

, where he worked as an engineer and

computer programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...

. In 1989, Knox founded

with

. At the time, Park Place Productions was one of the largest independent

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

companies in North America. With Knox as a producer, the company developed approximately 70 video game titles, including

, which has been called "the most successful sports game of all time." Other notable productions included ''

Batman Returns ''Batman Returns'' is a 1992 American superhero film directed by Tim Burton and written by Daniel Waters (screenwriter), Daniel Waters. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, it is the sequel to ''Batman (1989 film), Batman'' (1989) and th ...

'', ''

Monday Night Football ''Monday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''MNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from 1970 NFL season, 1970 t ...

'' and '' Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Boxing''. Knox and Lyndon received the Inc. Magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year" award by

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

and

Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...

for the

software industry The software industry includes businesses for development, maintenance and publication of software that are using different business models, mainly either "license/maintenance based" (on-premises) or " Cloud based" (such as SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, ...

category for the Greater San Diego Country region in 1993. Michael Knox died on September 15, 2009, of colon cancer in

Kaneohe, Hawaii Kāneohe () is a census-designated place (CDP) included in the City and County of Honolulu and in Hawaii state District of Koolaupoko on the island of Oahu. In the Hawaiian language, ''kāne ohe'' means "bamboo man". According to an ancient ...

, at the age of 48. He is survived by his parents, Vickie Lenore Knox and Richard James Knox Sr., son Aaron Michael Knox, daughter Tyra Renee Knox, sisters Kanani L.Y. Fung and Kahle Miller, and two grandchildren.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Knox, Michael 1961 births 2009 deaths American computer businesspeople Deaths from colorectal cancer in Hawaii American video game businesspeople