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 video game series developed by EA Tiburon for EA Sports. It is named after Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and commentator John Madden and sold more than 130 m ...

and

Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Boxing ''Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Boxing'' is a boxing video game that was developed by Park Place Productions and published by Virgin Interactive in 1992. It was released for the Mega Drive/Genesis console. Overview The game features Muhammad Ali ...

. 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, United States. The population was 93,000 at the 2020 census. Tracy is located inside a geographic triangle formed by Interstate 205 on the north side of the city, Inters ...

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

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the Video game development, development, marketing, and Video game monetization, monetization of video games. The industry (economics), industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs wor ...

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

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, where he worked as an engineer and

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

. 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 conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development inv ...

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. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, it is the sequel to ''Batman'' (1989) and the second installment in the 1989–1997 ''Batman ...

'', ''

Monday Night Football ''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, A ...

'' and ''

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

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Delo ...

and

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment banki ...

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, MBaa ...

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 located in Hawaii state District of Koolaupoko on the island of Oahu. In the Hawaiian language, ''kāne ohe'' means "bamboo man". According to an an ...

, 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 Deaths from cancer in Hawaii Video game businesspeople