Don Daglow started writing games on college mainframe computers in 1971,
and has now been involved in game development for almost 40 years. His
work on
Neverwinter Nights was selected for a Technical Emmy® in
2008, and
Electronic Games has called him "one of the best-known
and respected producers in the history of the field." He now serves as
an independent Producer and Game Designer.
During the "Pre-Pong" era he designed and programmed the first-ever
computer baseball game in 1971 (now recorded in the Baseball Hall of
Fame in Cooperstown), an early Star Trek game (1972), Killer Shrews
(1973) and the first mainframe computer role-playing game (Dungeon,
1975). Dungeon was also the first RPG to display maps and to
calculate line of sight visual displays.
Hired by Mattel Electronics in late 1980 as one of the original five
members of the in-house Intellivision Game Design Team (with Mike
Minkoff, Rick Levine, John Sohl and Manager Gabriel Baum), Don
created the first mainstream sim game (Intellivision Utopia,
1982) before being promoted to be Director of Intellivision Game
Development. While at Mattel he also designed the first game ever to
use TV camera angles, Intellivision World Series Baseball (1983),
with programmer Eddie Dombrower.
In 1983 Don joined a small game company called Electronic Arts as a
Producer, where over the next three years he produced 14 titles,
including Adventure Construction Set and Racing
Destruction Set (with Intellivision veterans Rick Koenig, Connie
Goldman and Dave Warhol). While at EA he co-designed Computer Game
Hall of Fame title Earl Weaver Baseball (1987), again teaming
with Eddie Dombrower.
While serving as head of Broderbund's Entertainment and Education
division in the late 80's, Don acquired the distribution rights for
the original Sim City and for the first Star Wars
game, and was Executive Producer for Jordan Mechner's Prince of
Persia, the Ancient Art of War series and the Carmen
Sandiego series.
He founded Stormfront Studios in 1988 and served as president and
CEO of the company for 20 years, as Stormfront titles sold over
14,000,000 copies and generated over $500,000,000 in retail and
online sales. In Stormfront's early years he designed or
co-designed the first original play-by-email game (Quantum Space for
AOL, 1989), the SSI Dungeons and Dragons "Gold Box" Savage
Frontier titles (1991-92), the first 3D-style RTS game, Stronghold
(1994), the Tony La Russa Baseball series (1991-96,
with Hudson Piehl, David Bunnett and Mark Buchignani), Old Time
Baseball (1994) and the first massively multiplayer online
graphic adventure, Neverwinter Nights for AOL (1991-97, with
programmer Cathryn Mataga), which paved the way for Ultima
Online and Everquest.
Stormfront's other best known titles are the original PC version of
Madden NFL for EA Sports, NASCAR Racing (also for EA
Sports) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for EA and
New Line Cinema, based on the film by Peter Jackson.
In 2003 Don was elected to the Board of Directors of the Academy of
Interactive Arts and Sciences, where he has now served for seven
years. That same year he received the Classic Gaming Expo
Achievement Award for "groundbreaking accomplishments that shaped
the Video Game Industry." He holds a BA in Creative Writing from
Pomona College and a M.Ed. from Claremont Graduate University.