# Johnny Monsarrat

> Johnny Monsarrat co-invented the MMO genre at Turbine in 1994 - the studio behind Asheron's Call, Lord of the Rings Online, and Dungeons & Dragons Online before Warner Bros. acquired it for $160M. Now as founder and CEO of Monsarrat, he is building Landing Party, the world's first outdoor AR roleplaying game, with 7 patents, $2.7M raised, and advisors including the former CEOs of PlayStation and Blizzard.

- **Role:** Founder, CEO & CTO at Monsarrat
- **Organizations:** Monsarrat, Turbine, Hard Data Factory, Events INSIDER, Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Secular Coalition for America, Secular Policy Institute, United Coalition of Reason
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, MBA (Entrepreneurship), MIT Sloan School of Management, PhD student in Computer Science (AI & Computer Graphics), Brown University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Turbine (1994), one of the 'big three' original MMO companies, acquired by Warner Bros. for $160M, Asheron's Call won DICE Game of the Year, Adventure Game of Year, and Role-Playing Game of Year, Lord of the Rings Online won PC Gamer Magazine Game of the Year

## Career timeline

- **early 1990s** — Attended MIT at age 16; worked at MIT AI Lab under Rodney Brooks (iRobot founder); helped build world's first juggling robot
- **1993** — First person to drive a mobile robot remotely over the Internet
- **1994** — Co-invented the 'away message' in Zephyr, the world's first instant messaging system
- **1994** — Co-founded Turbine, pioneering the MMO gaming category
- **1999** — Turbine launched Asheron's Call, won DICE Game of the Year, Adventure Game of Year, Role-Playing Game of Year
- **2006** — Launched Dungeons & Dragons Online
- **2007** — Launched Lord of the Rings Online, won PC Gamer Magazine Game of the Year
- **c.2010s** — Warner Bros. acquired Turbine for $160 million
- **c.2010s** — Founded Hard Data Factory; earned two patents for web data collection; founded Events INSIDER (New England's most popular arts events blog)
- **c.2013** — Alliance Director at Richard Dawkins Foundation; won Guinness World Record for Soulburners community art project (10,000+ handwritten replies)
- **2017** — Founded Monsarrat in Los Angeles to build outdoor AR RPGs
- **2023-06** — Monsarrat raised $900K seed round; total funding reaches $2.7M
- **2023** — Forbes selected Monsarrat as one of only 2 startups to praise at Augmented World Expo 2023
- **2024** — Landing Party available on App Store and Google Play; company in talks for Hollywood franchise partnership

## Achievements

- Co-founded Turbine (1994), one of the 'big three' original MMO companies, acquired by Warner Bros. for $160M
- Asheron's Call won DICE Game of the Year, Adventure Game of Year, and Role-Playing Game of Year
- Lord of the Rings Online won PC Gamer Magazine Game of the Year
- First person to drive a mobile robot remotely over the Internet (1993)
- Co-invented the 'away message' in Zephyr, the world's first instant messaging system
- Helped build world's first juggling robot at MIT AI Lab
- Guinness World Record for Soulburners project (10,000+ handwritten replies to life questions)
- 7 patents protecting Monsarrat's outdoor AR gaming technology
- Forbes selected Monsarrat as one of only 2 startups to highlight at Augmented World Expo 2023
- Grew Turbine from 12 people in his mother's house to a 350-person studio

## Latest updates

- **2024-03** — Landing Party available on Apple App Store and Google Play as free-to-play demo with 12 sci-fi missions
- **2023-06** — Monsarrat closed $900K seed round, bringing total funding to $2.7M
- **2023** — Forbes highlighted Monsarrat as one of only 2 standout startups at Augmented World Expo 2023, the world's largest AR tech conference
- **2023** — Company in active talks to license a Hollywood movie franchise for the game
- **2022-06** — Johnny Monsarrat shared his vision for AR gaming and the metaverse in a two-part YouTube series

## Links

- Website: https://monsarrat.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monsarrat/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/monsarrat
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnnyMonsarratBoston/videos
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigMovementGaming

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/johnny-monsarrat
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-01