In 1989, Mr. Hettinger founded and was CEO of Tantalus Inc., one of the first online game companies. Two years later, he founded and was CEO of MPG-Net, the first independent Internet game network. In 1995, MPG-Net was contracted by Microsoft to create the first online games available on the Microsoft Network. In 1997, MPG-Net became the exclusive online game provider for AT&T Worldnet.

In 1998, Mr. Hettinger sold his company to Interactive Magic, a publicly traded NASDAQ company. In 1999, he was asked to become CEO of Interactive Magic and complete the conversion of the company from a CD-ROM game company into an Internet game company. Additionally, in that year, Interactive Magic was selected as the exclusive provider of online games for Earthlink and Mindspring. In 2001, Mr. Hettinger became the Chief Media Officer at Indiqu, a leading provider of content to 26 mobile telephone carriers throughout North America and Europe.

Charlie Tyson is the financial manager for Icarus Studios and a co-scripter of Fallen Earth. Born in 1963 and raised in Philadelphia, Charlie graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1985. After college he received his financial training at major Connecticut National Bank in Hartford, but in 1989 he decided to enter small business. He partnered with a long time friend to create a chain of specialty hobby stores in the Philadelphia area.

In 1993 with the emergence of collectible card games, the two partners decided to add role playing games to the stores. Charlie formed an immediate passion for the games and decided to move further in their direction. In 1997 he purchased his game supplier, The Armory, out of Baltimore. It was the third largest specialty game distributor in the country, and as its CFO he spent the next three years taking it to the top. By 2000 it was three times bigger than its nearest competitor.

An entrepreneur at heart, however, Charlie dreamed of taking the step away from sales towards game development. After meeting James Hettinger in 1999, the two began to discuss the possibility of putting together a state of the art on-line cross game category action and role playing game. Confident that James’ game development and production experience fit perfectly with his financial and business management background, Charlie sold the distribution company in 2000. He and James then founded Icarus.

Stephen graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a BS in Accounting in 1982, and spent eight years working in the Dallas area as Chief Accountant and Controller for non-profit nursing home chains. He spent ten years working for Hill Rom in the Long Term Care division in various roles, including Long Term Care Reimbursement Consultant and National Director of Medicaid and Insurance Field Documentation. He then spent two years in Charleston, SC as CFO/COO of a local nursing home and assisted living chain before relocating to Raleigh to set up the financials and business processes for a startup healthcare company, Legacy Healthcare. In 2005, Stephen went to work for ProviderLink, a healthcare communications technology company, as CFO/COO, and helped guide the company to a successful merger with Compuware Corporation a year later. After the merger, he served as the Director of operations until joining Icarus.

Mr. Lineberger is a thirteen-year veteran of the massive multiplayer online game industry, and author of the first graphical MMORPG on the Internet, the Kingdom of Drakkar. Mr. Lineberger first worked with James Hettinger in 1991, when he accepted a position at the Multi-Player Games Network (MPG-Net). He became Vice President of Development at MPG-Net in 1993, and Chief Technology Officer in 1994. While at MPG-Net, he also worked on two 3D MMORPGs, Judgment Phoenix and DragonGard. After the sale of MPG-Net to Interactive Magic in 1998, he joined World Gaming Corporation as the CTO, where he remained until the acquisition by Women.com networks. Brought into Icarus Studios for his unique MMOG development expertise, Mr. Lineberger oversees all technology development and direction.

Jeff Strief is a media and game industry veteran with over 20 years of interactive and traditional media senior management experience.  He spent 5 years in the online casual game market as president of Flipside, a Vivendi Universal Interactive company.  The company was one of the largest online destinations for casual games and pioneered new forms of game play monetization with pay for play, subscription and game download offerings. Vivendi Universal Interactive also developed, produced and was the exclusive online distributor for Pearson Television’s line of popular game shows including Family Feud, To Tell the Truth and Name That Tune.

From the late 80s to 1998 Jeff was a senior executive with CMP Media. The industry leading brands he managed included TechWeb, Computer Reseller News, InformationWeek, VAR Business and Network Computing. Jeff also spearheaded and launched a first of its kind go to market strategy for CMP Media called Customer First. The program reorganized all of CMP’s 400 sales staff around the customer vs specific brands.

Greg Weinberg joined Icarus Studios in July of 2007 as Executive Vice President of Business Development. For over 20 years, Greg has been involved in numerous entrepreneurial endeavors with some of the most well-known companies and brands, such as Major League Baseball, the NFL, CBS, Reebok, Maxim Magazine, NHL, Caesars, Tower Records, and J&R. He has focused on building both public and privately held companies through his expertise in business and strategic development, marketing, and mergers & acquisitions.

In 1999, Greg was one of the first employees of GSI Commerce, Inc. GSI is the leading provider of outsourced e-commerce solutions for retailers, manufacturers, and sports organizations (publicly traded on NASDAQ, symbol GSIC). During his five-year tenure, Greg was responsible for many aspects of the initial phases of GSI’s development, with a primary focus on business development, and ultimately secured more than half of the company’s client partners for outsourced e-commerce solutions. Greg graduated from the Syracuse University School of Management with a B.S. in Marketing.

A veteran of the gaming industry with extensive experience in cost and project management, production, publishing and distribution of both stand-alone and online products, Mr. Hall played an integral role in the successful IPO of game publisher Interactive Magic. While at Interactive Magic, he participated in the release of over 22 stand-alone retail boxed games. In 1999, with the acquisition of MPG-Net he oversaw the operation and development of over 50 online game products including Warbirds™ which was online game of the year for three consecutive years. Mr. Hall was then promoted to General Manager of IENT (formerly Interactive Magic) and oversaw all aspects of operations and production. Mr. Hall was then hired by CDV as general manager of the retail box publishing and oversaw the release of over 20 retail box games. Mr. Hall joined Icarus Studios in 2006 to oversee all aspects of production.

Judah Graham has over fifteen years experience developing interactive entertainment and new media for cross platform distribution via web, mobile phones, 2D and 3D game environments. Prior to working with Icarus Studios, he worked on various projects including The Matrix Revolution® and Reloaded®. He has plied his creative skills to developing award winning AAA titles on games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon®, Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader®, Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K, Chaos Gate® and Hasbro Interactive's Scrabble®. He holds a degree in Advertising Design and Computer Graphics as well as post graduate certificates in creative design and art management.