Draft:Mark Surfas

Mark Surfas is a Canadian-American game developer and writer known for starting the gaming media company, online multiplayer platform, and middleware provider GameSpy before its merger with IGN, the acquisition of its technology division by Glu Mobile, and its eventual shutdown. He also launched and currently leads multimedia communications company GroupFire and software company Robots and Rockets. He is also the author of the instructional books Running a Perfect Web Site with Windows, Using Intranet HTML, and Creating Your Own ActiveX Web Pages.

Career
In the early 1990s, Surfas served as director of on-line communications at Coldwell Banker.

Through Que Publishing, Surfas wrote and published the technology books Running a Perfect Web Site with Windows and Using Intranet HTML in 1996. He also published the book Creating Your Own ActiveX Web Pages in 1997. Surfas also founded and organized the Costa Mesa-based gaming event The Beatdown in 1998. He wrote an op-ed concerning video game ratings for the Los Angeles Times in 2000.

Surfas initially formed GameSpy in 1995 as a website called PlanetQuake, which was dedicated to the video game Quake. Surfas licensed the software known as QSpy, which allowed users to list and search for servers for online multiplayer matches of Quake. Initially renaming his service QuakeSpy, he eventually settled on the name GameSpy.

Surfas became chief strategy officer when GameSpy merged with IGN in 2003.

Surfas would also go on to invest in companies such as RealNetworks, Mob Science, OGPlanet, and GeekChicDaily. Surfas also currently leads GroupFire and Robots and Rockets.