John Cooney (video game developer)

John Cooney
Born1986 or 1987 (age 39–40)
Other namejmtb02, Wonderful Elephant
OccupationGame designer
Websitewww.wonderfulelephant.com

John Cooney (born 1986 or 1987), also known by his pseudonyms jmtb02 and Wonderful Elephant, is an American game developer and former chief executive officer of Armor Games. He is best known for his numerous Flash games, many of which feature a blue elephant as the player avatar, including Achievement Unlocked and This is the Only Level.

Life and career

Cooney got into development of Flash games during high school. While enrolled at University of California, Davis, Cooney kept developing games and founded his own game development company, JMTB02 Studios. The money he earned through his games were enough to pay for his college tuition. In 2007, Cooney joined Armor Games as their first employee. In 2012, he joined Kongregate, where he stayed until rejoining Armor Games in 2019 as the vice president of business development of Armor Games Studios. In 2017, JMTB02 Studios rebranded to Wonderful Elephant. In September 2021, Cooney became the CEO of Armor Games. In May 2023, Armor Games announced that they would be publishing The Elephant Collection, a compilation of several of Cooney's Flash games. The following month, he announced that he would be stepping down as CEO.

Games

References

  1. 1 2 Brescini, Megan (7 July 2010). "Little Games Are Big Business at Armor Games". OC Weekly. Archived from the original on 7 July 2010.
  2. ↑ Simón, Jaime San (4 September 2011). "Juegos Indie: Metajuegos • Página 2". Eurogamer.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  3. ↑ Sohier, Rémy. DES SENSATIONS INTERACTIVES AU SERVICE D'UNE EXPRESSION ARTISTIQUE (PDF). Université Paris 8. pp. 13–14.
  4. ↑ Verneau, Loan. "Paralect - An example of transition focused design". ProQuest Dissertations Publishing: 27–28. ProQuest 1458638328.
  5. ↑ Rae Selvig, Dines; Schoenau-Fog, Henrik (2020). "Non-intrusive Measurement of Player Engagement and Emotions - Real-Time Deep Neural Network Analysis of Facial Expressions During Game Play". HCI in Games. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 12211. Springer International Publishing. pp. 330–349. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-50164-8_24. ISBN 978-3-030-50163-1. S2CID 220530811.
  6. ↑ Bardinelli, J. (4 May 2007). "In the Flash: Four Second Firestorm". Engadget.
  7. 1 2 3 "Wonderful Elephant". Wonderful Elephant. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  8. ↑ "John Cooney on LinkedIn". Retrieved 25 July 2021.
  9. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2021-11-03). "Armor Games shares four-day work week findings". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  10. ↑ John Cooney [@jmtb02] (2021-09-20). "I have some exciting news to (finally) share, I am the new CEO of Armor Games!" (Tweet). Retrieved 2022-01-16 – via Twitter.
  11. ↑ Le, Khai Trung. "John Cooney talks Armor Games' four-day working week". pocketgamer.biz.
  12. ↑ Arguello, Diego (2023-05-09). "Flash game preservation evolves with The Elephant Collection". Game Developer. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  13. ↑ Serin, Kaan (2023-05-10). "The Elephant Collection remasters 10 classic Flash games". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  14. ↑ Carter, Justin (2023-06-13). "Armor Games CEO John Cooney announces departure". Game Developer. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  15. ↑ "Stretching The Definition: This Is The Only Level 3". Rock Paper Shotgun. 12 May 2012. Retrieved 17 April 2022.