Coolest History Lesson You'll Ever Have! (Part 1)

Have you ever wondered what Kongregate was like before you can to it? I bet you did! And I would like to give you some insight into Kongregate. It all starts with Jim Greer. Before Kongregate Jim Greer was the head of pogo.com (Which is owned by EA). Jim saw how popular Pogo was, and how popular Youtube was, and I'm guessing he put two, and two together and combined the two. And don't forget about the idea to make it like Xbox live; that idea lead to achievements!

In the spring/summer of 2006 Jim started organizing the Kongregate staff. The first staff member hired was BenV, a co-worker of Jims from Pogo. Actually, two more people left pogo with Jim.

Originally said by jimgreer:

A lot of people don’t know this but once upon a time there were 4 people who worked at Electronic Arts. They all liked their jobs OK but they wanted to do something else. So they got together from time to time and kicked around ideas. Eventually they all quit and started their own company. Actually, two companies. One of them was Kongregate – the two people were me and BenV. The other was 2D Boy. For a while 2D Boy and Kongregate were both headquartered in Kyle’s apartment on Fillmore St in San Francisco

You know where the story of Kongregate went. The 2D Boy story is pretty different – instead of raising money and hiring a team of smart people, 2D Boy is just the two founders, Kyle and Ron. And so it took them a little longer to make their masterpiece, World of Goo. It’s releasing for PC on Monday, and Mac and Wii Ware versions are coming soon. The early reviews are just about the best I’ve ever seen. I’m really happy for them, the game is awesome. Check it out!

From this point more staff members joined! Some people in advertising and programing you've never heard about; arcaneCoder; Jim's sister Emily; and you all know about Greg. Check out this job ad for Kongregate from back in the summer/fall of 2006

And in June of 2006 kongregate.com went up! While it was nothing as of yet, the project to combine the community aspect of YouTube plus the gaming style of pogo and Xbox live had begun!

(Click to see full size!)



Stay tuned to the blog throughout the week for the rest!