Today’s class blogger is Corine Allen. Below, she tells the captivating tale of Paul Schuytema and his roller-coaster entrepreneurial venture with Magic Lantern, a now defunct but once highly successful video game development firm based right here in Monmouth, IL.

The class learned a new and valuable lesson: There is much to learn not only from entrepreneurial success but also from failure. Most specifically: In fast-paced, dynamic high tech industries, failure can occur when even successful  firms do not see major change coming soon enough to adapt.

Enjoy!… And thank you Paul Schuytema!!

Prof. Gabel

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Before Thursday I had no idea what it took to make computer games until Paul Schuytema came and spoke to the class.  Paul described himself as a “nerdy kid” growing up.  He loved to play board games and really got into the rules of the games.  By fourth grade, Paul started to paint miniatures from the ancient Greek time area and that is when he made his first game.  Then, the technology hit and Paul’ s mother bought him a computer, one that allowed him to start programming and he loved it.

Paul’s love for computer programming had to become a hobby because it was not offered as a major at the school he was attending.  After working at Monmouth College for a couple of years, Paul worked on a lot of PC video games on the side and then got a call from 3D Realms and they offered him a job.  The company, furthermore, ended up shutting down the game that Paul and many other people that had worked really hard on, due to a larger need for a focus on another PC video game (the Duke Nukem release).  Paul left 3D Realms and returned to Monmouth in 1999 to start his own video game company, Magic Lantern. Paul told the class that, going into this entrepreneurial, one thing he knew for certain based on his past experience working for video game firms, was how NOT to run the company.

The startup of the company was slow and difficult. They attempted to launch their own video games, but soon learned that key to the business was having the legal right to use popular movie or TV show names and characters (e.g., Star Wars and Spongebob Squarepants). To get some cash flowing into his business, Paul and his partners wrote video game walkthrough/guide books.

The big break for Magic Lantern came when they released Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Covert Ops Essentials.  This release gave Magic Lantern money that they truly needed.   After Rainbow Six, they released several other even more successful games, including Combat, Survivor (a game based off the hit TV show) and also Survivor Ultimate.  After they released those games they released a few more games, but nothing as big as Combat or Survivor.  The last game Magic Lantern made was Man Jungg Tiles or Time.  The company went through numerous “landmines,” as Paul said. It wasn’t the games for the reason they went out of business, it was the release of the console video game Halo. This innovation changed the gaming industry and it was bad news for someone like Paul, a small developer who failed to see console gaming coming in time to adjust.

The members of Magic Lantern successfully developed numerous quality products for the customer while living out their dreams of doing what they loved.  Having Paul speak to the class was a unique opportunity to hear not only about how to start up and run a high-tech firm but also how it came to fail.  Paul is proud of what he did with Magic Lantern and is now the Director of Community Development for the city of Monmouth. He is also married to Susan Schuytema, owner of Market Alley Wines.

Corine Allen