Radiant Entertainment

Prior to launching Radiant Entertainment, its founders, twin brothers Tom and Tony Cannon, were employed as software engineers for VMware.[1] The duo started developing video games full-time in 2011, founding Radiant Entertainment as an indie game developer in Los Altos, California.[2][3] Other pre-Radiant Entertainment ventures by the Cannon twins include the Evolution Championship Series eSports tournament and the GGPO middleware platform for fighting games.[3] Radiant Entertainment launched a Kickstarter campaign for their first game, the city-building game Stonehearth, on April 29, 2013.[4] Initially seeking US$120,000, the funding concluded one month later with a total of $751,920 pledged by backers.[5] The game was released into early access on June 3, 2015,[6] and it was fully released in July 2018 without fully completing its stretch goals.[7] Following the game's release, in a June 2015 round of seed funding, Radiant Entertainment raised $4.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz, London Venture Partners and General Catalyst.[8][9]

Radiant Entertainment announced their second game, the fighting game Rising Thunder, on July 20, 2015.[10][11] To develop the game, the company was joined by Seth Killian, who previously departed from Santa Monica Studio.[12] The game's technical alpha opened to a handful of players at the end of the month,[13] and to the public on August 10.[14][15] On March 8, 2016, Radiant Entertainment announced that it had been acquired by Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, for an undisclosed sum.[16][17][18] Alongside the acquisition, it was announced that Rising Thunder had been canceled and would consequently be shut down on March 18.[19] The development team behind Rising Thunder was subsequently re-allocated to a new, unannounced title.[20] A freeware version of the game, titled Rising Thunder: Community Edition, was released on January 18, 2018, alongside the open source for the game's servers.[21]