Alex St. John

Alex St. John, along with Craig Eisler and Eric Engstrom, created the original Microsoft DirectX specification. Alex became a Windows game technology evangelist for DirectX through magazine articles (notably boot) and interviews on the newly created web.

Formerly the Chairman of WildTangent software, a DirectX game development company, Alex was appointed in December, 2009 as the President and CTO of Hi5, a social networking site with an emphasis on on-line gaming. Alex is also a frequent contributor to Computer Power User magazine.

Trivia

 * He described himself on USENET as "Microsofts dually[sic] appointed DirectRepresentative for this technology."
 * He is one of the main subjects of the book Renegades of the Empire and is mentioned in Masters of Doom.

Quotes
How do I put all these companies in a position where, regardless of what they see is in their best interest, they have to adopt your technology? […] I realized that a major part of my job was to figure out how to use technology control to create economic force, or leverage, such that money and business flowed in Microsoft's direction, and people had to go [to them].

You'll never hear this from anybody else because they probably don't know. The original codename for Direct X was the Manhattan Project, because strategically it was an effort to displace Japanese game consoles with PCs and ultimately the Xbox. We called it The Manhattan Project because that was the codename for the program developing the nuclear bomb. We had a glowing radiation logo for the prototype for Direct X, and of course as soon as that got out and the press covered it, it caused a scandal.

Nobody needs a console when a game's value and DRM is defined by community or an input device. Consoles just serve to keep you from playing a game you didn't pay for. What's Sony and Microsoft's motivation to make another console? It's been so rocky, and it's not about the pretty graphics anymore.” According to St. John, spectacular graphics have become a commodity, and not the platform for games to differentiate themselves. “The Wii is the exception that proves the rule — it's not about the graphics, it's about the input device.