What does it take to bet your entire company on a single idea? For Don Daglow, the pioneering designer and founder of Stormfront Studios, the answer was to risk everything on a concept the world had never seen: a graphical online role-playing game.

In this episode of "Behind the Scenes," recorded live at devcom 2025, we sit down with Don Daglow for a masterful look back at the birth of a genre. This isn't just the story of Neverwinter Nights; it’s the story of a high-stakes gamble in the wild west of the games industry, where three competing titans—AOL, SSI, and TSR—were united by a single, audacious vision.

We dive deep into the pivotal moments that made it all possible, from a legendary "green light" meeting in a Dungeons & Dragons-themed castle in Las Vegas to the single most important moment of Don's career—a story that involves a quiet hotel suite, a direct question, and a handshake that sealed the fate of his entire company.

This episode is a powerful look at the reality of game development before it was a corporate machine, the immense personal risk required to innovate, and the invaluable lessons learned from betting it all on a "Holy Grail" project.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why Neverwinter Nights was considered a "Holy Grail" that other developers had tried and failed to achieve.
• The incredible story of the handshake deal that represented the ultimate "bet-the-company" moment.
• How Don Daglow navigated the complex, high-stakes partnerships between AOL, SSI, and the creators of Dungeons & Dragons.
• The clever technical and design compromises that were necessary to make the world's first graphical MMORPG a reality.
• Why the groundbreaking and successful game was ultimately shut down due to a business decision, not failure.

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