Mark Edward Kern, also known as Grummz, is a former video game executive. He worked for Blizzard Entertainment from 1997 to 2005 and was a co-founder and CEO of Red 5 Studios during the development and promotion of the video game Firefall.
In 2005, Kern co-founded the game development company Red 5 Studios alongside three other former Blizzard employees. He played a significant role in the development of the game Firefall and became CEO of the company in 2008.[8]
Controversies and departure from Red 5 Studios
Kern faced allegations of overspending on promotional campaigns for Firefall. Notably, he devised a marketing strategy involving a Firefall-themed e-sports bus intended as both a mobile promotional tool and a server for LAN competitions during the game's beta phase. The project, estimated at $3 million, also included the establishment of a dedicated video production team with costly equipment.[9] Red 5 employees described Kern as being prone to extended absences and having an "erratic, impulsive, and very disruptive" leadership style.[10]
In 2013, Kern was removed from his position as CEO by the Red 5 board of directors.[11] He referred to his time at the company as his own "Kobayashi Maru".[9]
MEK Entertainment and later work
Kern founded the studio MEK Entertainment in 2014. The company raised $1 million in seed funding for an Oculus Rift virtual reality MMO.[12]
In 2016,[13] Kern began seeking crowdfunding for Em-8er, a "spiritual successor" to Firefall.[14] Kern did an interview with YouTuber Upper Echelon in Sept 2024, claiming that about 600K has been raised so far for Em-8er.[15]
Kern has been involved in right-wing activist causes. In response to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act in 2012, Kern initiated a lobbying group named League4Gamers.[16][17][18]
In 2016, Kern became involved in the Nostalrius petition to convince Blizzard to consider reviving vanilla servers for World of Warcraft.[19] Following the Blitzchung controversy in which a Hong Kong eSports player was penalized by Blizzard for voicing support of the Hong Kong anti-national security law protests during a Blizzard streaming event in 2019, Kern quit playing World of Warcraft[14] and called for a boycott of Blizzard.[20]
During the online backlash and criticism against the Canadian narrative development studio Sweet Baby Inc. around unsubstantiated claims of "forcing" diversity,[21] Kern railed against efforts to increase awareness of diversity and related progressive causes in March 2024, claiming a "coordinated effort to insert diversity politics into games".[22][23]
↑ Sarkar, Samit (December 20, 2013). "Firefall dev Red 5 replaces CEO". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on December 23, 2013. Retrieved November 18, 2024. Kern co-founded Red 5 in 2006 after spending more than seven years at Blizzard Entertainment working on games such as StarCraft, StarCraft 64 and World of Warcraft.
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