Whatley was born August 10, 1966, in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of three children to Oscie Whatley, a day lily hybridizer, and Dorothy Whatley, who ran a miniatures store. Whatley attended McCluer North High School, graduating in 1984, and was involved in the early BBS culture, writing the FRPBBS software for his privately owned company, Deep Pan Software. He briefly attended the University of Missouri, St. Louis in 1985, majoring in communications, but left early to found his own software company.
Simutronics
A passionate gamer, in 1987, at the age of 20, he co-founded Simutronics with Tom & Susan Zelinski, and ran the company from his bedroom in his parents' home. Whatley was President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board. The company grew rapidly to the point of grossing $5 million per year, and made the Inc. 500 list in 1999 as one of the fastest-growing companies in the country, with offices in Missouri and Maryland. Simutronics had approximately 50 full-time employees, and 500 contractors and volunteers. Business relationships were developed with every major online service available at the time, including General Electric's GEnie to America Online, Prodigy, and CompuServe. Other partners have included Time Warner, Sony, and Universal Studios. Simutronics games were the #1 third-party content on America Online, breaking industry records with 2 million user hours per month. Simutronics' flagship product GemStone is the longest-running product line of its type in the world, with customers who have been with the company since 1988. Whatley innovated the concept of online 3D action games, developing the CyberStrike 3D multiplayer game in 1993. The first of its type, it caused Computer Gaming World magazine to create the new category of "Online Game of the Year" so it could be awarded to CyberStrike. In 2007, Inc. magazine again cited Simutronics, this time as one of the 5000 fastest growing companies of the year. In 2010, Whatley announced that Simutronics would reorganize into two companies, Simutronics Games and HeroEngine, with Whatley taking over the role as President of Simutronics Games, and Neil Harris as President of HeroEngine.
Critical Thought Games
In 2009, Whatley founded Critical Thought Games to develop his own line of iPhone games. His first title, geoDefense was a critical and financial success, and has continued to be a top seller on the App store. His second title, geoDefense Swarm went on to receive even more critical acclaim, and was named one of TIME magazine's "Top 10 Video Games of 2009."
