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Draft:Erik Cassel

American entrepreneur (1967–2013) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Erik Stefan Cassel[1][2] (December 16, 1967 – February 11, 2013), known by his Roblox username erik.cassel[3], was an American entrepreneur, engineer, and software developer. He formerly worked in Knowledge Revolution as the Vice President of Engineering for nearly a decade, and is best known as the co-founder of Roblox Corporation, along with David Baszucki before dying of cancer in 2013.

  • Comment: Very large portions of this article are still being sourced by two sources: Business Insider and Sportskeeda, both which contain significant coverage but neither of which are particularly long articles. For biography with detailed personal sections per WP:BLP, it's not ideal that this is basically needing to paraphrase or rely on what one or two sources say for most of the article that doesn't directly relate to Knowledge Revolution or Roblox, which raises the question against WP:INHERITED whether the current sourcing really supports an independent biography. There's got to be more print media or reliable coverage about this person out there? ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 21:19, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment: No improvement since last decline, the latest reason for decline is "Can you find better sources than WP:FINDAGRAVE and WP:YOUTUBE?"
    However, the latest submission still including Youtube links for citation, that's unreliable source. In fact, google patent is also a weird source, you may want to link the specific patent. -Lemonaka 06:44, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment: Again, the only source here that seems to demonstrate notability is Business Insider. Nothing else here seems usable towards demonstrating notability. λ NegativeMP1 00:20, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment: Per Jovanmilic97, the Business Insider reference is reliable and contributes to verifying the notability of the subject, but it's the only such source as the other two do not verify notability. The Filmifeed link is either entered incorrectly, dead, or does not exist, and the obituary does not verify notability. If more sources like the Business Insider source (i.e. independent, reliable sources) can be found, the draft will likely be accepted. Waddles 🗩 🖉 01:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment: The Business Insider reference is good, but multiple such sources are required to meet the notability guidelines. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:39, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment: Note to AFC Reviewers: This draft is for a title that was previously an article, but was then cut down to a redirect. If this draft is accepted, the history should be preserved. Do not tag the redirect for G6.
    If you find that this draft should be accepted, and do not have the Page Mover privilege, please request assistance in moving the redirect to preserve the history.
    Reviewers should check the history and verify whether there was a consensus to cut the article down to a redirect, or whether the action was taken boldly without discussion. If there was a consensus for the cutdown, do not accept this draft without verifying that the draft improves the article or that consensus has changed. If in doubt, please discuss.
    Robert McClenon (talk) 02:42, 21 June 2024 (UTC)


Not to be confused with Eric Cassell.
Quick facts Erik Cassel, Born ...
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Early life and education

Cassel was born on December 16, 1967, in Los Angeles, California, United States.[b][4] When he was five, his father would take him to his work and sit him in front of a punch card machine for fun, which sparked his interest in computing. He considered being an actor in his childhood,[4] and in his teenage years, he played Dungeons & Dragons and numerous other pen-and-paper role-playing games. In junior high school, he programmed on a Radio Shack TRS-80 every day[5], which motivated him to become a good programmer. He commented that in recess, he would program games on it. He quoted that he "would program a game and only have a few minutes to play it before the bell rang. The computer didn't have a hard drive, so I would lose the program and have to write a new one the next day. This really motivated me to become a good programmer. The faster and better I could code, the more time I would have to play."[5] He also played soccer in high school and made it to the school's team.[4] After graduating high school in the late 1980s, he went on to get a bachelor's degree in science in Cornell University.[4]

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Career

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Knowledge Revolution

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David Baszucki in 2018

Shortly after graduating in 1989, Cassel read in a MacUser magazine of David Baszucki, who at time founded the company Knowledge Revolution and developed and distributed a simulation called "Interactive Physics", which was designed as an educational supplement that would allow the creation of 2D physics experiments.[6] After seeing the potential of the company, Cassel flew out for an interview to work with Baszucki. During the interview, Erik presented a piece of software which he created while studying at Cornell University for his physics department.[5] After Baszucki saw his potential, he was hired as the Vice President of Engineering at Knowledge Revolution.[5] The two spent nearly a decade building educational software for teaching physics.[5]

In December 1998, Knowledge Revolution was acquired by MSC Software, a simulation software company based in Newport Beach, California, for $20 million.[7][8][9] Both Cassel and Baszucki took senior roles in the company[7][10], but went their separate ways a few years later. Although they no longer worked together, Baszucki still kept in touch with Cassel.[5]

Roblox

Main article: Roblox

In December 2003, Cassel along with Baszucki began working on an early prototype of Roblox under the working title eBlocks[11], then later GoBlocks, then DynaBlocks using their own money.[12][13] Inspired by the work of futurists and science writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and Neal Stephenson,[13] over the span of 2004 and 2005, they worked from an office in Menlo Park, California alone to build alpha and beta versions of Roblox.[14][8][7][5] They began preliminary work on the video game DynaBlocks, which was launched in a beta state that was available to select players.[9][12][7][10] The game's name was changed to Roblox, a portmanteau of "robots" and "blocks" in January 2004. Roblox and its addon Roblox Studio was formally released on September 1, 2006.[14][12] Roblox was a massive hit, with community members creating their own games, rivaling what Roblox itself was making.[14] Seeing the potential of the company, Cassel and Baszucki hired additional employees, most notably Matt Dusek and John Shedletsky.[13][14] Shortly after hiring Dusek and Shedletsky, Roblox closed a series B investment for 1.1 million dollars.[14] Cassel was referred as the "Chief Scientist".[3] On the website, Cassel was fairly active, but rarely visited any games.[7] In an interview done in 2010, his hobbies were cooking, cycling, violin, ultimate frisbee, woodworking, and taekwondo.

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Health problems

Early into Roblox's development, in 2010, Cassel was diagnosed with cancer.[4][14] Cassel would then take a few weeks off working to spend time with his family to process the news. When Baszucki had heard of Erik's diagnosis, he "worked selflessly to make sure his knowledge and insights were transferred" to members of Roblox.[5] Baszucki and Cassel had many talks, with Baszucki offering Cassel to take all the time he needed to focus on his health. Despite this, Cassel declined Baszucki's offer and still worked on Roblox. Even so, he attended the ROBLOX Rally 2011, Roblox's first in-person game convention, and the following ROBLOX Game Conference 2012.

Death

On February 11, 2013, after battling for three years, Erik Cassel passed away from his cancer in San Francisco.[5][7][10] The Roblox staff stated on the Roblox Twitter account that Erik Cassel had "lost his fight with cancer" earlier in the day at the age of 45. However, it was not clear what the size of Cassel's ownership stake was when he died, as his holdings were not disclosed by the company.[5]

Legacy

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Baszucki's blog post

On February 12, 2013, one day after Cassel's death, Baszucki made an online blog post on Roblox documenting his time with Cassel.[5][14] Many other employees also paid their tributes. In the blog post, Baszucki shares his story of his two decades working with Cassel. Baszucki quoted:

All of us at ROBLOX will miss Erik deeply. He will always be a role model to me and to all who worked with him. We celebrate the time we have been able to spend with him. Erik was incredibly talented, but I will always think of him as the "nicest guy I've ever met."

— David Baszucki

John Shedletsky and other employees of Roblox also shared their stories on the blog.

Online memorial

On the same day, hundreds of players on Roblox gathered in a game called "Erik Cassel Memorial" that were created by his children to mourn the death of Erik Cassel.[5] Many of these people dressed up as Cassel's character on Roblox to pay tribute to him. On February 15, 2013, Roblox created an online shirt titled as "Official Erik Shirt" in memory of Cassel. The item went off sale eight days later. Furthermore, Roblox changed the name of a hat formerly known as "Well Worn Hat" to "Erik Cassel's Hat" and put it on sale for a short time.[4] Roblox then changed the two items' descriptions to the following:

To honor our co-founder Erik Cassel, Roblox will make a substantial contribution to cancer research in Erik's name. Thank you to everyone for your respect and support.

— Roblox

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References

Notes

External links

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