Hi everyone,

Some of you know me, and for others I was before your time, but I'm Matt Mihaly, the founder & CEO of Iron Realms. I started working on Achaea in 1995, 30 years ago, and we launched Achaea over 28 years ago. Back then, there was no Iron Realms - the company was just called Achaea LLC because I had never envisioned there being more than one game.

Four years later we launched Aetolia, and then in 2003 Imperian and in 2004 Lusternia. Starmourn, of course, came much later, and in the meantime we also launched and later shutdown Midkemia Online.

Starting Iron Realms is probably the best decision of my life - up there with marrying my wife. It's given me an incredible creative outlet and a livelihood doing something I love. But, 30 years is a long time. I was 23 when I started work on Achaea. I'm 53 now, and its time for a new phase of my life.

So, I'm stepping down as CEO of Iron Realms and promoting Jeremy Saunders, IRE's long-time President, to CEO. Jeremy's been running Iron Realms day to day for a long time as it is, and there's nobody who is more steeped in Iron Realms than Jeremy. He started his involvement playing Achaea a couple years after we launched, and became Sartan, the God of Evil. He then started Imperian and was the initial producer of the game, eventually getting promoted to President many years ago.

Jeremy's been involved with Iron Realms longer than anyone else (other than me) that's active either as a staff member, volunteer or an even semi-regular player and if anyone can keep a commercial MUD developer-publisher thriving in 2025 and onwards, it's him.

I won't be disappearing completely - I'll still be available to Jeremy as an advisor and I continue to own most of the company - but I'm excited that he's going to be running the show fully and of course, the producers of the individual games will continue running their own fantastical circuses.

Thank you all for being the beating heart of our worlds. It's been a pleasure (occasionally a pain too, not gonna lie, but what are ups without some downs?) and an honor co-creating these worlds with all staff, volunteers, and players that have contributed.

If you want to reach me for whatever, I'm at matt@mattmihaly.com or matt@ironrealms.com. I won't be able to assist you with any issues with the games or company you're having, but I try to always reply.

Jeremy can always be reached at jeremy@ironrealms.com.