Michael Acton Smith OBE (born 1974) is the current co-CEO and co-Founder of Calm, a meditation space company. He is also the founder of Firebox.com, and founder and chairman of children's entertainment company Mind Candy – the creators of Moshi Monsters.

Michael Acton SmithOBE (born 1974) is the current co-CEO and co-Founder of Calm, a meditation space company.^[1] He is also the founder of Firebox.com,^[2] and founder and chairman of children's entertainment company Mind Candy – the creators of Moshi Monsters.^[3] He has been described by The Daily Telegraph as 'a rock star version of Willy Wonka'^[4] and by The Independent as 'a polite version of Bob Geldof.'^[5]

Career[edit]

In 1998, Acton Smith co-founded online gadget and gift retailer Firebox.com with Tom Boardman.^[6] In 2004, Firebox was listed on The Sunday Times' 'Fast Track 100' list of the fastest growing, privately owned business in the UK.^[7]

In 2004, Acton Smith secured $10M backing and launched Mind Candy.^[8] The company launched alternate reality game Perplex City, a global treasure hunt with £100,000 buried somewhere in the world that played out across various media including websites, text messages, magazines, live events, skywriting and multiple helicopters. The game was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2006.^[9] After three years (and $9M spent) Perplex City was placed on indefinite hold.^[5]

In 2007 Acton Smith launched online world Moshi Monsters. Today, Moshi Monsters has over 90 million users around the world.^[10] It has expanded offline^[11] into selling a range of products including toys, a kids magazine in the UK,^[12] a DS video game,^[13] a top 5 music album which has gone gold in the UK,^[14] books, membership cards, and trading cards. In December 2013, Moshi Monsters teamed with Universal to release a full-length feature movie.^[15]

In late 2012 Acton Smith co-founded Calm.com, along with Alex Tew.^[16] In 2013 the company announced a $450,000 funding round from a group of Angel investors.^[17] By 2015, Calm had reached 2 million downloads worldwide and, after winning a British competition, launched the world's first 'slow TV Ad'.^[18] That same year, Acton Smith released a book with Penguin called Calm: Calm the Mind, Change the World.^[19] It was published in 12 countries.^[20]

In July 2017, the release of Baa Baa Land, an eight-hour slow cinema film, was announced with Acton Smith as Executive Producer.^[21]

Acton Smith is also the founder of Ping Pong Fight Club,^[22] Silicon Drinkabout,^[23] and the Berwickstock Festival.^[24] He was awarded a BAFTA in 2013 for Moshi Monsters^[25] and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the creative industries.^[26]

References[edit]

1. ^'That One Time I Was Tucked In By A Startup'. Techcrunch. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
2. ^'Moshi Monsters makes it third time lucky for dotcom entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith'. telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
3. ^'Mind Candy appoints Ian Chambers as new CEO'. Licensing.biz. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
4. ^'The man who gave birth to Moshi Monsters'. Telegraph. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
5. ^ ^ab'The man who aims to hide a monster under every bed – Business Analysis & Features – Business'. The Independent. 17 July 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
6. ^Cellan-Jones, Rory (31 December 2011). 'The Moshi Monsters mogul'. BBC News. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
7. ^'Directorzone'. www.director-zone.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
8. ^Hannah Prevett (19 August 2012). 'A monster success'. Elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
9. ^'Mind Candy: Michael Acton Smith – Startups.co.uk: Starting a business advice and business ideas'. Startups.co.uk. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
10. ^Mike Butcher (2 May 2013). 'As Moshi Monsters Hits 5 years, Can it pull of Three new games?'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
11. ^Jemima Kiss. 'Moshi Monsters plans move into online children's TV | Media'. The Guardian. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
12. ^'ABC Figures Reveal Moshi Monsters Magazine is the Best Selling Children's Magazine in the UK'. Bloomberg. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
13. ^Tyler, Lewis (30 April 2012). 'Moshi Monsters video game breaks chart record | Latest news from the toy industry | ToyNews'. Toynews-online.biz. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
14. ^Pakinkis, Tom. 'Moshi Monsters album goes Gold – with no promotional airplay'. Music Week. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
15. ^James Batchelor (20 August 2013). 'Moshia Monsters The Movie Hits Cinemas This Christmas'. MCV UK.
16. ^'Executives Need to Find Calm in a Stormy World'. Forbes.com. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
17. ^Sarah Perez (26 February 2013). 'Relaxation Calm.com Launches iPhone App that Helps you Chill, Grabs $415K in Angel Funding'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
18. ^'calm.com relaxation app unveils world-first two-minute 'slow TV' ad'. thedrum.com. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
19. ^Calm: Calm the Mind, Change the World
20. ^Ashley Macey (6 February 2016). 'This New Journal Will Teach You to Be More Mindful'. Brit+Co.
21. ^Hanrahan, Mark (19 July 2017). 'Is this eight-hour sheep epic `the dullest movie ever'?'. Reuters. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
22. ^Kevin Maher (13 February 2014). 'Inside London's Silicon Roundabout'. Esquire. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
23. ^Josh Halliday (17 July 2011). 'Mind Candy – the monster that lurks on Silicon Roundabout'. The Guardian.
24. ^Judy Bevan (16 July 2011). 'The Man Who Aims To Hide A Monster Under Every Bed'. independent.
25. ^Leo Kelion (30 December 2013). 'Moshi Monster Founder and ARM's Ex-Boss Honoured'. BBC.
26. ^'No. 60728'. The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2013. p. 14.

External links[edit]

We all have played video games in our childhood but some games become special and leave an everlasting memory. Well, a game called Moshi Monsters which is popular among young ones and has 80 million registered players, is shutting down on December 13, 2019.

In the game, players are required to choose a pet that they can nurture. The game features six pets which include the following: Diavlo, Luvli, Katsuma, Poppet, Furi, and Zommer. Players can roam around Monstro City & they can also do daily challenges to earn in-game currency called Rox.

Players can also communicate with each other while playing the game. They can also personalize their room and do other in-game quests. Moshi Monsters game was released on April 16, 2008, and was created by Michael Acton Smith.

Mindy Candy has developed the game. It is an online game that runs on the Adobe Flash Player engine. The success of the game can be inferred by the number of players it garnered in just one year.

Moshi Monsters registered 10 million players by the end of 2009. Mindy Candy extended the Moshi franchise by releasing Moshi Monsters Village in July 2013 for Android devices. Moshi’s universe was further extended with the release of Moshi Karts in February 2014. Moshi Karts is available on iOS devices.

In June 2014, Moshling Rescue game was released for both Android & iOS devices. Amid these new releases, the popularity of Moshi Hunters took a steep fall in 2013 & Mindy Candy suffered a loss of £2.2m due to a drop in sales. The company also planned to re-launch the game in 2015 but it never happened.

Cut to now, Mindy Candy has decided to shut down the game on December 13, 2019. Game developers have also released an official statement on the Moshi Monsters website. You can check its complete details down below.

Dear Moshi Fan, Roary Scrawl here!

The Moshi Monsters web game will be closing down at midday (GMT) on 13th December 2019. Thank you for joining us on the first part of our monsterific journey and helping us make Moshi Monsters such a splat-tastic online experience!

If you are an existing paid subscriber, your subscription will not auto-renew and will lapse within the next 30 days. Regardless of the date on which your subscription stops, you will be able to access the game and enjoy full subscription benefits until the site closes on 13th December.

If you are a free user, nothing will change until the site closes on 13th December.

In the meantime we want you all to enjoy your final days with us, so enter these one-time use codes at http://www.moshimonsters.com/secretcode to unlock special Moshi goodies:

NOV2019ROX

2019FIREWORKS

2019REDRAINBOW

2019ORANRAINBOW

2019YELLRAINBOW

2019GRERAINBOW

2019BLUERAINBOW

2019INDRAINBOW

The closure of Moshi Monsters will surely sadden the fans, but they can still play other Moshi Universe games including: Moshi Twilight Sleep Stories and Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt.

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