Nicholas Longano

Nicholas Longano (born 28 May 1965 in Melbourne, Australia) is a video gaming executive known for launching numerous franchises such as Blizzard’s Diablo II and Valve’s Half Life.

Longano married Pauline Elena Aguilera (the great-great-granddaughter of Philip Lehman, of Lehman Brothers) on 9 May 1998.^[1] The couple now has two children.

Early years

From 1987 to 1989 Longano launched Evian Spring Water, Pepsi and the Sunkist brands onto the Australian market for Cadbury Schweppes. There he attended David Syme Business School at Australia's prestigious Monash University and earned degrees in Marketing - MBA Equivalent and in Psychology.

Fashion and beauty

Longano moved to New York City in 1992 where he served 2 years as Product Manager for L'Oréal, developing hair color products, including L'Oréal Excellence Crème and Performing Preference. He had spent the prior two years heading up marketing for L'Oreal Australia, working on Studio Line and the company's color brands. In 1994 he went on to Revlon, where he grew the Revlon Colorstay, Age Defying, and New Complexion Foundation lines to #1, #2 and #3 in the market, respectively. Launching several fragrance brands, including Revlon's Fire and Ice.

That next year, Longano would join Calvin Klein Cosmetics as the General Manager and Vice President of Global Marketing. There, he developed and launched the Calvin Klein line of color cosmetics and skincare products in 100 doors, across 21 countries.

Gaming

Vivendi Universal Games

In January 2001, Longano entered the world of gaming when he was brought on as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Publishing at Vivendi Universal Games, which owned and operated such global franchises as World of Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft. Longano ran the publishing of all the companies core video game titles and online multiplayer games. In May 2002 Longano became General Manager of Universal Studios video game division, heading up all production and publishing for tent-pole theatrical-based games. His extensive lineup of hit titles include, "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay", (2004), "The Hulk", (2003), "Van Helsing" (2004), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds", (2003), "Jurassic Park", (2003), "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat", (2003), "The Lord of the Rings", (2002), "The Thing", (2002), "Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza", (2002), "Diablo II: Lord of Destruction", (2001), "The Thing", (2002), "Battlestar Galactica", (2003), "Aliens vs Predator 2", (2002), Crash Bandicoot 2, Crash Nitro Kart (2003), Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. and many other titles.

Massive Incorporated / Microsoft

In 2005, as President of New Media at Massive Incorporated, Longano was the key player in the in-game advertising market,^[2] and he brokered exclusive, long-term publisher agreements for Massive with 20 video game publishers.^[3] He pioneered Massive's greenlight process, which is applied to any potential games for the network by all publishers in the video game industry. In May 2006, Massive was acquired by Microsoft for reportedly several hundred million. Longano would leave Microsoft and Massive later that year.^[4]

Brash Entertainment

One year later, Longano formed Brash Entertainment, along with 3 partners: Mitch Davis, Thomas Tull and Bert Ellis.^[5] Longano served as President and COO. He was instrumental in setting up the operations for Brash—a video game publisher which focused its development on film-based IP. Over the course of 16 months, Longano and his 3 partners raised USD$150 million in funding, closed over 25 tent pole film licenses from Hollywood studios, including Warner, Universal, Fox, Lionsgate and Legendary.^[6] He led development on 14 titles, including Superman 2, 300, Night at the Museum 2, SAW, The Flash, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Clash of the Titans.^[7]

By Jan 2008, speculation about Longano and Davis leaving Brash began to spread.^[8] In May 2008, Longano left Brash to pursue another entrepreneurial endeavor.^[9][10] While he kept an interest in the company as an investor, he no longer led the company.

Online

Over the Top Networks

Over the past several years, Nicholas Longano has specialized in creating Over the Top Networks for top celebrities, such as Paula Deen (http://time.com/2857076/paula-deen-network/), providing content owners with new found revenue streams and the ability to control their content, its distribution and the manner in which audiences engage with it.   True to his gaming background, he launched Paula Deen’s Recipe Quest video game on iOS and Android (http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-paula-deen-mobile-game-20150312-story.html).

Music Mogul, Inc.

Longano formed Music Mogul in May 2008, along with Rodney Jerkins and Ray Brown. He served as the company's CEO.^[11] MusicMogul.com was a web site where artists could directly communicate with their fans and aspiring artists had a chance for discovery. Every quarter, members voted for the best video performances. The top performers were flown to Los Angeles to compete in front of a panel of celebrity judges. Winners received a demo deal with Jerkins’ Dark Child Productions.^[12]

See also

• Massive Incorporated

References

External links

• weblogs.variety.com: Brash Struggling at wayback machine