Ed Boon

Edward J. Boon (born February 22, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American video game programmer who had been employed for over 15 years at Midway. He now works for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in its subsidiary company called NetherRealm Studios which was renamed from Midway Games after Warners Bros purchased it, where he is the executive producer of the Mortal Kombat series.

Biography
Boon, along with John Tobias is a co-creator of the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. He continues to work on the ongoing series of games, movies and TV shows. Boon is generally credited as the lead programmer while Tobias is lead designer. He has also provided voice acting and motion capture for the games.

Boon graduated high school from Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois. He also graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computer science.

He was ranked #100 in IGN's "Top 100 Game Creators" especially noting his involvement in the Mortal Kombat series.

Video games

 * Smash TV (All voices)
 * Mortal Kombat
 * Mortal Kombat II
 * Mortal Kombat 3
 * Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
 * Ultimate Mortal Kombat
 * Mortal Kombat Trilogy
 * Mortal Kombat 4
 * Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
 * Mortal Kombat Gold
 * Mortal Kombat: Special Forces
 * The Grid
 * Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
 * Mortal Kombat: Deception
 * Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
 * Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
 * Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
 * Mortal Kombat (2011) (in development)

Pinball

 * F-14 Tomcat (1987; effects)
 * Space Station: Pinball Rendezvous (1987; software and effects)
 * Banzai Run (1988; effects)
 * Taxi (1988; software and effects)
 * Black Knight 2000 (1989; software and effects)
 * FunHouse (1990; Voice of Rudy)

Film

 * Mortal Kombat (as the voice of Scorpion)
 * Mortal Kombat Annihilation (as the voice of Scorpion)

Trivia

 * One of the characters in Boon's Mortal Kombat video games is named Noob Saibot (Ed Boon and John Tobias' last names spelled backwards.)
 * In the Mortal Kombat Trilogy(as well as MK3 & UMK3) level "Subway" the sign in the back says "←Boon/Tobias→"
 * His favorite Mortal Kombat character since the beginning of the franchise has been Scorpion.
 * Boon named two characters after family members. Both Tanya and Sonya Blade are named after his sisters, Tania and Sonia, respectively.
 * Boon is a longtime fan of recording artist Prince; this has long been attributed to the selection of ninja Rain's purple palette swap since the character's debut appearance in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
 * As a nod to another one of his favorite bands, Genesis, a code for the original Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis is "Abacabb", in reference to a Genesis album.
 * Before he became famous for his work on the Mortal Kombat series, he worked at Williams in the pinball division and also helped out with the development of Smash TV and Pigskin 621 A.D. arcade games.
 * Boon is an avid Xbox 360 user and carries the Xbox Live username of his own name, Ed Boon.
 * He has a younger brother, Mike Boon. Mike is known for programming pinball games (including the 1992 classic The Addams Family), and was involved in several Mortal Kombat projects.
 * He has faced the winner of GameSpot's Scream It! contest in an MK battle. Users had to show that they were the biggest fan of the series by putting together a video and uploading it to the site.
 * Boon played MK: Armageddon with the username MikeBoon and held the rank of #4 overall on playstation2 for the first 4 months after release.
 * Boon has stated that he would like to see a Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter.