Steve Jackson (British game designer)

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Steve Jackson (born 20 May 1951) is a British game designer, writer, game reviewer and co-founder of UK game publisher Games Workshop.

History

Steve Jackson began his career in games in 1974 as a freelance journalist with Games & Puzzles magazine.<ref name="HG">Template:Cite book</ref> In early 1975, Jackson co-founded the company Games Workshop with school friends John Peake and Ian Livingstone.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="designers">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp They started publishing with the monthly newsletter, Owl and Weasel, on which Jackson did most of the writing. They sent copies of the first issue to subscribers of the Albion fanzine; Brian Blume, co-partner of American publisher TSR, received one of these copies and in return sent back a copy of TSR's new game Dungeons & Dragons. Jackson and Livingstone felt that this game was more imaginative than any other contemporary games being produced in the UK, and so worked out an arrangement with Blume for an exclusive deal to sell D&D in Europe.<ref name="designers"/>Template:Rp In late 1975, Jackson and Livingstone organized their first convention, the initial Games Day.<ref name="designers"/>Template:Rp While selling game products directly from their flat, their landlord evicted them in summer 1976 after people kept going there looking for a physical store.<ref name="designers"/>Template:Rp By 1978 the first Games Workshop store had opened, in London.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

At a Games Day convention in 1980 Jackson and Livingstone met Geraldine Cooke, an editor at Penguin Books. They persuaded her to consider publication of a book about the role-playing hobby. This was originally intended to be an introductory guide, but the idea of an interactive gamebook seemed more appealing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After several months Cooke decided that this was viable and commissioned Jackson and Livingstone to develop it.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1980, Jackson and Livingstone began to develop the concept of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, the first volume of which (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) was published in 1982 by Puffin Books (a subsidiary imprint of Penguin).<ref name="designers"/>Template:Rp Jackson and Livingstone would go on to individually write many volumes each, with further authors adding even more. Steve Jackson notably wrote Sorcery!, a four-part series utilizing the same system as Fighting Fantasy but where Fighting Fantasy mainly targeted children, Steve Jackson's Sorcery! was marketed to an older audience.<ref name=register>Template:Cite web</ref> Jackson and Livingstone attributed the gamebooks' popularity to their difficulty.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

After the success of the Fighting Fantasy series, Jackson designed the first interactive telephone role-playing game, FIST, which was based loosely on the concepts of the gamebooks.<ref name=guardian>Template:Cite news</ref> Jackson and Livingstone sold their Games Workshop stake in 1991.<ref name="designers"/>Template:Rp In the mid-1990s Jackson spent 2.5 years as a games journalist with the London Daily Telegraph.<ref name="HG"/> He then set up computer games developer Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux.<ref name="HG"/> Jackson left Lionhead in 2006 when Microsoft bought the company.<ref name=register/> He is an honorary professor at Brunel University in London, where he teaches the Digital Games Theory and Design MA.<ref name=guardian/>

He is often mistaken for the American game designer with the same name.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The American Jackson wrote three books in the Fighting Fantasy series,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which adds to the confusion, especially as these books were simply credited to "Steve Jackson" without any acknowledgement that it was a different person.<ref>other than one subtle difference: a book written by either of the two co-founders is credited as "by Steve Jackson" or "by Ian Livingstone". A book written by any other author is introduced as "Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone presents" with the author's name simply listed in the preliminaries.</ref>

Works

Books

Video games

Other

References

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