Paul Stafford Jackson,

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 1962) is a British

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

. In 1993, Jackson established the British office of

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

. At

EA UK EA Bright Light (formerly known as EA UK) was a British video game developer founded in 1995 by Electronic Arts. The studio was primarily known for its work on licensed franchises such as the video game adaptation of the ''Harry Potter'' series. ...

, he was involved in brand-building for ''

The Sims ''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation video games developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling video game series of all time. The games ...

'' series of games. Whilst at EA, he was approached by

Kuju Entertainment Kuju Entertainment Ltd. is a British video game developer. The original company was Simis, formed in 1989 and purchased by Eidos Interactive in 1995. Kuju was formed in 1998 in Shalford, Surrey, England, after a management buyout of Simis from Ei ...

seeking interest in publishing ''

Rail Simulator ''Rail Simulator'' is a train simulation published by Electronic Arts (EA). It was produced by Kuju Entertainment. After release of the EU version, EA's support and further development of the title was taken over by Rail Simulator Developments Ltd ...

'', a successor to ''

Microsoft Train Simulator ''Microsoft Train Simulator'' is a 2001 train simulator developed for Microsoft Windows. It was released on May 31, 2001, and developed by the UK-based company Kuju Entertainment. It sold one million units worldwide by 2005. Features Microsoft ...

'' which

Microsoft Games Xbox Game Studios (formerly Microsoft Games, Microsoft Game Studios and Microsoft Studios) is an American video game publisher that acts as a division of technology company Microsoft. The division was created in March 2000 and replaced Microsoft' ...

had declined to publish. On 1 August 2006, Jackson took over from Roger Bennett as director-general of the

Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) is a non-profit trade association for the video game industry in the United Kingdom (UK). Ukie was originally founded as the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), and the ...

, the British video game industry trade group, having served on their board for twelve years since 1992, with three years as chairman. In 2008, after leaving the publishers association, Jackson returned to the ''Rail Simulator'' franchise, arranging to buy the rights to the project, and becoming CEO of the resulting development company, RailSimulator.com Ltd. The company released ''

RailWorks ''Train Simulator Classic'' (originally ''RailWorks'' and ''Train Simulator'') is a train simulation game developed by Dovetail Games. It is the successor to ''Rail Simulator'', and was released online on 12 June 2009 and in stores on 3 July 20 ...

'', the successor to ''Rail Simulator'', in 2009. Since December 2013, the company has been known as

Dovetail Games Dovetail Games (DTG), a trading name of RailSimulator.com Ltd (RSC), is a British simulation video game developer and publisher. It was formed in 2008 by Paul Jackson (formerly VP at Electronic Arts and Director General of ELSPA, now UKIE), Ti ...

. In 2010, Jackson was made an Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(OBE) in the New Year Honours for services to the video game industry.

References

1962 births Living people Video game publishers Place of birth missing (living people) Video game producers Officers of the Order of the British Empire {{Videogame-bio-stub