Steve Jackson (born 20 May 1951) is a British

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

, writer, game reviewer and co-founder of UK game publisher

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake (gam ...

History

Steve Jackson began his career in games in 1974 as a freelance journalist with ''

Games & Puzzles ''Games & Puzzles'' was a magazine about games and puzzles. The magazine was first published in May 1972 by Edu-Games (UK) Ltd. The first editor was Graeme Levin who recruited a variety of games and puzzles experts as writers and consultant edi ...

'' magazine. In early 1975, Jackson co-founded the company

with school friends John Peake and

Ian Livingstone Sir Ian Livingstone (born 29 December 1949) is an English fantasy author and entrepreneur. Along with Steve Jackson, he is the co-founder of a series of role-playing gamebooks, ''Fighting Fantasy'', and the author of many books within that se ...

. They started publishing a monthly newsletter, ''

Owl and Weasel ''Owl and Weasel'' was a newsletter for board gamers, role-playing gamers and wargamers, published in London, England, by Games Workshop. A total of 25 issues were published from February 1975 until April 1977; it was edited by Steve Jackson ...

'', which was largely written by Jackson, and sent copies of the first issue to subscribers of ''

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...

'' fanzine;

Brian Blume Brian John Blume (January 12, 1950 – March 27, 2020) was an American game designer and writer, principally known as a former business partner of Gary Gygax at TSR, Inc., original publishers of the fantasy role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragon ...

, 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 ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

''. Jackson and Livingstone felt that this game was more imaginative than anything being produced in the UK at the time, and so worked out an arrangement with Blume for an exclusive deal to sell ''D&D'' in Europe. In late 1975, Jackson and Livingstone organized their first convention, the first

Games Day Games Day is a yearly run gaming convention sponsored by Games Workshop. It was started in 1975, after another games convention scheduled for August that year cancelled. Games Workshop decided to fill the resulting gap by running a gaming day of ...

. While selling game products directly out of their flat, their landlord kicked them out in the summer of 1976 after people kept showing up there looking for an actual store. By 1978 the first Games Workshop store had opened, in London. At a Games Day convention in 1980 Jackson and Livingstone met Geraldine Cooke, an editor at

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.gamebook A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

seemed more appealing. After several months Cooke decided that this was viable and commissioned Jackson and Livingstone to develop it. In 1980, Jackson and Livingstone began to develop the concept of the ''

Fighting Fantasy ''Fighting Fantasy'' is a series of single-player role-playing gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volume in the series was published in paperback by Puffin in 1982. The series distinguished itself by mixing Choos ...

'' gamebook series, the first volume of which (''

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' is a single-player adventure gamebook written by Steve Jackson (UK game designer), Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, and illustrated by Russ Nicholson. Originally published by Puffin Books in 1982, the titl ...

'') was published in 1982 by

Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs t ...

(a subsidiary imprint of Penguin). Jackson and Livingstone would go on to individually write many volumes each, with further authors adding even more. Steve Jackson notably wrote ''

Sorcery! ''Sorcery!'', originally titled ''Steve Jackson's Sorcery!'', is a single-player four-part adventure gamebook series written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche. Originally published by Penguin Books between 1983 and 1985, the titl ...

'', 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. Jackson and Livingstone attributed the gamebooks' popularity to their difficulty. After the success of the ''Fighting Fantasy'' series, Jackson designed the first interactive telephone role-playing game, ''

FIST A fist is the shape of a hand when the fingers are bent inward against the palm and held there tightly. To make or clench a fist is to fold the fingers tightly into the center of the palm and then to clamp the thumb over the middle phalanges; in ...

'', which was based loosely on the concepts of the gamebooks. Jackson and Livingstone sold off their stake in Games Workshop in 1991. In the mid-1990s Jackson spent 2.5 years as a games journalist with the ''

London Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fou ...

''. He then set up computer games developer

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson (British game designer), Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White (series), Bl ...

with

Peter Molyneux Peter Douglas Molyneux (; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games '' Populous'', ''Dungeon Keeper'', and '' Black & White'', as well as ''Theme Park'', the ''Fable'' series, '' Curiosity: W ...

. Jackson left Lionhead in 2006 when Microsoft bought the company. He is an honorary professor at

Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June 1 ...

in London, where he teaches the Digital Games Theory and Design MA. He is often mistaken for the American game designer with the same name: Steve Jackson. The American Jackson wrote three books in the ''Fighting Fantasy'' series, which adds to the confusion, especially as these books were simply credited to "Steve Jackson" without any acknowledgement that it was a different person.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.

Works

Books

* ''

'' (1982) with

* ''

1–4'' (1983–85), Puffin Books * '' The Citadel of Chaos'' (1983), Puffin Books * '' Starship Traveller'' (1984), Puffin Books * ''

House of Hell ''House of Hell'' (''House of Hades'' in the United States) is a single-player adventure gamebook written by Steve Jackson, illustrated by Tim Sell and originally published in 1984 by Puffin Books. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2002 ...

'' (1984), Puffin Books * ''Fighting Fantasy: The Introductory Role-playing Game'' (1984), Puffin Books * '' Appointment with F.E.A.R.'' (1985), Puffin Books * '' The Tasks of Tantalon'' (1985), Oxford University Press * ''

Creature of Havoc ''Creature of Havoc'' is a single-player roleplaying gamebook written by British game designer Steve Jackson (not to be confused with the US game designer of the same name), illustrated by Alan Langford and originally published in 1986 by Puffin ...

'' (1986), Puffin Books * '' The Trolltooth Wars'' (1989), Puffin Books

Video games

* ''

Lost Eden ''Lost Eden'' is an adventure game developed by Cryo and published by Virgin Interactive in March 1995 for MS-DOS, Macintosh, 3DO, and CD-i. It is set in a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist. Plot Adam, prince of Mo, has grown up in an ...

'' (1995), Virgin Interactive * '' Close Combat: Invasion – Normandy'' (2000), Strategic Simulations, Inc. * ''Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (2001), Laughing Jackal * ''

The Movies ''The Movies'' is a business simulation game created by Lionhead Studios for Microsoft Windows and ported to Mac OS X by Feral Interactive. Players run a Hollywood film studio, creating films that can be exported from the game. ''The Movies'' wa ...

(Premiere Edition)'' (2005),

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

* '' Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (2009), Big Blue Bubble * ''

1 – The Shamutanti Hills'' (2013), Inkle * ''Sorcery! 2 – Kharé – Cityport of Traps'' (2013), Inkle * ''Sorcery! 3 – The Seven Serpents'' (2015), Inkle * ''Sorcery! 4 – The Crown Of Kings'' (2016), Inkle

Other

* '' BattleCards'' – a card game first published in 1993 that features a unique scratch-and-slay system * ''

Fantasy Interactive Scenarios by Telephone ''Fantasy Interactive Scenarios by Telephone'' (''F.I.S.T.'') were a series of single-player telephone-based roleplaying games launched by UK games designer Steve Jackson in 1988 through the company Computerdial, who until then had used their ...

'' (''F.I.S.T.'') – a telephone-based single-player roleplaying game similar to ''Fighting Fantasy''

References

External links

*
Steve Jackson interview
on Yog Radio about Games Workshop and Fighting Fantasy, June 2010 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Steve 1951 births Academics of Brunel University London Alumni of Keele University Board game designers British gamebook writers British retail company founders British video game designers Fighting Fantasy Games Workshop Living people Mass media people from Manchester Role-playing game designers Lionhead Studios