Ian Livingstone has held almost every position in the games industry: retailer fantasy author, developer, executive and lobbyist…

Livingstone’s career spanning nearly half a century is unparalleled in the UK. He was a pioneer in board game retailing, then became a bestseller. You might know a book series called Fighting Fantasy. Here are a few examples of Ian Livingstone’s work: The Forest of Doom, City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon, Island of the Lizard King, Freeway Fighter, and many more. After the books, he turned to the games industry, where he rose to a high position and has since had great success as an educational government lobbyist.

In early 1975, he founded Games Workshop with John Peake and Steve Jackson, and in 1984, he made his first video game. It was Eureka. Ian Livingstone was so deeply immersed in the games industry that he was also instrumental in creating Eidos Interactive as co-founder (and Domark, where he worked, had a role in this; it was here that Eureka was made where he returned as an investor).

His name appears on the boards of several indie studios (Flavourworks, Antstream, Fusebox, Midoki, The Secret Police, Bossa) and Sumo Group plc. This team was also responsible for LittleBigPlanet 3, for example.

In 2019, Livingstone told VGC, “Being a lifelong games player, it has been a privilege to work in the games industry for almost 45 years. Work and play have been the same for me, and I’m never going to retire. I enjoy being involved in game design and strategy, and all the studios I work with have differentiable products, which is important to avoid a potential conflict of interest. All the projects I’m working on are important to me, and some of the upcoming titles developed by the studios are incredible.”

Ian Livingstone was awarded an OBE (Officer in the Order of the British Empire) at the New Year’s Gala in 2006 and a CBE (Commander) in 2013. He has been knighted. We can call the veteran Sir Ian Livingstone.

Congratulations, he truly deserves it!

Source: VGC