Ian Livingstone

Sir Ian Livingstone (born 29 December 1949) is an English fantasy author and entrepreneur. He co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 and helped create Eidos Interactive as executive chairman of Eidos Plc in 1995. Along with Steve Jackson, he is also the co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy series of role-playing gamebooks, and the author of many books within that series.

Early life

Livingstone attended Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, where he states that he only earned one A-level, in Geography. He has kept his close links with the school and has visited it on numerous occasions.

Career

Games Workshop

Livingstone co-founded Games Workshop in early 1975 with flatmates John Peake and Steve Jackson. They began publishing the monthly newsletter Owl and Weasel, and distributed copies of the first issue to fanzine Albion subscribers; Brian Blume received one of these copies, and sent them a copy of the new game Dungeons & Dragons in return. Livingstone and Jackson found this game to be more imaginative than games 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. Livingstone and Jackson organised a convention for their first time in late 1975, which became known as the first Games Day. In June of that year, partially to advertise the opening, Livingstone and Jackson launched the gaming magazine White Dwarf, with Livingstone as the editor. Livingstone chose the title, which had meaning relevant to both the fantasy and science fiction genres: a white dwarf could be a reference to both a stellar phenomenon and to a fantasy character. but following an instruction from publishers Penguin to write more books "as quickly as possible" the pair wrote subsequent books separately. The series had sold over 18 million copies as of 2017, with Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon selling over 350,000 copies in its first year alone. Livingstone wrote another twelve Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, including The Forest of Doom, City of Thieves and Caverns of the Snow Witch before marking the 30th anniversary of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain with a new gamebook, Blood of the Zombies, in 2012, and with The Port of Peril in 2017 for the 35th anniversary. In 1995, Domark was acquired by the video technology company Eidos, In 2005 Eidos was taken over by SCi and Livingstone was the only former board member to be retained, taking on the role of product acquisition director. Livingstone secured many of the company's major franchises, including Tomb Raider and Hitman.

In 2014 Livingstone appeared in the documentary feature film From Bedrooms to Billions (2014) a film that tells the story of the British Video Games Industry from 1979 to present. In 2021 Freeway Fighters received an adaptation on Viber and messenger, created by a Talk-a-Bot chatbot company over Viber and messenger. Livingstone was the non-executive chairman of Sumo Group from 2015 to 2022. He is a general partner at Hiro Capital, which invested in Skybound Entertainment in 2022.

Educational

In 2010 Livingstone was asked to act as the Skills Champion by government minister Ed Vaizey, tasked with producing a report reviewing the UK video games industry. The 'NextGen' report, co-authored with Alex Hope of visual effects firm Double Negative, was released in 2011; Livingstone described it as a "complete bottom up review of the whole education system relating to games." A school named Livingstone Academy was planned for 2021.

Awards and honours

In 2002, Livingstone won the BAFTA Interactive Special Award for outstanding contribution to the industry.
Livingstone was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2006 New Year Honours, and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours both for services to the computer gaming industry.
In 2011, Livingstone received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Bournemouth University.
Livingstone was knighted in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to the online gaming industry.

Bibliography

Fighting Fantasy

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982) with Steve Jackson, Puffin Books
The Forest of Doom (1983)
City of Thieves (1983)
Deathtrap Dungeon (1984)
Island of the Lizard King (1984)
Caverns of the Snow Witch (1984)
Freeway Fighter (1985)
Temple of Terror (1985)
Trial of Champions (1986)
Crypt of the Sorcerer (1987)
Armies of Death (1988)
Return to Firetop Mountain (1992)
Eye of the Dragon (2005)
Blood of the Zombies (2012)
The Port of Peril (2017)
Assassins of Allansia (2019)
Shadow of the Giants (2022)
The Dungeon on Blood Island (2024)

Fighting Fantasy First Adventures: Adventures of Goldhawk

Darkmoon's Curse (1995)
The Demon Spider (1995)
Mudworm Swamp (1995)
Ghost Road (1995)

Other works

Dicing with Dragons (1982)
Eureka! (1984), Domark
Shadowmaster (1992) with Marc Gascoigne
Casket of Souls (1987)
Board Games in 100 Moves: 8,000 Years of Play (2019) with James Wallis
Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop (2022)

Education

Livingstone Academy