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DEVELOPMENT LEGEND: IAN LIVINGSTONE | BETA
As science fiction, fantasy writing and the comics of their youth continued to enthuse the trio, they began to feel unsatisfied with the faltering evolution of board games, and took the bold step of moving from being players to game makers. “We just thought ‘why not?’ and decided to do it,” explains Livingstone, proving how readily he embraces ventures that would intimidate most. “Around that time we created a little newsletter called Owl and Weasel, and we called the company Games Workshop, because at that time John was a craftsman, so we’d started doing what everyone else was doing. We were making very traditional games. The very first Games Workshop products were workshop made backgammon boards and things like draughts and go boards.” It was the mid 1970s, and despite an ordinary start, an extraordinary company had been born. WISE AND SLY In those early days of Games Workshop a copy of Owl
and Weasel, so called because board game players should be ‘wise like and owl and sly like a weasel’, found its way to the hand of a pioneer board game designer by the name of Gary Gygax. “He got back to us telling us he loved our magazine and liked our ambition for building up the games community in the UK, and he sent us this game he’d just invented called Dungeons & Dragons,” explains Livingstone. “We thought it was just amazing when we played it, and saw it as a real milestone in gaming with a totally new rule set and roleplaying element where you played the hero. It was so exciting to be able to be killing monsters and finding treasure and creating characters. We really thought it was the best thing that we’d ever played.” Yet while Jackson and Livingstone found themselves enamoured by this curious new spin on board gaming conventions, Peake
We thought Dungeons & Dragons was just amazing when we played it, and saw it as a real milestone in gaming. Ian Livingstone was less impressed, and decided to leave the company just at the point it readied itself for a bold move away from tradition. Despite Peake’s departure from the fledgling business, which was at the time also doing pieces for Games and Puzzles magazine, Livingstone and Jackson were so inspired by Dungeons & Dragons they ordered six copies to sell in Europe, securing them an exclusive distribution deal that would last three years. Fully committed to their new business plan, the pair devoted themselves fiercely to making Games Workshop a success, and showed some remarkable dedication. They lived in a van so they could dedicate rent money to an office, dealt with a drunken landlord berating their customers, and finally set up the first proper Games Workshop store in April of 1975 (see Livingstone’s Legends.) They had helped Dungeons & Dragons become a global sensation, to the point that today 20 million individuals are estimated to have played the game. It has become such a household name in popular culture it has appeared in the likes of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and The Simpsons. “We’d been designing our own games and had done theme folios for D&D and Citadel
Miniatures,” reflects Livingstone. “Then we lost the D&D exclusivity deal as the three years was up, and at that point the D&D company TSR wanted to merge with Games Workshop to form a global RPG games company. Steve and I, though, were wildly independent at that time, so we said no to the merger. That’s how Warhammer came about; to replace D&D.” At around that point the duo moved on to pen the immensely popular Fighting Fantasy books, which simplified Games Workshop’s role-playing systems and repackaged them for individuals wanting to enjoy the RPG experience alone. The books, which let the player choose a path through each title’s narrative, went on to sell over 16 million copies in 23 countries. “That kind of interactive fiction and branching narrative is really a predecessor of many adventure games in the digital world,” suggests Livingstone, moving on to a love that has come to dominate the rest of his life.
Ian Livingstone accepting his Development Legend award (above), at the time of the debut of Dungeons & Dragons clutching an early edition (below), and holding the same set today (left)
RIGHT ON THE DOMARK In 1984, a developer-publisher approached Ian with a question. Could he take his skill in penning
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