Sir Ian Livingstone is a creative force. Dubbed ‘the godfather of gaming’, he is a founding father of the UK games industry.
His journey began in 1975 when he co-founded the Games Workshop. In the 1980s he wrote Fighting Fantasy gamebooks which sold millions of copies worldwide.
While Chairman of Eidos in the 1990s, he unleashed Lara Croft: Tomb Raider on the world, and in 2011 he helped convince the government to introduce the new computing curriculum.
Top that with a BAFTA Special Award (2002), an OBE (2006) a CBE (2013) and Knighthood (2022) for his services to the video games industry, and Sir Ian’s career has been pretty extraordinary.
Things didn’t start out that way. Struggling to get Games Workshop off the ground, Sir Ian and his business partner lived in the back of a van, showered in a nearby squash court, and worked round the clock in a tiny office.
It was only when they launched legendary role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons that things really took off.
“I never considered living in a van as being a sacrifice,” he says. “We had started Games Workshop. We had turned our hobby into a business. We were living the dream!”
Success followed success – in 1982, he co-wrote the first book in the Fighting Fantasy series, which went on to sell nearly 20 million copies in 35 languages.
And in 1996 Sir Ian’s career went into overdrive after launching Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which became one of the most successful video game franchises ever.
He chairs six games companies, and still writes and designs today, but beyond entertainment, he also believes in the power of play as a contextual learning tool.
Education is Sir Ian’s next big adventure. He is opening Livingstone Academies in East London and Bournemouth with a focus on digital creativity. He says:
“Games-based learning promotes problem-solving and computational thinking – meta skills for the 21st century. Creativity and computing should be built-in rather than bolted-on to the national curriculum. Children need the two Cs as well as the three Rs. ”
Sir Ian was awarded a Knighthood in the 2022 New Years Honours for services to the gaming industry, receiving the award from the Princess Royal in November 2022.
