| Honorific Prefix: | Sir |
| Ian Livingstone | |
| Honorific Suffix: | CBE |
| Birth Date: | 29 December 1949[1] |
| Birth Place: | Prestbury, Cheshire, England |
| Occupation: | Fantasy author, entrepreneur |
| Nationality: | British |
| Known For: | Co-creator for Fighting Fantasy gamebooks Co-founder for Games Workshop Co-founder for Eidos Interactive |
Sir Ian Livingstone (born 29 December 1949[2]) 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 series. He co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 and helped create Eidos Interactive as executive chairman of Eidos Plc in 1995.
Livingstone attended Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, where, according to him, he only earned one A-level, in Geography.[3] [4] He has kept his close links with the school and has visited it on numerous occasions,[5] [6] including to donate money for a refurbishment of the ICT suite, and to present awards to GCSE recipients in 1998.
Livingstone co-founded Games Workshop in early 1975 with flatmates John Peake and Steve Jackson.[7] [8] 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.[8] They began distributing Dungeons & Dragons and other TSR products later in 1975.[9] Livingstone and Jackson organised a convention for their first time in late 1975, which became known as the first Games Day.[8] Because they were selling products out of their flat, customers would come there looking for a store that did not exist; because of this their landlord evicted them in summer 1976.[8]
Under the direction of Livingstone and Jackson, Games Workshop expanded from a bedroom mail order company to a successful gaming manufacturer and retail chain, with the first Games Workshop store opening in Hammersmith in 1977.[10] 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.[8] Livingstone ended his run as editor after White Dwarf #74 (February 1986).[8]
In 1980, Livingstone and Jackson began to develop the concept of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, the first volume of which (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) was published in 1982 by Puffin Books.[8] Livingstone and Jackson sold Games Workshop in 1991 for million.[10] The pair, together with Bryan Ansell, founded Citadel Miniatures in Newark to make miniatures for games. Livingstone has also invented several board games, including Boom Town, Judge Dredd, Automania, Legend of Zagor, and Dragonmasters.
In 1982, Jackson and Livingstone co-wrote The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first book in the Fighting Fantasy series,[11] 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,[12] with Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon selling over 350,000 copies in its first year alone.[13] 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,[14] and with The Port of Peril in 2017 for the 35th anniversary.[12]
In the mid-1980s Livingstone did design work for video game publisher Domark; he returned to the company in 1993 as a major investor and board member. Livingstone later recounted, "After the success of Games Workshop, I retired, got bored, and invested in Domark to fund their cartridge development. I got in at just the wrong time - it was all going flat."[15] In 1995, Domark was acquired by the video technology company Eidos,[10] which had been floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1990, and formed the major part of the newly created Eidos plc, known for Eidos Interactive. Livingstone resigned as executive chairman in 2002 and became creative director.[16] 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.[17] Livingstone secured many of the company's major franchises, including Tomb Raider and Hitman.[11] He contributed to the Tomb Raider project (an enhanced version of the original Tomb Raider game), which was released in 2007.[17] In 2009, Japanese video-game company Square Enix completed a buyout of Eidos Interactive and Livingstone was promoted to Life President of Eidos, a position he resigned from in 2013.[18]
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.[19] In 2021 Freeway Fighters received an adaptation on Viber and messenger, created by a Talk-a-Bot chatbot company over Viber and messenger.[20] Livingstone was the non-executive chairman of Sumo Group from 2015 to 2022.[21] He is a general partner at Hiro Capital, which invested in Skybound Entertainment in 2022.[22]
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;[23] Livingstone described it as a "complete bottom up review of the whole education system relating to games."[24] A school named Livingstone Academy was planned for 2021.[25]