19 Facts About Greg Costikyan

Greg Costikyan co-founded Manifesto Games, now out of business, with Johnny Wilson in 2005.

Greg Costikyan is the son of attorney and politician Edward N and Frances Costikyan.

Greg Costikyan married Louise Disbrow, September 4,1986.

Greg Costikyan has been a game designer since the 1970s.

Greg Costikyan worked at SPI until it was closed by TSR in 1982; he came to West End Games in 1983.

Greg Costikyan designed Toon for Steve Jackson Games after developing it from an idea suggested by Jeff Dee; Greg Costikyan felt that the game system was mostly "arbitrary" and that the theme of the game was far more important.

West End Games acquired licensing to make a game based on Star Wars, and Greg Costikyan designed Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, published in 1987, assisted by Doug Kaufman and others.

When West End Games declared bankruptcy in 1998, Greg Costikyan and Goldberg tried to recover the rights to Paranoia; although West End's founder Scott Palter tried to fight this, a judge gave the rights back to the creators in 2000.

Greg Costikyan designed the role-playing game Violence under the pseudonym "Designer X" for Hogshead Publishing, and made sure that the game would widely available by releasing it under a Creative Commons license.

Greg Costikyan was the CEO of Manifesto Games, a start-up devoted to providing a viable path to market for independently developed computer games.

Greg Costikyan subsequently worked as a consultant for several years before joining Guerillapps as lead game designer in March 2010 to develop its game "Trash Tycoon" for Facebook.

In June 2015, Greg Costikyan joined Boss Fight Entertainment as senior games designer.

Greg Costikyan has written on games, game design, and game industry business issues for publications including: the New York Times, Wall Street Journal Interactive, Salon, The Escapist, Gamasutra, and Game Developers Magazine, and is the author of science fiction novels.

Greg Costikyan worked on game design for many years, including writing and consulting for Nokia.

Greg Costikyan regularly contributed to the now defunct Manifesto Games' website, and was editor in chief of their now defunct offshoot game review blog Play This Thing.

In February 2009, Greg Costikyan updated the rules and re-released his 1979 space combat game, Vector 3, under a Creative Commons license as a free PDF download.

In 2013, Greg Costikyan's non-fiction look at the role of uncertainty in game development Uncertainty in Games was published by MIT Press.

On March 7,2007, Greg Costikyan received the Game Developers Choice Awards Maverick Award.

Greg Costikyan was inducted into the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame in 1999.