17 Facts About Ian Livingstone

Sir Ian Livingstone was born on 29 December 1949 and is an English fantasy author and entrepreneur.

Ian Livingstone co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 and helped create Eidos Interactive as executive chairman of Eidos Plc in 1995.

Ian Livingstone has kept his close links with the school and has visited it on numerous occasions.

Ian Livingstone co-founded Games Workshop in early 1975 with flatmates John Peake and Steve Jackson.

Ian 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.

Ian Livingstone has invented several board games, including Boom Town, Judge Dredd, Automania, Legend of Zagor, and Dragonmasters.

In 1982, Jackson and Ian Livingstone co-wrote The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first book in the Fighting Fantasy series, but following an instruction from publishers Penguin to write more books "as quickly as possible" the pair wrote subsequent books separately.

Ian 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.

Ian Livingstone resigned as executive chairman in 2002 and became creative director.

In 2005 Eidos was taken over by SCi and Ian Livingstone was the only former board member to be retained, taking on the role of product acquisition director.

Ian Livingstone secured many of the company's major franchises, including Tomb Raider and Hitman.

Ian Livingstone contributed to the Tomb Raider project Tomb Raider: Anniversary, which was released in 2007.

In 2009, Japanese video-game company Square Enix completed a buyout of Eidos Interactive and Ian Livingstone was promoted to Life President of Eidos, a position he resigned from in 2013.

In 2014 Ian Livingstone appeared in the documentary feature film From Bedrooms to Billions a film that tells the story of the British Video Games Industry from 1979 to present.

Ian Livingstone was the non-executive chairman of Sumo Group from 2015 to 2022.

Ian Livingstone is a general partner at Hiro Capital, which invested in Skybound Entertainment in 2022.

In 2010 Ian 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.