1. Jon "Jops" Hare was born on 20 January 1966 and is an English computer game designer, video game artist, musician and one of many founder members of the early UK games industry as co-founder and director, along with Chris Yates, of Sensible Software, one of the most successful European games development companies of the late 1980s and 1990s.
Since the sale of Sensible Software to Codemasters in 1999, Jon Hare has worked in the capacity of a consultant designer on many games including numerous strategy, action and sports games including Real World Golf and Sensible Soccer 2006.
Jon Hare is one of the founders and owner of games company Tower Studios, founded in 2004 with two former Bitmap Brothers it has developed a number of successful titles including mobile phone versions of Cannon Fodder and Sensible Soccer.
Jon Hare has been a voting member of BAFTA across all media since 2004 and works periodically for BAFTA as both a juror and a mentor.
In 2006, Jon Hare contributed a weekly politics feature to UK video game radio show One Life Left.
Jon Hare then became a director of development at Nikitova Games, a games developer with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and London; and development studios in Kyiv, Ukraine.
In July 2009, Jon Hare joined Jagex as their Head of Publishing.
In January 2010, Jon Hare announced the launch of a new independent online games publisher, Me-Stars, a games network for browser and iPhone platforms.
In 2014 Jon Hare announced the imminent release of 'Word Explorer' his first original game in 20 years, developed in collaboration with award-winning Polish development team Vivid Games and published through a number of different publishing partners including Mastertronic and Big Fish.
Jon Hare enjoyed a 6-year tenure as visiting lecturer at University of Westminster, London for "Professional Practice in Games Development" from 2011 to 2016 as well as numerous national and international lectures on games design, business and his career at universities across Europe as far apart as Cambridge, Istanbul, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
Since 2017 Jon Hare has been Visiting Professor of Games for Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.
In 2016, via exhibitions in the London Science Museum, Gamescom and numerous other European games events, Jon Hare demonstrated the continuing development of a new football game Sociable Soccer, developed in partnership with Finnish development team Combo Breaker on numerous PC, console, mobile and VR platforms, despite a cancelled Kickstarter for the game in the previous year.
Jon Hare has been a prolific songwriter since 1982 and has featured in a number of bands over the years as a singer and guitarist, including Essex outfits Hamsterfish, Dark Globe and Touchstone, all of which featured Chris Yates on lead guitar.
From 1990 onwards, Jon Hare was a frequent musical collaborator with Richard Joseph, another close friend with whom he co-wrote and arranged all of Sensible Software's best known musical tracks including the soundtrack for Cannon Fodder the GBA version of which was nominated for a BAFTA in 2000, and is still the only small-format soundtrack to be recognized by BAFTA to this day.
Since 2000 Jon Hare has written for and performed with a number of outfits including the Little Big Band featuring Jack Monck and Sid 80s featuring Ben Daglish.