Ian Livingstone Awarded OBE for Services to the Computer Games Industry

[fitbabits]

Thanks to Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com) for the news (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7659).

British video game luminary Ian Livingstone has been awarded an OBE in the UK’s New Year Honours list for "services to the computer games industry". Livingstone is currently product acquisition director at SCi, following the company’s buyout of Eidos Interactive.

Jackson’s early career began in the tabletop role-playing market – where he founded Games Workshop with Steve Jackson, which became the first company to import Dungeons & Dragons to Europe, as well as originator of the popular Warhammer fantasy universe. Livingstone subsequently worked with Jackson on the highly successful Fighting Fantasy series of choose your own adventure novels.

"I am thrilled to have been awarded an OBE," Livingstone said. "It really is a tremendous personal honor but also recognition for the computer games industry which is a great UK success story. It’s been brilliant making a career out of what is, after all, my hobby."
This is cool. I have very fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. Both Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson are responsible for getting me hooked on fantasy (and games in general) - Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Citadel of Chaos, The Forest of Doom, Deathtrap Dungeon, etc. Sigh.

[drakkarim]

Lone Wolf series for me :) i downloaded the html version of all the books cuz i loved them so much.

[fitbabits]

Lone Wolf series for me :) i downloaded the html version of all the books cuz i loved them so much.
Aww man, I'm getting weepy! :o

Someone told me that the CYOA books were re-released - I need to check Amazon right now.

[TrackZero]

Oh god, I used to own like 200 choose your own adventure books. Can't remember for the life of me what I did with them.

[Cha-Ka]

I greatly enjoyed Ian Livingston's Sorcery! books. They added dice to the choose your own adventure set (with a clever numeric grid included that you could poke with your finger in those times when brandishing dice would be socially ackward). Three cheers for Ian!

[NeuroMan42]

All those books were re-released awhile back, as I bought a few from the local shops. They include all the original artwork too. Those books OWNED me. LOL.

[Harbinger]

Damn. I've been lurking here for like 3 years and until fitbabits mentioned choose your own adventure books, I had never registered.

Anyways, back in '84 I couldn't get enough of the Wizards, Warriors, and You books. Reading this made me do a search for some of the bookcovers...flashback time...

http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=185

[Mr.Green]

Oh yeah those books were so much fun! I had my own save game system that involved 3 or 4 fingers. Did he really expected us to start all over again? :D

[fitbabits]

Damn. I've been lurking here for like 3 years and until fitbabits mentioned choose your own adventure books, I had never registered.

Anyways, back in '84 I couldn't get enough of the Wizards, Warriors, and You books. Reading this made me do a search for some of the bookcovers...flashback time...

http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=185
Welcome, Harbinger. I'm glad you finally saw something that persuaded you to register.

Hell, this isa great trip down memory lane! Things seemed so much...easier back then! :)

[Librum]

Some nice nostalgia there, most definitely. I think my first exposure to that style of book were the official AD&D versions they did, but my favorites were the Lone Wolf series. Sure wish I still had mine floating around, too.

[Harbinger]

The old DnD box sets (Red for Basic, Black for Expert, etc) :) and those choose your own adventure books made up my rainy days.

[Spigot]

This is cool. I have very fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. Both Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson are responsible for getting me hooked on fantasy (and games in general) - Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Citadel of Chaos, The Forest of Doom, Deathtrap Dungeon, etc. Sigh.
They're Fighting Fantasy books, not CYOA! You need dice to play the Fighting Fantasy books.

Ah, this brings back memories. I loved the FF series as they were very unique (Appointment With F.E.A.R. was one of my faves) and I discovered them at the same impressionable age I was when I was just learning about D&D and doing primitive BASIC coding on my TI99/4A.

[nonchalance]

I loved the FF series as they were very unique (Appointment With F.E.A.R. was one of my faves)

Hey, me too! I loved that one. And the one with robot dinosaur herders, where a plague puts everyone except you and a few bad guys to sleep, and you drive massive robots around.

And I had all the Advanced Fighting Fantasy stuff, which made a D&D-thing out of the FF ruleset, and rocked.

Incidentally, how cool is it to have unrelated SJ and IL stories on the front page together?