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David Jones (video game developer)

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David Jones
Jones at Gamelab in 2018
Born
David Scott Jones

October 1965 (age 59)
Dundee, Scotland
Alma materUniversity of Abertay Dundee
OccupationVideo game designer
Known forLemmings, Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown
Children1

David Scott Jones (born October 1965) is a Scottish video game programmer and entrepreneur who co-founded video game developers DMA Design (now Rockstar North) in 1987, Realtime Worlds in 2002, and Cloudgine in 2012.[1] Jones created Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto,[2] which both spawned many successful sequels. He also created the Crackdown franchise for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles, and the open-ended massively multiplayer online game, APB: All Points Bulletin.[3]

In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.[4]

Biography

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Jones in 2003

David Scott Jones was born in Dundee[5] in October 1965.[6] His career in the video game industry began in 1987 after he was made redundant from the Timex factory in Dundee, using the severance pay towards an Amiga 1000 computer with which he developed indie game Menace, under the company name DMA Design along with friends Russell Kay, Steve Hammond and Mike Dailly.[7][8] Releasing in 1988, the game sold 15,000 copies and earned him £20,000, which he used to buy a car.[9] DMA Design expanded and went on to make a second game, Blood Money, which Jones saw as a "further development" of the concept used in Menace.[10] DMA created a third game in 1991, Lemmings, which was commercially and critically successful, resulting in awards including winning European Game of the Year twice. Over the next two years Lemmings sold over 2 million copies, making Jones, 25 years old at release and married with a child, wealthy and famous.[9]

DMA Design created several more games over the next few years, but Jones spent time on developing an idea for a fighting simulator set in a city; after the release of Syndicate Wars (1996), the company revised the concept to set it in a "living city" and cross it with a driving game, resulting in the successful and controversial Grand Theft Auto, which in turn sparked an entire franchise.[9] In 2012 Jones revealed that much of the controversy surrounding Grand Theft Auto was engineered by their publicist.[11] DMA Design was soon after acquired by Gremlin Interactive, starting a chain of purchases that resulted in the studio becoming Rockstar North. Jones stayed with the company through 1999 and Grand Theft Auto 2 before leaving.[12]

In 2000 Jones founded and led the Dundee studio of Rage Software, Rage Games (Scotland) Limited, where he developed the PC title Mobile Forces. Jones also co-founded Denki who developed Go Go Beckham for Rage. Rage ceased trading after bankruptcy.

In 2002 Jones founded Realtime Worlds, who developed Crackdown (2007) and APB: All Points Bulletin (2010).[13] Despite receiving funding of $100m Realtime Worlds entered liquidation in 2010 after the disappointing critical and commercial reception to APB.[14]

Jones was the keynote speaker for the World Cyber Games in 2004 where he said that he considered mainstream multiplatform gaming to be the next big thing,[15] and for the 2009 Develop Conference in Brighton.[16]

In 2012 David Jones started work on ChronoBlade, a Facebook action-RPG game, with Stieg Hedlund as part of San Francisco-based development team nWay.[17]

In 2012 he co-founded Cloudgine, a games development company focusing on cloud computing.[18]

In the same year Jones founded Reagent Games, serving as Creative Director, to lead the development of Microsoft Xbox One title Crackdown 3.[19]

In December 2017,[20] Cloudgine was acquired by Epic Games; with this, Jones became Director, Cloud Strategy for Epic Games, and resigned from Reagent Games.[21]

Works

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References

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  1. ^ "Interview: The APB ABC Part 1 | Features". Edge Online. Archived from the original on 4 April 2013. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
  2. ^ "David Jones Returns To APB | News". Edge Online. Archived from the original on 24 September 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
  3. ^ "News – GTA Creator Gets New Funding". Gamasutra. 8 December 2006. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
  4. ^ "IGN - 39. David Jones". IGN. Archived from the original on 20 April 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  5. ^ "Grand Theft Auto creator to mark 20 Years of Games". Abertay University. 10 November 2017. Archived from the original on 26 August 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
  6. ^ "David Scott JONES". Companies House. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  7. ^ Batchelor, Andrew (10 March 2020). "The City That Gave the World Grand Theft Auto". Medium. Archived from the original on 26 December 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
  8. ^ Cellan Jones, Rory (16 December 2021) [1996-05-16]. GRAND THEFT AUTO 1996 Making Of - GTA - (BBC Archive). Clip taken from Working Lunch, originally broadcast on BBC Two. BBC. Archived from the original on 26 December 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
  9. ^ a b c "Grand Theft Auto V: Games visionary behind Scotland's biggest cultural export". Daily Record. 15 September 2013. Archived from the original on 3 October 2015. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  10. ^ DMA Design, ed. (1989), Blood Money Instruction Booklet, Liverpool: Psygnosis, p. 12, archived from the original on 7 October 2015, retrieved 5 October 2015
  11. ^ Maxwell, Ben (22 October 2012). "Grand Theft Auto creators detail Max Clifford's engineered controversy". Edge. Archived from the original on 2 June 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  12. ^ McLaughlin, Rus (28 March 2008). "IGN Presents: The History of Grand Theft Auto". IGN. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  13. ^ Welsh, Oli (12 March 2010). "Realtime Worlds' David Jones". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 23 April 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  14. ^ Stuart, Keith (27 August 2010). "Realtime Worlds: an inside story". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  15. ^ "GTA Creator David Jones keynotes World Cyber Games 2004 Conference". GameSpot. 7 October 2004. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  16. ^ Alexander, Jem (19 March 2009). "Develop 2009's speaker lineup partially unveiled". Joystiq. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  17. ^ Lahti, Evan (1 August 2013). "Why the creator of GTA and the lead designer of Diablo II are making a Facebook game together". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  18. ^ "Our Team". Cloudgine. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  19. ^ Daws, Ryan (20 May 2014). "Cloudgine is Microsoft's secret Xbox One sauce". Developer Tech. Archived from the original on 25 May 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  20. ^ "Person with significant control for Reagent Games Ltd". Companies House. Archived from the original on 25 June 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
  21. ^ Plante, Chris (20 June 2018). "Crackdown 3's original co-developer and series creator are no longer on the project". Polygon. Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
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