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I know some of the names but not that many and I certainly don't know where they fit in the "flow-chart" for lack of a better term. Is Jervais Johnson the grand poobah? Was Gav Thorpe was one of the original designers and left to become a writer? Ditto on Graham McNeill?
Who else is there? Who are these Games Workshoppers and what do they do?

and Ackland, Naismith, Sawyer, Halliwell, Gallagher, Thorpe, Calvatore etc etc.

These names are gone, I've been told that GW mantra now says no celebrities in the design studios as no-one should be allowed to outgrow their job or try to dictate terms to the GW central command. There was talk of 'rock star' tantrums from one of the above and that he went nose to nose with the grey suits and lost.

JJ is the only really recognisable big name left in house for games design and Jes Goodwin for the sculpters, everyone else you can still identify from 'back in the day' like the Perrys, Blanchitsu etc are contracted in as far as I know.

Interesting. Pic 3 in Andy Chambers right? He's gone?

Who are the others? - especially pic 2 yikes! That's a mullet and a half.
Do you know who that rebel that went up against the suits?

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Interesting. Pic 3 in Andy Chambers right? He's gone?

Who are the others? - especially pic 2 yikes! That's a mullet and a half.
Do you know who that rebel that went up against the suits?

Andy. He wanted to radically change 40k for 4th edition, and a lot of his ideas went on to become the Starship Troopers miniatures game.

The word I heard was that it was Andy Chambers. Something about the suits not liking his take on 4rth edition 40k or something.

aww, I liked that guy his white dwarf articles back in the day were usually good.

Those must have been some pretty radical changes to get him sacked! Any idea what we're talking about here? Pink Ultramarines treading into the year 40,001!?!

I miss Mr. Chambers influence. That dude was a great designer.

Bill King was the writer behind an awf lot of the rogue trader/early 2nd ed. era fluff. Chambers was a game designer who kind of ended up masterminding what we now know as the 'logic' of the various chaos factions and such. Rick and Jervis started the whole shebang with WFB but it was not nearly so fluffy in its origional form, more of a generic miniatures rules for fantasy figs. The fluff grew with time. Ian Pickstock, Adrian (Wood?), Jake Thornton and Gav all worked on WD right around when it became a GW only magazine and 'new format' half-GWcatalog-half-article GW fanzine instead of just another gaming mag. Gav seemed like he always used to be the battle report whipping boy for WD who always got stuck playing the 'versus' army for whichever fighting against the featured newest release army of the month. Adrian was the ork boss, Chambers the chaos guy, and Ian the tank guy... they each had their own little persona as article writers.

Of course then there's Jes, to whom a lot of the visual element of GW owes its existance, and Mike McVey who was more or less the first rockstar of the 'eavy metal team and upped the painting standard by orders of magnitude.

Of all of them, I think Bill King, Andy Chambers, and Gav Thorpe have the most interesting and versatile history of contributions, even if Jervis and Rick were the founders, they kind of let their underlings do a great deal of the creativity that has become our canon.

That's just my recollection from the early years. Of all of them though, I think Chambers is the only one I would treat like a rockstar. All that rebelious chaos kind of stuff y'know...

KamikazeCanuck wrote:aww, I liked that guy his white dwarf articles back in the day were usually good.

Those must have been some pretty radical changes to get him sacked! Any idea what we're talking about here? Pink Ultramarines treading into the year 40,001!?!

Ruleswise, he wanted to make the game more and more and more complicated.

He threw a hissy fit when they scrapped the idea, then left to found Red Star Gaming after Starship Troopers went bust.

He now works at Blizzard Entertainment, was the genius behind splitting Starcraft II into 3 "episodes" and making units that you get in campaign unavailable in MP.

Ya i looked it up. He's now helping design Terran Marines at Blizzard...Irony. As far as I can tell Starship troopers was very Warhammerish except it had overwatch.

Anyways, GW is publicly traded right? I guess that means its probably ruled over by a hivemind named "GW Corporate" or something like that.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Anyways, GW is publicly traded right? I guess that means its probably ruled over by a hivemind named "GW Corporate" or something like that.

It is, and they are the devil incarnate.

The guy with the blue shirt in the last pic is Ian Livingstone.

He and Steve Jackson (UK edition) set up GW in the 1970s. They got bored with it in the 1990s and sold up.

Livingstone bought a big stake in Domark, a British computer game company. In 1995, Domark was bought by Eidos, which was at the time a video compression technology company and they kept Livingstone on (probably because he had a lot of shares). Eidos went into video games in a big way and scored a smash hit with the PlayStation version of Tomb Raider, from Core Design, another company they acquired in the mid-90s.

A few versions later, Core was pretty much played out and Eidos went into a decline, hit by bad sales on Tomb Raider, and losses on the major flop Daikatana, among other problems.

In 2004 they were bought by SCi, who themselves went into a decline and were bought by Square, who had been bought by Enix after going into a decline. The Square Enix group is largely owned by Sony Computer Entertainment.)

Thus, Ian Livingstone, Eidos and Tomb Raider ended up a long distance from their beginnings, however Ian Livingstone was still there, working for Squenix in some high level capacity. Basically he has become a computer games pundit a bit like Peter Molyneux though more on the business than the design side. (I believe he and Molyneux are old friends.)

long lost relatives? it looks like the 1776 revolution and a few hundred years didn't dilute the familial features too much. that's one awesome 80's mullet!!

Guitardian wrote:Bill King was the writer behind an awf lot of the rogue trader/early 2nd ed. era fluff. Chambers was a game designer who kind of ended up masterminding what we now know as the 'logic' of the various chaos factions and such. Rick and Jervis started the whole shebang with WFB but it was not nearly so fluffy in its origional form, more of a generic miniatures rules for fantasy figs. The fluff grew with time. Ian Pickstock, Adrian (Wood?), Jake Thornton and Gav all worked on WD right around when it became a GW only magazine and 'new format' half-GWcatalog-half-article GW fanzine instead of just another gaming mag. Gav seemed like he always used to be the battle report whipping boy for WD who always got stuck playing the 'versus' army for whichever fighting against the featured newest release army of the month. Adrian was the ork boss, Chambers the chaos guy, and Ian the tank guy... they each had their own little persona as article writers.

Of course then there's Jes, to whom a lot of the visual element of GW owes its existance, and Mike McVey who was more or less the first rockstar of the 'eavy metal team and upped the painting standard by orders of magnitude.

Of all of them, I think Bill King, Andy Chambers, and Gav Thorpe have the most interesting and versatile history of contributions, even if Jervis and Rick were the founders, they kind of let their underlings do a great deal of the creativity that has become our canon.

That's just my recollection from the early years. Of all of them though, I think Chambers is the only one I would treat like a rockstar. All that rebelious chaos kind of stuff y'know...

Just to clarify: WFB was originally by Rick Priestly and Richard Halliwell not Jervis. JJ did not come along until quite a bit later, starting as a phone order guy who developed Blood Bowl on his down time. The "founders" of GW are Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson with Brian Ansell for Citadel. Ansell still runs a very "traditional" kind of historical mini's company, Wargames Foundry.

Kilkrazy wrote:The guy with the blue shirt in the last pic is Ian Livingstone.

He and Steve Jackson (UK edition) set up GW in the 1970s. They got bored with it in the 1990s and sold up.

Livingstone bought a big stake in Domark, a British computer game company. In 1995, Domark was bought by Eidos, which was at the time a video compression technology company and they kept Livingstone on (probably because he had a lot of shares). Eidos went into video games in a big way and scored a smash hit with the PlayStation version of Tomb Raider, from Core Design, another company they acquired in the mid-90s.

A few versions later, Core was pretty much played out and Eidos went into a decline, hit by bad sales on Tomb Raider, and losses on the major flop Daikatana, among other problems.

In 2004 they were bought by SCi, who themselves went into a decline and were bought by Square, who had been bought by Enix after going into a decline. The Square Enix group is largely owned by Sony Computer Entertainment.)

Thus, Ian Livingstone, Eidos and Tomb Raider ended up a long distance from their beginnings, however Ian Livingstone was still there, working for Squenix in some high level capacity. Basically he has become a computer games pundit a bit like Peter Molyneux though more on the business than the design side. (I believe he and Molyneux are old friends.)

Steve Jackson? He's quisi-famous too. Made one of my favorite games "Ninja Burger" among others. I guess The game design world is a small one.

Ive never seen or heard of Ansell before, but isnt he just a catch for all the ladies. Mullet, Stash, Sleeveless shirt, and you throw in the fact that he tinkers around with little miniature army men....thats a combination no woman can resist!

theHandofGork wrote:

Guitardian wrote:Bill King was the writer behind an awf lot of the rogue trader/early 2nd ed. era fluff. Chambers was a game designer who kind of ended up masterminding what we now know as the 'logic' of the various chaos factions and such. Rick and Jervis started the whole shebang with WFB but it was not nearly so fluffy in its origional form, more of a generic miniatures rules for fantasy figs. The fluff grew with time. Ian Pickstock, Adrian (Wood?), Jake Thornton and Gav all worked on WD right around when it became a GW only magazine and 'new format' half-GWcatalog-half-article GW fanzine instead of just another gaming mag. Gav seemed like he always used to be the battle report whipping boy for WD who always got stuck playing the 'versus' army for whichever fighting against the featured newest release army of the month. Adrian was the ork boss, Chambers the chaos guy, and Ian the tank guy... they each had their own little persona as article writers.

Of course then there's Jes, to whom a lot of the visual element of GW owes its existance, and Mike McVey who was more or less the first rockstar of the 'eavy metal team and upped the painting standard by orders of magnitude.

Of all of them, I think Bill King, Andy Chambers, and Gav Thorpe have the most interesting and versatile history of contributions, even if Jervis and Rick were the founders, they kind of let their underlings do a great deal of the creativity that has become our canon.

That's just my recollection from the early years. Of all of them though, I think Chambers is the only one I would treat like a rockstar. All that rebelious chaos kind of stuff y'know...

Just to clarify: WFB was originally by Rick Priestly and Richard Halliwell not Jervis. JJ did not come along until quite a bit later, starting as a phone order guy who developed Blood Bowl on his down time. The "founders" of GW are Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson with Brian Ansell for Citadel. Ansell still runs a very "traditional" kind of historical mini's company, Wargames Foundry.

but now JJ is overlord of Game Design portion of GW right?

Andy Jones anyone?

There is no head games designer in the studio at the moment, it's more a team of equals, and one person tales a lead role on each book/project.

The Steve Jackson of GW and Fighting Fantasy books fame is no relation at all to the Steve Jackson of GURPS and so on fame.. just a small world.

Bryan Ansell from above runs Foundry Minis.. who have a sale on at the moment BTW.

Ian Pickstock, Adrian (Wood?), Jake Thornton and Gav all worked on WD right around when it became a GW only magazine and 'new format' half-GWcatalog-half-article GW fanzine instead of just another gaming mag.

..err... no. I'm sure Mr. Thorpe would be flattered by the idea, but when GW moved from being a general gaming magazine to covering GW stuff only he would still have been in school.

To quote from the interview with him, else where on this very board...

GT: I started GW as an Assistant Games Developer in 1993, after speaking to Jervis at Games Day and sending in a letter and some stuff I had written. My very first job was pasting together mock-up wargear and psychic power cards for the playtests of Dark Millennium for 2nd ed 40K! Writing-wise it was the relaunch of the Citadel Journal, alongside Mark Hawkins and Ian Pickstock. My first ‘mainstream’ product was the Pit Fighter warrior pack for Warhammer Quest, and my first WD article was about the Squat Cyclops for Space Marine (Epic).

reds8n wrote:

The Steve Jackson of GW and Fighting Fantasy books fame is no relation at all to the Steve Jackson of GURPS and so on fame.. just a small world.

Oh


Automatically Appended Next Post:

reds8n wrote:There is no head games designer in the studio at the moment, it's more a team of equals, and one person tales a lead role on each book/project.

Oh really? team of equals you say? Then why does JJ have his own dedicated Dakka abbreviation!? Ah HA! Busted.

... Because God hates you.

..and we're not sure if Phil Kelly would like being a power klaw or not.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(US_game_designer)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(UK_game_designer)

reds8n wrote:... Because God hates you.

..and we're not sure if Phil Kelly would like being a power klaw or not.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(US_game_designer)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(UK_game_designer)

Who wouldn't want to be a power klaw?

There is literally one letter diffence between those two wiki titles. Strange coincidence.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The guy with the blue shirt in the last pic is Ian Livingstone.

He and Steve Jackson (UK edition) set up GW in the 1970s. They got bored with it in the 1990s and sold up.

Livingstone bought a big stake in Domark, a British computer game company. In 1995, Domark was bought by Eidos, which was at the time a video compression technology company and they kept Livingstone on (probably because he had a lot of shares). Eidos went into video games in a big way and scored a smash hit with the PlayStation version of Tomb Raider, from Core Design, another company they acquired in the mid-90s.

A few versions later, Core was pretty much played out and Eidos went into a decline, hit by bad sales on Tomb Raider, and losses on the major flop Daikatana, among other problems.

In 2004 they were bought by SCi, who themselves went into a decline and were bought by Square, who had been bought by Enix after going into a decline. The Square Enix group is largely owned by Sony Computer Entertainment.)

Thus, Ian Livingstone, Eidos and Tomb Raider ended up a long distance from their beginnings, however Ian Livingstone was still there, working for Squenix in some high level capacity. Basically he has become a computer games pundit a bit like Peter Molyneux though more on the business than the design side. (I believe he and Molyneux are old friends.)

Steve Jackson? He's quisi-famous too. Made one of my favorite games "Ninja Burger" among others. I guess The game design world is a small one.

There are two editions of Steve Jackson, the UK edition and the US edition. By strange coincidence I have spoken with the US edition, when I was editing a games mag in the 1980s, and I have interviewed Ian Livingstone for video, but I have never met the UK edition Steve Jackson.

That's cool. What do you do in real life?

Although often derided, Ansell's work might be one of the main reasons GW made it to this "no more rockstars" era. He refocused GW as a business and helped lead the company into financial success.

Ansell?

Second pic in MGS's post.

oh, "The Mullet!". Any word on whether his head still looks like that or not?

reds8n wrote:There is no head games designer in the studio at the moment, it's more a team of equals, and one person tales a lead role on each book/project.

The Steve Jackson of GW and Fighting Fantasy books fame is no relation at all to the Steve Jackson of GURPS and so on fame.. just a small world.

Bryan Ansell from above runs Foundry Minis.. who have a sale on at the moment BTW.

Including allot of GW items, if you like that sort of thing?

http://wargamesfoundry.com/

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