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Who says these silly toy soldiers will never take you anywhere?

https://bleedingcool.com/games/sir-ian-livingstone-founder-of-games-workshop-gets-a-knighthood/?fbclid=IwAR1sCmkRxFB9ssx2oTIl7Sd3qUqpeeXO3d3IEjFmLrXKAoyN87Q-EJAKqjA

BBC Article

Also knighted are fantasy author, Games Workshop co-founder and video game entrepreneur Ian Livingstone for services to the online gaming industry

Yeah but not knighted for the silly toy soldiers

Everyone knows silly toy soldier makers get Canonised!

 Flinty wrote:
Yeah but not knighted for the silly toy soldiers

Ah, but the article's title makes sure to only highlight the important event of his life.

 Flinty wrote:
Yeah but not knighted for the silly toy soldiers

Are you sure? I hear her Majesty has a pretty big Fyreslayers force and the Prince of Wales had a vicious Wood Elf army back in the day.

Though personally I think his creation of the Grell for the Fiend Folio is by far his most lasting contribution to western civilization.

https://twitter.com/ian_livingstone/status/810076420034744320

However looking at his career, silly toy soldiers led to video games, which led to status in the industry, which led to government consulting, which led to Knighthood.

Now if only I'd sent in my idea for the Meduso Dragon (it's like a dragon, but with a medusa head so it can set you on fire AND turn you to stone) I too might be a Knight of the British Empire today.

GW is allegedly worth more to the UK than the entire fishing industry, but he gets his honours for services to vidya gamers? Okay, I'll accept.

Well, he’s nothing to do with GW anymore? Hasn’t been (aside perhaps from owning shares?) for decades.

Walt Disney also doesn't run Disneycorp anymore either??

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Though personally I think his creation of the Grell for the Fiend Folio is by far his most lasting contribution to western civilization.

Thanks for the nightmare fuel I had forgotten about the grell

JWBS wrote:
Walt Disney also doesn't run Disneycorp anymore either??

Walt Disney is dead. And he died owning Disney

Alexander Fleming did stuff other than Penicillin.

JWBS wrote:
Walt Disney also doesn't run Disneycorp anymore either??

Yeah, but knighting one of the founders of GW and not the others (no love for Steve Jackson UK?) would be a little weird, yes?

Yeah, he absolutely wasn't knighted for founding Games Workshop, as he was one of 3 founders of the company and it would be weird not to acknowledge the other two. Beyond that, despite founding GW, he had nothing to do with Warhammer or really much at all anything to do with the businesses current status or success, it was actually Tom Kirby who built GW into the industry juggernaut it is today after he bought out Livingstone and Jackson (the oft forgotten John Peake had already departed years prior) and refocused the entire business around the Warhammer IP vs their prior approach of supporting other publishers games and product lines.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, he absolutely wasn't knighted for founding Games Workshop, as he was one of 3 founders of the company and it would be weird not to acknowledge the other two. Beyond that, despite founding GW, he had nothing to do with Warhammer or really much at all anything to do with the businesses current status or success, it was actually Tom Kirby who built GW into the industry juggernaut it is today after he bought out Livingstone and Jackson (the oft forgotten John Peake had already departed years prior) and refocused the entire business around the Warhammer IP vs their prior approach of supporting other publishers games and product lines.

Hmm

No one's saying he was knighted for founding GW, that's just the most relevant bit for this group

I always thought of him primarily as the gw co-founder, and secondly as the fighting fantasy book author. Looking at his bio, his game software company published tomb raider and hitman. I've heard if both of those but not played either. I suppose if the Queen wants to recognise him for tomb raider and hitman instead of gw and ff that's up to her but personally I would have recognised him for the former stuff myself.

More palettable than other choices in the New Years Honours.

I do not know much about Ian Livingstones activities but I have seen his name crop up in consultative management roles in many games companies. The other day I noticed his name in the production credits for the 2018 rulebook for Godtear.

....Just got the rulebook now. He is listed as Non-Executive Director Ian Livingstone CBE.

This is a way of saying someone not truly connected to the company who is useful for opening door of opportunity.

Giving Ian Livingstone a knighthood makes sense under this context, as he can then be even better at opening doors of opportunity for upcoming games developers at no cost to the state.
This is the sort of case that a corporate knighthood is made for.

JWBS wrote:
I always thought of him primarily as the gw co-founder, and secondly as the fighting fantasy book author. Looking at his bio, his game software company published tomb raider and hitman. I've heard if both of those but not played either. I suppose if the Queen wants to recognise him for tomb raider and hitman instead of gw and ff that's up to her but personally I would have recognised him for the former stuff myself.

Its clear you have no idea who Ian Livingstone is or what he has accomplished. The man basically single-handedly built the British video game industry, you wouldn't know that from reading his design credits or CV necessarily, but when you "follow the money" as it were you often find Ian Livingstone behind a lot of the major investment and wheeling and dealing that has built it up into what it is today. Hes not getting knighted for "Tomb Raider and Hitman", hes being knighted for building a multi-billion dollar industry out of nothing.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
No one's saying he was knighted for founding GW, that's just the most relevant bit for this group

JWBS certainly seems to think otherwise.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
No one's saying he was knighted for founding GW, that's just the most relevant bit for this group

JWBS certainly seems to think otherwise.

Oh yeah, when I reread this

JWBS wrote:
GW is allegedly worth more to the UK than the entire fishing industry, but he gets his honours for services to vidya gamers? Okay, I'll accept.

it really does seem like I think he's being Knighted for co-founding GW and not for video game stuff, doesn't it? Damn, if only I'd been 'following the money', and the rest of Ian Livingstone lore (that isn't represented on his design credits or CV, ofc)

The UK Video Game industry, which is the largest in all of Europe, generates as much revenue annually as GWs entire market capitalization (i.e. the theoretical on-paper stock value that makes it "worth more than the fishing industry"), and is the UKs most lucrative entertainment sector (almost generating more revenue than the UK film, music, and television sectors combined).

To put that in perspective, the *industry* that Livingstone and his companies have built in the UK generates about ~30x more revenue annually than GW does, and employs 10s of thousands of individuals directly and indirectly, and is considered a national priority such that the British government has carved out all manner of legislation, tax breaks, etc. in order to promote and grow it - legislation which Ian was directly involved in consulting and advising lawmakers on.

Really, what do you think is the thing that earned him the knighthood?

Was it co-founding GW and writing the ff books?

From the very first link in this thread:

"Previously Livingstone was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2006 New Year Honours and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours both for services to the computer gaming industry."

These things tend to build on eachother. If he was awarded OBE and CBE for services to the computer/video gaming industry, then he's being knighted for it to, and not for founding a company that he hasn't been involved with for over 30 years and sold to Tom Kirby for all of 10 million pounds.

Haha this is wild. My first comment in this thread acknowledged the true statement that Livingstone has been Knighted for services to the UK gaming industry. Then I quoted that comment.

I'm still kinda confused though, what exactly was he honoured for? It's surely the GW stuff right? I'm hoping you can clear this up for me soon chaosomega.

JWBS wrote:
Haha this is wild. My first comment in this thread acknowledged the true statement that Livingstone has been Knighted for services to the UK gaming industry. Then I quoted that comment.

I'm still kinda confused though, what exactly was he honoured for? It's surely the GW stuff right? I'm hoping you can clear this up for me soon chaosomega.

Maybe I don't understand British humor, or maybe its because your sarcasm didn't translate as you intended it, but this is your first post in this thread, and it reads a lot more like you are sarcastically disagreeing with the idea that he was awarded for his work in the video game industry rather than an endorsement of the idea.

JWBS wrote:
GW is allegedly worth more to the UK than the entire fishing industry, but he gets his honours for services to vidya gamers? Okay, I'll accept.

I thought we established it was the Grell? No?

chaos0xomega wrote:

JWBS wrote:
Haha this is wild. My first comment in this thread acknowledged the true statement that Livingstone has been Knighted for services to the UK gaming industry. Then I quoted that comment.

I'm still kinda confused though, what exactly was he honoured for? It's surely the GW stuff right? I'm hoping you can clear this up for me soon chaosomega.

Maybe I don't understand British humor, or maybe its because your sarcasm didn't translate as you intended it, but this is your first post in this thread, and it reads a lot more like you are sarcastically disagreeing with the idea that he was awarded for his work in the video game industry rather than an endorsement of the idea.

JWBS wrote:
GW is allegedly worth more to the UK than the entire fishing industry, but he gets his honours for services to vidya gamers? Okay, I'll accept.

I also wrote this, it should have been clear

I suppose if the Queen wants to recognise him for tomb raider and hitman instead of gw and ff that's up to her but personally I would have recognised him for the former stuff myself.

An imperial great cannon is much better at killing a dragon than two pistols though, so you'd think that'd come up in the ceremony.

I thought he’d got his knighthood because they’re knighting all the Ian’s and they’ve got as far as the L’s.

So what does a knighthood get you these days?

A sword? A medal? Seat in the House of Lords? Get to skip the line at the Fish and Chips place?