Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop

Product Information

Ian and Steve co-authored The Warlock of Firetop Mountain with Steve Jackson in 1982: the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series has sold over 18 million copies worldwide. We began thinking of ways to be more hands-off in the day-to-day running of our company but without giving up control,” says Livingstone, clearly anticipating the best of both worlds, but the agreement that puts Ansell in charge also includes handing him a majority of the company within four years, so the “without giving up control” part doesn’t last long. He is the former Executive Chairman of video games publisher Eidos where he launched blockbuster titles Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Hitman. And all that stuff about those fighting fantasy books - really want to revisit Firetop Mountain too now as well. BUT, as I did read it through in one sitting and didn't want to put it down until I finished then I am "of a certain age" and revelled in the memories.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. From the launch of Dungeons and Dragons from the back of a van, to creating the Fighting Fantasy series, co-founders Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson tell their remarkable story for the first time.The book is full of great photos, fun anecdotes, and a good insight into the UK side of the gaming industry and how much Ian and Steve struggled utterly in the early days, but were carried by belief and blagging. As another reviewer has commented, the writing style is rather flat and a clear decision was made to favour broad overviews rather than anything particularly probing. I thought it was incredibly well written, to the point that I kept telling myself "just one more chapter, then I'll sleep. I have to mention that another review here comments on the disappointingly "flat" writing style, which baffles me. It was a very interesting read; I enjoyed it a lot, especially after finding out that Ian and Steve were the authors of the Fighting Fantasy books I used to read when I was a kid.

I don’t think this will have particularly wide appeal, but then I’m also not sure it was really intended to. Then, they started publishing their own games magazine, White Dwarf, that was similar to Dragon magazine at the time in that it was full of role-playing articles and scenarios. You haven’t given any thought to finding anyone who could succeed him, and he knows that too, and your plan for how to keep him on side when he resigns the third time is to promise you’ll let him run the company, which is what he wanted to begin with.Of note - the digital/kindle version was very hard to read as the small text from hardcover edition was scanned and could not be adjusted via e-reader. Some of that just isn’t in the scope of this book; Livingstone’s last link with GW is severed in 1991, before even the second edition of 40k, let alone such far-off ventures as GW becoming truly multinational or the Lord of the Rings licence or Age of Sigmar or any of that. In a matter of months Bryan Ansell has fucked off all the bits about London GW that he didn’t like, including its London location; gone is the generalist approach to retail, the grab-bag of board games and RPG licences and dicking about with video games. There are lots of pictures and topics covered such as Citadel Miniatures and the start of Warhammer which I’ve never read before.

To an extent it’s understandable that this period of control slowly unraveling isn’t the key focus, but you do wish there was a bit more here; 1987 is the last year for which there’s any real detail given, but it would be nice to have a bit more on these latter stages, and especially the release of Rogue Trader which gets the most passing of mentions. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology by the University of Abertay Dundee in 2000, and in 2002 received the BAFTA Special Award for his outstanding contribution to the interactive entertainment industry.The format lends itself to this kind of picture-gallery stuff, though it isn’t necessarily the style you’d want for reading an in-depth history.