David Jones (video game developer)

Scottish video game designer

David Jones

Jones at Gamelab in 2018

Born|

David Scott Jones

October 1965 (age 57)

Dundee, Scotland

Alma mater| University of Abertay Dundee
Occupation| Video game designer
Known for| Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown
Children| 1

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]

## Biography[edit]

Jones in 2003

David Scott Jones was born in Dundee[4] in October 1965.[5] His career started with the indie game Menace, which he developed himself under the company name DMA Design and released in 1988. The game sold 15,000 copies and earned him £20,000, which he used to buy a car.[6] 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.[7] 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.[6]

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.[6] In 2012 Jones revealed that much of the controversy surrounding Grand Theft Auto was engineered by their publicist.[8] 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.[9]

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).[10] Despite receiving funding of $100m Realtime Worlds entered liquidation in 2010 after the disappointing critical and commercial reception to APB.[11]

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,[12] and for the 2009 Develop Conference in Brighton.[13]

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.[14]

In 2012 he co-founded Cloudgine, a games development company focusing on cloud computing.[15]

In the same year Jones founded Reagent Games, serving as Creative Director, to lead the development of Microsoft Xbox One title Crackdown 3.[16]

In December 2017,[17] Cloudgine was acquired by Epic Games; with this, Jones became Director, Cloud Strategy for Epic Games, and resigned from Reagent Games.[18]

## Works[edit]

* Menace (1988)
* Blood Money (1989)
* Lemmings (1991)
* Oh No! More Lemmings (1991)
* Lemmings 2: The Tribes (1993)
* Holiday Lemmings (1993)
* Hired Guns (1993)
* The Lemmings Chronicles (1994)
* Grand Theft Auto (1997)
* Body Harvest (1998)
* Space Station Silicon Valley (1998)
* Tanktics (1999)
* Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)
* Mobile Forces (2002)
* Crackdown (2007)
* APB: All Points Bulletin (2010)
* Crackdown 3 (2019)

## References[edit]

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

## External links[edit]

Media related to David Jones at Wikimedia Commons