Steve Jackson (born c. 1953) is an American game designer. After working for many years at Metagaming Concepts designing such games as Ogre and The Fantasy Trip, he left to found Steve Jackson Games (SJ Games) in the early 1980s. He designed many of the games published by SJ Games, such as Car Wars, GURPS, Munchkin and many others.
The company won a case against the US Secret Service after a raid of their offices in 1990 (see: Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service). The Electronic Frontier Foundation was created at that time to address this and similar cases.
Jackson is a 1974 graduate of Rice University, where he was a resident of Baker College before moving to Sid Richardson College when it opened in 1971.
He is often mistaken for a different Steve Jackson, a British gamebook and video game writer who co-founded Games Workshop. The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that while the UK Jackson was co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, the US Jackson also wrote three books in this series (Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, and Robot Commando), and the books did not acknowledge that this was a different Steve Jackson.
Jackson is an avid collector of pirate-themed Lego sets. He has written a miniatures game that uses Pirate sets, Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, and has run it at several conventions.
Recently Jackson has exhibited his elaborate Chaos Machine at several science fiction or wargaming conventions, including the 2006 Worldcon.
On May 11, 2012, Steve Jackson's Kickstarter funding project for the 6th Edition of the OGRE game became the highest grossing boardgame project at Kickstarter, with 5,512 backers pledging a total of $923,680. The success of the OGRE project has prompted a new project (date of start/finish unknown at this time) to help re-launch the popular Car Wars franchise as well. The use of Kickstarter as a combination of market research tool and funding program for development is a first in the gaming industry.
Famous quotes containing the words steve, jackson and/or game:
“Who is your user, program?”
—Steve Lisberger, U.S. screenwriter, and Steve Lisberger. Dumont (Barnard Hughes)
“The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The savage soul of game is up at once—
The pack full-opening various, the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills, the neighing steed
Wild for the chase, and the loud hunter’s shout—
O’er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mixed in mad tumult and discordant joy.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)