Ian Livingstone: My Vision for Games in 2022 | Playable Futures
Ian Livingstone
Tuesday 25th January 2022
Playable Futures is a collection of insights, interviews and articles from global games leaders sharing their visions of where the industry and medium will go next. The series is in partnership with Ukie.
Sitting in my office at home at the start of 2022 surrounded by 1,500 board and video games, I feel as excited as ever to be part of the amazing games industry. I started my first games company in 1975 with Games Workshop -- with D&D/Warhammer. In those days, the industry was homebrewed. We made it up as we went along, and growth was slow. After leaving Games Workshop, I co-led my first listed video games company in 1995 with Eidos (perhaps best known for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider). Those days were quite volatile due to the risk and challenges of physical media and distribution.
"Investors now understand the social, cultural and educational value of games"
Fast forward to today, and we have games as a service being enjoyed by tens of millions of gamers worldwide, with games now at the heart of the new economy. After leaving Eidos, I began investing in game studios, some of which became hugely successful, including Playdemic (Golf Clash), Mediatonic (Fall Guys), and Sumo Digital. This path led me to co-founding games and VC fund Hiro Capital . We've invested in innovative studios and platforms including Twin Suns Studios, FRVR, Snowprint, Polyarc, Happy Volcano, Double Loop, Flavourworks and Keen Games, with more to come.
Games are at the sharp end of new consumer technology. Radical new tech tends to find its first utility in games - that was true back in the day with the first arcade machines and the early home consoles, and it's even more true today with streaming, VR and Web 3.0.
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