One-to-One 21: Fighting Fantasy creators Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson

Eurogamer Podcasts

Imagine getting a phone call from a guy called Gary Gygax in America and he's reading a newsletter you wrote for a games business you're running out of a messy flat in London, and he likes it so much he wants to send you a copy of a new game he's working on called Dungeons & Dragons.

You end up loving the game and he likes what you're about, so he grants you exclusive rights to introduce Dungeons & Dragons to the UK, and to Europe, and to sell it there for three years. You can only afford six copies but it doesn't matter much: soon you'll be able to afford a lot more.

That's not even the best story my guests today have! They've done so much and created so much. That games business they were running? Games Workshop, a business that would change the face of tabletop gaming. Not content, this pair would work well into the night to create a series of game books called Fighting Fantasy, making themselves best-selling authors in the process. The series has sold more than 20 million copies today.

And that's not all: from there, they'd go on to sign video games like Tomb Raider and Hitman, and create studios like Lionhead and make beloved series like Fable. They'd receive awards and knighthoods - even be tasked by the government to evaluate the industry to see where it could do better.

Without Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, my guests today, games simply wouldn't be the same. But it's about Fighting Fantasy in particular we talk today, on this, it's 40th anniversary - for which they've both written new books. It's eye-opening to hear how the original book didn't sell very well, and to hear how they actually put the complicated, labyrinthine game-books together. I hear about their favourite books, their favourite deaths in the books, and everything in between.

One quick note: there were some technical difficulties with the recording platform that meant Steve had trouble joining us, though he did get there eventually, and that resulted in some odd audio glitches later on. There's nothing I can do about them but I am sorry in advance.

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