Chris Sawyer

From his web page and Wikipedia

Then	&	Now

Chris Sawyer

Chris entered the games industry in 1983, writing games in Z80 machine code on the Memotech MTX home computer, and then the Amstrad CPC series home computer. Chris wrote some of the best games for the Memotech, including Arcazion, Chamberoids, Escape From Zarcos, Missile Kommand, Mission Omega, Quazzia, Qogo, Qogo2, Revenge of the Chamberoids, Sepulcri Scelerati and Target Zone.

From 1988 to 1993, Chris worked on PC conversions of Amiga games and was involved in many well-known projects, including Virus (1989), Campaign (1992), Birds of Prey (1992), Dino Dini's Goal (1993), and Frontier Elite 2 (1993).

Since 1993, Chris has been developing original games on the PC, the first of which was Transport Tycoon, released through Microprose in 1994. A 'World Editor' version of Transport Tycoon followed in mid-1995, followed by Transport Tycoon Deluxe at the end of that year.

Chris's second big project was RollerCoaster Tycoon, released through Hasbro Interactive early in 1999, followed by two add-on packs Added Attractions / Corkscrew Follies in late 1999 and Loopy Landscapes in September 2000.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 soon followed and was released through Infogrames Interactive in 2002. The long-awaited sequel to Transport Tycoon, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion, was finally completed and released through Atari in October 2004. Chris gave an interview with Gamespot discussing Locomotion in 2004. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 was published in November 2004 - it even has its own website!

In November 2005, Sawyer sued Atari, over royalty payments, asserting that Atari had failed to pay some $4.8m that was due. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in February 2008. According to the article from Gamasutra, even before the settlement, Chris had reportedly received some $30 million from Atari in royalties from the Roller Coaster Tycoon franchise.

The Chris Sawyer webpage was last updated in 2013, given the phenomenal success of his games to date, he may not feel the need to be too active these days! Although "RollerCoaster Tycoon 3D" was released for the Nintendo DS in 2012.

Chris established 31X Limited in 2010 to develop Transport Tycoon for the new generation of mobile platforms and Transport Tycoon for mobile devices (iOS and Android) was released by in October 2013.

Atari released RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 for iOS in April 2014, although credited in the copyright notices, Chris Sawyer was not involved in the development of this version.

Chris is represented by the Marjacq agency and is at number 94 in the IGN list of the top 100 game creators of all time.

website: http://www.chrissawyergames.com

Chris was interviewed by Eurogamer magazine in March 2016, it's a very interesting article and the extensive reader comments trail gives an indication of how popular Chris's Tycoon games were.

Chris was interviewed by Arcade Attack in August 2018, this article gives more insights into Chris's history in game development.

Additional References / Reading :

Develop on Line : RollerCoaster Tycoon royalties dispute ends with out of court settlement (5th February 2008)

Gamasutra : Chris Sawyer on his re-entry back into video games (19th July 2013)

Wired : Enigmatic developer Chris Sawyer on remaking Transport Tycoon for mobile devices (13th September 2013)

Pocket Tactics : Chris Sawyer: “No involvement” in RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 (19th March 2014)

Interview with Eurogamer Magazine by Wesley Yin-Poole (3rd March 2016)

Interview with Talk-About-Games Magazine by Alexander Zarrouk - In German (15 July 2016)

Interview with Arcade Atttack by Adrian (10th August 2018)