Christopher "Chris" Roberts is a game developer, as well as the co-founder, CEO, chief creative officer of Cloud Imperium Games, and the director of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.[1]
Early life
His father was a British sociologist doing research in Guatemala[2][3] at the time when Chris Roberts was about to be born. His American mother went to stay with her parents in Palo Alto, near San Francisco. Thus he was born in nearby Redwood City on May 27 1968. When he was a couple of months old his mother took him down to Guatemala for a year until his father finished his research, then went teaching at Manchester University, which led to Chris Roberts growing up in Manchester, UK, where he met Martin Galway in high school.
He would go in on the weekends to his father's university which had a computer, he was fascinated about the presence of games on it and the possibility to animate things, which is how he got an interest in how to program, so he could figure out how to animate imagery.[4]
His father, noticing Chris Roberts budding interest in programming, signed him for an extra-curricular class at Manchester University. Around the age of 12, Chris Roberts began to learn BASIC. He was at the back of the class, ignoring the class and trying to program games instead.
The next year, the teacher of that class became the editor of The Micro User magazine. He remembered that Chris Roberts and his friend were in the back of the class trying to make games, so he called up and asked if he would like to write a 'game of the month' for the magazine.[5]
In the mid 1980's, when he was nineteen, his familly moved to the U.S due to his dad getting a tenured professorship position at the the University of Texas and soon after Chris Roberts took a gap year from University and went to visit his parents for the summer.[6][5]
Chris Roberts was working on his own on Ultra Realm, the precursor to what would become Times of Lore. When he went to a boardgame club he saw the art of local artist Denis Loubet displayed on a wall and contacted him to make art. Denis Loubet had been working with Richard Gariott since Akalabeth in 1980 and had been hired as a fulltime artist at nearby Origin Systems just three weeks earlier.[7] Loubet showed what he was working on to Richard Garriott and Dallas Snell at Origin, who were impressed by the work-in-progress of Chris Roberts, and they invited him to Origin’s offices to ask if he’d be interested in publishing it through them. Chris Roberts had never heard of Origin Systems or the Ultima series; he’d grown up immersed in the British gaming scene, where neither had any presence whatsoever. But he liked the people at Origin, liked the atmosphere around the place and he ended up with a publishing contract at Origin Systems.[6][8][5][9]
Career
He sold his first game King Kong at the age of 13,[10] followed by Popeye, and developed 3 number one hits by the age of 20: Wizadore, Match Day and Stryker's Run.[11]
In 1987, Roberts got a publishing contract with Origin Systems where he made Times of Lore and Bad Blood, as contracted outside developer with an office.[12]
In 1990, Roberts developed Wing Commander, which evolved into a franchise series of game titles, all developed and produced by Chris Roberts. This made him an official Origin Employee.[13]
He eventually became vice president of new technology at Origin Systems, as well as executive producer for Electronic Arts after EA acquired Origin.[14]
He left Origin to be in a smaller more focused company and group to do a small number a high quality games a year and know everyone who was walking down the corridor. He also wanted the ability to exploit universes and stories he created or other people in the company created and take them to film or tv and be small enough to react, whereas Electronic Arts which had acquired Origin didn't care about the film business.[15]
He co founded Digital Anvil, the game development and digital effects company he founded in 1996 aged about 27 with funding from Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices. In December of 2000, Roberts sold Digital Anvil to Microsoft.[16] When Microsoft acquired Digital Anvil, acquiring among others the ongoing development of Freelancer, Chris Roberts became consultant while taking some time off to rethink what he wanted to do in the interactive entertainment field.[17]
He then founded Fever Pitch Studios, which was acquired by Warthog Games en 2003.
After all this time in the gaming industry and of the opinion that it was stagnating, feeling burned out, as well as in view of the acquisitions of smaller gaming companies by larger ones, Chris Roberts decided to explore storytelling via movies.[7]
He first founded Point of No Return Entertainment then he founded Ascendant Pictures in March 2002.[18] In 2004, Chris Roberts earned an Executive Producer credit on The Punisher and produced The Big White (Robin Williams, Holly Hunter, Woody Harrelson) and Lord Of War (Nicolas Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto). In 2005, Roberts produced Lucky Number Slevin. In addition, he served as Executive Producer on The Jacket (Adrien Brody and Keira Knightly) and the Robert Towne film, Ask The Dust (Colin Farrell and Selma Hayek).[19][20] Ascendant Pictures was acquired by Bigfoot Entertainment in 2010.[21]
He wanted to create worlds and universes he could get lost in, and was feeling that it became hard in movies, that the movie industry had changed and he wasn't getting that experience as much as he wanted to as as had in the gaming industry before. He had gotten immerse in the movie Avatar, butI in the same amount of time he had played several games that had immersed him such as Uncharted and Mass Effect, with technology allowing that immersion that wasn't available before.[7]
In 2011, Chris Roberts founded Cloud Imperium Games with his wife Sandi Roberts, as well as business partner and long-time international media attorney Ortwin Freyermuth.
Gameplay
The games Chris Roberts made were always about narrative and immersion because he felt that was missing for him, he wanted that sense of story and progression that he felt he wasn’t getting in games.[6]
Trivia
- He's a fan of science fiction, has seen Star Wars when he was 8 with his brother Erin Roberts, going home to build star wars spaceships out of Lego before Lego made them.[12]
- He was reading massive amounts of science fiction books from authors such as Heinlein, Asimov. Le Guin, Larry Niven, with The Forever War by Joe Haldeman being a big inspiration for Wing Commander.[22][12]
- He appears on a mural in the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance.[23][24]
- He appears as a farmer in Ultima V where he's working on an epic called Times of Lore. Ultima V was also the first Origin game on which he was credited but his role was largely support.[25]
- He's a big WWII and military history fan.[26]
- He has a collection of WWII model tanks and Napoleonic miniatures.[7]
- He holds 75 percent of Cloud Imperium Games.[27]
- His favourite old school PC game is the first Command & Conquer. He loved all the Lucas Arts Adventure games.[28]
- He goes to fantasy fairs dressed as a knight.[11]
- He has special thanks in the original Need For Speed, for loaning them his cars for testing during the game's development.[29]
- One of his favorite games is Galaga, of which there is an arcade machine in CIG offfices.[30]
- Rich "T Dog" Stroberts in Wing Commander Prophecy is an anagram for Chris Roberts.[31]
- Chris Roberts' workday is approximately 50% content review and 50% administrative duties, with him mentioning that he takes on additional reviews on his own time.[32]
External Links
See also
References
- ↑
- ↑ Prof Bryan Roberts discusses his work with Prof David Morgan (Full interview), ManchesterSociology, YouTube, 9 Jul 2014
- ↑ Bryan Roberts publications, Researchgate
- ↑ Interview with Chris Roberts from 1996, YouTube
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 The Stars His Destination: Chris Roberts from Origin to Star Citizen, 2014-13-09, archived
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The forgotten interview with Chris Roberts by Paul Dean, March 11, 2016
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Star Citizen Chris Roberts at BAFTA LA Januari 2015, YouTube, 21 Jan 2015
- ↑ Let's Play: Wing Commander 25th Anniversary Livestream, YouTube, 27 Sept 2015
- ↑ From Squadron to Wingleader, The Digital Antiquarian, April 21, 2017
- ↑ King Kong – Chris Roberts First Game? Pix's Origin Adventures, september 29 2011
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 SGJ Podcast #04: Chris. Freaking. Roberts., spacegamejunkie, 03/12/2013
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Around the Verse: Episode 1.62 (2015.09.24), YouTube
- ↑ From Wingleader to Wing Commander, The Digital Antiquarian, April 28, 2017
- ↑ "Roberts became vice president of new technology at Origin Systems, Inc. as well as executive producer for Electronic Arts", Point of No Return Entertainment, archived
- ↑ Wing Commander Combat Informaiton Center interview by Chris Roberts by Hadrian, 1999
- ↑ Microsoft to Acquire Digital Anvil, Microsoft, December 5, 2000
- ↑ Digital Anvil Interview, ign.com, June 18, 2012
- ↑ Ascendant Pictures: About
- ↑ Ascendant pictures complete
- ↑ imdb: Chris Roberts credits
- ↑ Bigfoot Entertainment Acquires Ascendant Pictures, Bigfoot Entertainment, July 6 2010, archived
- ↑ Chris Roberts Reddit AMA comment about inspirational space settings
- ↑ Kingdom Come: Deliverance screenshot by Stormkindle on Spectrum, March 11th 2018
- ↑ How our backers become immortal, Warhorse Studios, 9 Sept 2016
- ↑ Chris Roberts In and Around Ultima V, WIng Commander Combat Information Center, September 8, 2011
- ↑ "I'm a big WW2 and military history fan", Chris Roberts Reddit AMA
- ↑ "I hold 75 percent of the company. I have full board control. I have the majority of the votes on the board. The effective control of the company hasn’t changed", Star Citizen interview — Why Chris Roberts raised another $46 million to finish sci-fi universe, VentureBeat, December 20, 2018
- ↑ Star Citizen: A Conversation With Chris Roberts, YouTube, 15 Apr 2014
- ↑ Chris Roberts, MobyGames
- ↑ Space Madness! The Resurgence of Space & Sci Fi Games, Trelane, YouTube, 27 oct. 2017
- ↑ "Rich Strobers is an anagram for Chris Roberts.", @banditloaf, Twitter, Nov 24, 2023
- ↑