Chris Taylor (game designer)

This article is about the designer of Dungeon Siege and Total Annihilation. For the designer of Fallout, see Christopher Taylor (game designer).
Chris Taylor
Born British Columbia
Occupation Head of Wargaming Seattle[1]
Spouse(s) Kimberly Taylor
Jordan Weisman and Chris Taylor at USC IMD in October 2006.

Chris Taylor is a computer game designer and entrepreneur most famous for developing Total Annihilation and the Dungeon Siege series and for founding Gas Powered Games. In 2002, GameSpy named him the "30th most influential person in gaming."[2]

Biography

Game designer

Chris Taylor was born in British Columbia and started in the video game industry in the late 1980s at Distinctive Software in Burnaby. His first game was Hardball II released in 1989.

Taylor moved to Seattle, Washington in January 1996 when he joined Cavedog Entertainment as the designer and project leader for the real-time strategy computer game Total Annihilation and its first expansion, Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency.[3]

He founded Gas Powered Games in May 1998 and designed the action-role-playing video game Dungeon Siege.[4] Its sequel, Dungeon Siege II, was released in 2005.

In the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer, it was announced that Gas Powered Games was developing Supreme Commander, Chris's first RTS game since 1997. It is described as the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, but was not able to be named as such because Atari (formerly Infogrames) owns the rights to the Total Annihilation name. Although Atari has shown no interest in reviving the TA franchise, the company nonetheless held on to it until July 2013.[5]

He also helped create the game's standalone expansion Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance.

Current projects

On January 14, 2013, Chris Taylor kickstarted a new project called "Wildman".[6] On February 11, 2013, Chris Taylor shut down the kickstarter for "Wildman" prematurely. Four days before the campaign's end the pledged amount was only $504,120 of the required $1.1 million.[7]

In 2013, Gas Powered Games was acquired by Wargaming.net,[8] where Taylor is reported to be currently working on an unannounced project.

Awards

Supreme Commander released 2007 has been dubbed "best RTS of E3 2006",[9] the GameCritics Best Strategy Game Award[10] and achieving high ratings from major game websites and magazines.

Games credited

As designer

References

  1. ↑ "Discover Wargaming Seattle". Retrieved 2014-08-12.
  2. ↑ "GameSpy's 30 Most Influential People in Gaming" Archived 2008-10-04 at WebCite. March 2002. GameSpy.
  3. ↑ Keighley, Geoffrey (2007). "The Total Annihilation: The Story So Far". gamespot.com. Archived from the original on 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
  4. ↑ "Gas Powered Games Interview - Part 1". PC Gameworld. 2003-09-30. Archived from the original on 2005-03-20. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
  5. ↑ Adam Solo. Wargaming Takes Master of Orion, Stardock Gets Star Control. Spacesector.com July 2013. Retrieved 2015-09-06
  6. ↑ Grayson, Nathan (2013-01-14). "Chris Taylor On GPG's Prehistoric RTS-RPG, Wildman". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  7. ↑ Schreier, Jason. "With Four Days To Go, Chris Taylor Cancels Wildman Kickstarter". Kotaku.
  8. ↑ http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/22/total-annihilation-franchise-bought-by-wargaming-the-owners-of-gas-powered-games/
  9. ↑ "Supreme Commander Wins Best E3 Strategy Game Award From Industry's Top Game Critics". THQ. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  10. ↑ "2006 Winners". gamecriticsawards.com. Retrieved 2008-01-11.

External links

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