In memoriam: games industry veteran John Gibson

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Programmer John Gibson, whose career took in Driveclub, MotorStorm and stretched back to 1983, has sadly passed away.


 

John Gibson, a British programmer whose career stretched back 40 years, has sadly passed away. The news was shared on social media by one of Gibsonā€™s former colleagues, Paulie Hughes, and reported on by Time Extension.

Gibson joined the games industry in 1983 with a stint at the ill-fated Imagine Software, where he worked on such games as Molar Maul and Zzoom. When Imagine dramatically went bankrupt towards the end of 1983 ā€“ a moment captured for posterity by a BBC documentary crew ā€“ Gibson founded Denton Designs with several other developers from Imagine.

It was there that Gibson helped develop some of the finest British games of the 8-bit era, including Shadowfire, The Great Escape and Where Time Stood Still. Gift from the Gods and the one-of-a-kind adventure Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the latter a tie-in based on the chart-topping pop group, were formed from the ashes of Bandersnatch, an ambitious game publicised in magazines by Imagine, but left unfinished when the company went bust.

Gibsonā€™s success continued through the 90s and into the new millennium, with credits on such games as WRC: Rally Evolved, MotorStorm and Driveclub, and stints at Psygnosis ā€“ later bought out by Sony ā€“ and Warthog Games.

Entering the games industry relatively late, Gibson was previously a van driver for a while, then got a desk job at the Department of Health and Social Security (ā€œI was always bored with the job,ā€ he told Sinclair User in 1984), before buying a ZX-81 computer and teaching himself to program. Three years later, heā€™d developed his first game, Molar Maul, published by Imagine, and a long and distinguished career began.

ā€œI am working with friends and being paid for something I am good at and enjoy doing,ā€ he said in 1984, then aged 36. ā€œI also feel fortunate at my age to be at the start of something so new and exciting.ā€

Tributes posted on social media are a testament to Gibsonā€™s life and work. ā€œJust heard the devastating news that my old colleague and original Imagine alumnus John Gibson has left us,ā€ Paulie Hughes wrote. ā€œA proper legend of game development.ā€

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