Chris Roberts
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| Chris Roberts | |
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| Born | May 27, 1968 Redwood City, California, U.S. |
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| Occupation | Game designer, Film producer |
Chris Roberts (born May 27, 1968) is a computer game designer and programmer and a film producer and director. Often hailed as a visionary, he is best known for creating the popular Wing Commander series while employed at Origin Systems.
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[edit] Early years
Born in Redwood City, California, Roberts grew up in Manchester, England. He attended the same school, contemporarily with the computer music composer Martin Galway. As a teenager, he created several hit games for the BBC Micro, including Stryker's Run and Wizadore.
[edit] Origin Systems
Roberts returned to the United States in 1986. He soon found a job at Origin Systems, where he created Times of Lore, published in 1988. The game's interface had a strong influence on other Origin products such as the popular Ultima series. A similar game system was used in Roberts' next release for Origin, Bad Blood (1990). Wing Commander was published later in 1990 and was highly acclaimed. Wing Commander (and the franchise it spawned) soon became Origin's most successful product, eclipsing even the Ultima series. Roberts wasn't as heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only produced. He instead concentrated on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project suffered from numerous delays and wasn't released until 1993. Roberts returned to Wing Commander soon after, devising the original concept for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (which his brother, Erin Roberts, produced) and being more deeply involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. For these sequels, Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes.
Following the traditions of Origin Systems, Chris Roberts' residence at the outskirts of Austin, Texas was aptly named "Commander's Ranch", a reference to the Wing Commander series he created.
[edit] Digital Anvil
Roberts left Origin in 1996 and founded Digital Anvil along with Marten Reginald Davies EA National Sales Manager PC, Origin producer Tony Zurovec and his brother Erin Roberts. The fledgling studio set up shop in Austin and for several years worked quietly, inking a publishing deal with Microsoft in 1997.
Roberts had stated that he desired to produce films as well as games with Digital Anvil. The 1999 feature film release of Wing Commander directed by Roberts himself, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and featuring visual effects from Digital Anvil failed to attract either critical praise or financial success.
Digital Anvil's first finished game was Starlancer, released to a somewhat lukewarm reception in 2000. Developed externally at Warthog, the game was produced by the Roberts brothers, and featured only some contributions by Digital Anvil. The company was acquired by Microsoft soon after, who sold two of Digital Anvil's projects to Ubi Soft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, abandoning the director position of his extremely ambitious project Freelancer, even though he remained with the game in a consulting role for a while. The game was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001. The game was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans, but was received fairly favorably.
[edit] Point of No Return Entertainment/Ascendant Pictures
After leaving Digital Anvil, Roberts founded Point of No Return Entertainment, planning to produce films, television and games. However, no projects materialized from Point of No Return. Roberts founded Ascendant Pictures in 2002 and served as a producer for a number of major Hollywood productions including the 2004 adaptation of The Punisher, The Jacket and Lord of War.
