Julian Gollop

Julian Gollop
Born	1965
Residence	Sofia, Bulgaria
Nationality	British
Occupation	Video Game Designer
Years active	1982 - Present
Employer	Snapshot Games (Founder and CEO)
Known for	Video game design
Notable work	UFO: Enemy Unknown Laser Squad Nemesis Chaos Reborn Phoenix Point
Spouse(s)	Reni (m. 2003)
Website	http://snapshotgames.com

Julian Gollop is a British designer of strategy games and strategy video games.^[1] He is known best as the "man who gave birth to the X-COM franchise."^[2] IGN ranks him among the top hundred video game creators of all time.^[1] In the X-COM reboot, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis Games gives homage to Gollop in the form of a "Gollop Chamber" facility in the game.^[3] Jake Solomon, creative lead for this XCOM and its sequel, XCOM 2, credits Gollop for much of his success.^[4]

In 2003, Julian Gollop married Reni, a Bulgarian artist.^[5] He moved with her to Bulgaria in 2006.^[6][7]

Childhood

Julian Gollop was born in 1965.^[8] He came of age in Harlow, England.^[9] When he was a child, his father introduced him to many different types of games, including chess, card games, and board games.^[9][10] His family played games regularly, choosing to play games instead of going to see movies.^[9] When he was about fourteen years old, Gollop started playing more complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, SPI board games, and Avalon Hill board games.^[9][10] After home computers became a reality while he was in secondary school, Gollop's fascination for complex strategy games helped him recognize how computers could allow him to make and play games he enjoyed.^[9][10]

Career

Early Career (1982 to 1988)

In 1982, while he was still in secondary school, Julian Gollop started designing and programming video games.^[5][10][11] For £25, Gollop bought his first computer, a ZX81, from a school friend to learn programming.^[10] Even though the ZX81 only had one kilobyte of memory and no real graphics processing ability, he was "amazed" at its capabilities.^[10] His first games were Islandia and Time Lords, which he made for the BBC Micro in 1983 with programmer Andy Greene, a school friend.^[11][12][13] Gollop subsequently upgraded to a ZX Spectrum and began creating video games like Nebula in BASIC.^[10] He recognized that his future involved computers.^[10]

When Julian Gollop went on to the London School of Economics to study sociology, he spent more time creating video games such as Chaos: The Battle of Wizards and Rebelstar than he spent studying.^[5][10] Nevertheless, he learned a lot. For example, he created the first Rebelstar by himself as a two-player game and brought it to a publisher that had an office near his college.^[10] They wanted it to be a single-player game, something he had not made before.^[10] So Gollop created functional path-finding algorithms from scratch, the game got published, and it ended up doing well.^[10]

Mythos Games (1988 to 2001)

In 1988, Julian Gollop was joined by his brother, Nick Gollop, in founding Target Games, a video game development company.^[10][14] The company name subsequently changed to Mythos Games.^[14] Under the Mythos name, Gollop and his brother designed and developed video games such as UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-COM: Apocalypse.^[1][14][15] Up to this time, Gollop had only made video games for home computers commonly found in Europe.^[10] It was with UFO: Enemy Unkown that Gollop first beginning making video games directly for personal computers (PCs) sold primarily in the United States.^[10] Despite the success of these and other games, Mythos Games was forced to close in 2001 after an essential publisher was acquired by a company that withdrew commitments for The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge, which Mythos Games was in the process of developing.^{[10][16][17][18]}

Codo Technologies (2001 to 2006)

After closing Mythos Games, Julian Gollop and his brother founded Codo Technologies.^[18] They were disheartened by how mainstream publishers treated them at Mythos Games, so they tried a different business model.^[18] The inagural game of Codo Technologies in 2002 was Laser Squad Nemesis, a turn-based tactics game with asynchronous, multiplayer play-by-email features which required a monthly subscription.^[18] The Gollop brothers developed only one other game, Rebelstar: Tactical Command, before Julian moved to Bulgaria with his wife in 2006.^[6][7][10]

Ubisoft Sofia (2006 to 2012)

After moving to Bulgaria in 2006, Julian Gollop began working for Ubisoft in Sofia as a game designer.^[10] He was promoted quickly to producer, eventually leading the development of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars for the Nintendo 3DS.^[10][19] He then became the co-creative director of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation for the PlayStation Vita.^[19] Gollop left Ubisoft in 2012 with ideas to remake games from earlier in his career.^{[6][7][19][20]}

Snapshot Games (2013 to Present)

Julian Gollop currently works in Sofia as the CEO and chief designer for Snapshot Games, an independent video game developer he co-founded in 2013 with David Kaye.^{[2][21][22][23]} His most recent game, Chaos Reborn, was released by Snapshot Games in 2015.^[24] He currently leads his company's development of Phoenix Point, which is expected to be released in 2018.^[2]

List of Video Games

References

External links

• Official website
• Julian Gollop at MobyGames
• Game History at Mythos Games website by WayBackMachine (1998)
• Gameography at Mythos Games website by WayBackMachine (2002)
• All Your History: X-COM Part 1: British Invasion by machinima

Interviews

• The Story of X-Com: From the school playground to Laser Squad Nemesis in the words of Julian Gollop at Eurogamer (2010)
• Interview With XCOM Creator Julian Gollop at NowGamer (2011)
• Julian Gollop interview: on X-Coms old and new, the Ghost Recon strategy game that never was, AI, auteurs and "Fork My Fruit" at PC Gamer (2013)
• XCOM Commanders: Jake Solomon and Julian Gollop interviewed at Firaxis Games (2013)
• X-COM & Tactical Games. With Julian Gollop at the Game Design Round Table (2013)
• Julian Gollop at Retro Gamer (2014)
• Ninterview: Legendary Designer Julian Gollop On Ghost Recon, Fire Emblem And Chaos Reborn at Nintendo Life (2014)
• 30 years of creating strategy games with X-COM's Julian Gollop at Gamasutra (2014)
• Julian Gollop Discusses Chaos Reborn at Cliqist Indie Gaming (2014)
• 'Chaos Reborn' Interview - X-Com Creator Julian Gollop's Turn-Based Strategy Revival at Forbes (2014)
• What XCOM creator Julian Gollop did next at Eurogamer (2014)
• Interview: Julian Gollop on New Game Phoenix Point at PCPowerPlay (2016)
• There is No Plan B at gameindustry.biz (2017)
• Phoenix Point's Fig Campaign Promises New Take on Class X-COM Formula at Polygon (2017)
• RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point at RPG Codex (2017)