Кристофер Сойер: Создатель Transport Tycoon и RollerCoaster Tycoon

Scottish video game designer and programmer

Christopher Sawyer is a Scottish video game designer and programmer. He is best known for creating Transport Tycoon, which has been considered "one of the most important simulation games ever made", and the bestseller RollerCoaster Tycoon series. He began his career in the early 1980s producing small games for Memotech, and developing DOS ports of many Amiga games. From 1994 to 2004 he produced a series of Tycoon games, which became hallmarks of the simulation genre. After a period away from the games industry in the late 2000s, Sawyer founded the mobile game studio 31X which has handled modern ports of his work.

Sawyer was born in Stirling, Scotland, He had also a game rejected for publication by Ariolasoft, though the company offered him a job after he had graduated. This did not eventuate as Ariolasoft was downsizing by that time. He faced issues with Megastar failing to pay him royalties on continued sales of his games, and the revenue was only enough to buy him a disk drive and printer. While working on the basic game engine for this sequel, Sawyer had used some of the revenue from Transport Tycoon to travel across Europe and the United States and developed an interest in roller coasters, Sawyer developed RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language by himself, using only the services of freelance graphic designer Simon Foster and composer Allister Brimble. Sawyer also served as a consultant for Atari in the development of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, which was designed by Frontier Developments. Sawyer understood that further development of the franchise would require 3D graphics but was not interested and left the work to Frontier. Atari sued Sawyer for damages in 2007, and the two settled out of court for an undisclosed amount paid to Sawyer in February 2008. Due to a combination of the legal issues with Atari, and a general detest of the violent nature of video games of the time, Sawyer temporarily stepped away from video games after the release of Locomotion.

In 2010, Sawyer founded 31X Ltd. which he initially planned to use as a holding company for the Transport Tycoon intellectual property. However, he saw that there was interest in a mobile version of Transport Tycoon and a space in the market for simulation games like this, and reworked 31X to be a video game developer focused on mobile games. In addition to Sawyer, several others that worked with him on the Tycoon games became part of 31X, including Jacqui Lyons, who worked with Sawyer for more than 20 years, serving as the company's executive producer. Sawyer continued to work with Origin8 to bring the first two RollerCoaster Tycoon games into RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic released for mobile in December 2016. The game later received ports to Microsoft Windows and macOS in September 2017. In 2022, Sawyer extended Atari's rights to the franchise for another decade. For the franchise's 25th anniversary in 2024, Atari sold a number of art pieces autographed by Sawyer.

Asked about his philosophy and style for games design, Sawyer indicated that he had "just kind of worked on ideas which I thought were fun at the time." However, he has identified a Lego like approach to his work, in which the player deals with small, individual components that go on to be part of larger, more intricate systems. He has also expressed a dislike of modern 3D graphics, describing this as a reason he let Frontier develop RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. "The world of games moved on and I didn't, and I miss the flawed style and clunky simplicity of games from 20 years ago. I admire the amazing graphics and awesome size and realism of many modern games but for some reason can't summon much enthusiasm to play them."