Jez San

Jeremy 'Jez' San OBE (born 29 March 1966) is an English game programmer who founded Argonaut Software as a teenager in the 1980s. He is also a writer and helped design the Super FX chip for the Super NES.

Biography

San's interest in computing began at age 12 when he bought his first computer, a TRS-80. Within a year he taught himself assembly language, which he soon mastered for several chipsets.

San started his career in software by founding Argonaut Software in 1982 as a way to get software consulting jobs with large companies. He worked on security systems with British Telecom and Acorn. In 1984, he started developing his first game, "Skyline Attack" for the Commodore 64 and also co-wrote a book called "Quantum Theory" (a book about the Sinclair QL).

His first major success was his game "Starglider" for the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies (earning him £2 per copy in royalties) and was one of the first popular 3D computer games. The money helped launch Argonaut as a larger company that started hiring other people in 1986.

In the late 1980s, Argonaut signed a deal with Nintendo. He attracted Nintendo's attention because Argonaut was the first developer to successfully design 3D modeling on the NES and the Game Boy. X was published by Nintendo as the first 3D Game Boy game. San helped develop the first 3d graphics accelerator known as the Super FX chip that made "Star Fox" possible on the Super NES.

In 1996 Argonaut received external funding from Apax Partners and was listed publicly on the London Stock Exchange in 2000. San's stake was reduced from 90% in 1996 to almost 50% post AGT's ipo in March 2000. San also helped found ARC International ARK.L when it was spun out from Argonaut in 1998 and was its largest shareholder on ipo. San made substantial share sales during the flotation by Goldman Sachs and Warburg and in 2007 has fully exited [http://www.arc.com ARC]

San received an OBE in 2002, the first explicitly awarded for services to the computer game industry. Since that time, others have been honoured including Peter Molyneux, Ian Livingstone and Jane Cavanagh.

After announcing a substantial loss in August 2004, Argonaut Group PLC suspended trading of its shares in October and appointed administrators for Argonaut Software Ltd, Morpheme Ltd and Just Add Monsters Ltd -the wholly owned subsidiaries of the PLC. The administrators sold Morpheme and Just Add Monsters back to Jez San and the other founders as ongoing businesses, while Argonaut Software Ltd was eventually liquidated. [http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5118]

In November 2004, Just Add Monsters became Ninja Theory and continued the development of PlayStation 3 first-party game "Heavenly Sword", which launched some three years later in Christmas 2007. Also in 2004, [http://www.morpheme.co.uk/ Morpheme] became Morpheme Wireless Ltd and continues to make software for mobile phones and casual games but by 2007 the company had been consumed by Eidos/SCi and San is no longer involved.

After leaving the computer games industry in 2004, San founded Crunchy Frog Ltd, which in 2005 became online poker company [http://pkr.com PKR] . San serves as president, having been replaced as CEO by Malcolm Graham. PKR has an entry in PokerScout [http://www.PokerScout.com]

San discusses other investments in [http://www.codeplay.com CodePlay] and [http://www.anthropics.com Anthropics] [http://www.thechilli.com/articles/profiles/people/001_jezSan.asp] and is also listed on imdb [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0760761/]

External links

* [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId=38783/ Jez San entry at MobyGames]
* [http://www.online.casinocity.com/news/news.cfm?ArticleId=65646 Casino City Profile]