Gaz Liddon - Studio Head
Gaz has been working in video games for over a quarter of a century. Starting as journalist on the seminal Commodore 64 magazine Zzap!64 he soon moved into games development as founder and Tech Director of 8 Bit software publisher Thalamus
Joining Probe in 1991 Gaz handled production management on the home console versions of Mortal Kombat bringing all 7 SKUs in on schedule for Mortal Monday, one of the most successful game launches of the 16 bit console era. While at Probe Gaz also made a major contribution to the company’s expansion, helping build Probe to 150 people prior to its sale to Acclaim.
Gaz joined Climax in 1997, a UK based 25 person development team, to head up work on the critically acclaimed Playstation versions of both Diablo and Theme Park World. Moving from project management to first Group Development Director and then COO, overseeing all development activities in the group.
During his time Gaz was instrumental in founding of Climax’’s Brighton Studio and expanding the group’s portfolio of projects and turning Climax into a highly profitable company turning over £16m per year.
Wanting to return to a more hands on role on game development Gaz left Climax in 2004 to found Xen Group, a development services company with the mission of working on great projects. Xen has helped on many titles including Project Gotham Racing, Too Human, Fable 2 and Crackdown
Xen has now become Ruffian Games staffed by team of highly talented veterans whose mission is to produce great games they can all be proud of.