Steve Jackson Games
Steve Jackson Games (SJG) is a game company that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games. It was founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson.
Contents
History[edit]
Car Wars and Illuminati are two of SJ Games' greatest successes. Founded six years after the birth of Dungeons & Dragons, and before the height of role-playing games, SJG created several role-playing and strategy games with science fiction themes. SJG borrowed and expanded upon ideas pioneered by strategy game companies such as Avalon Hill and TSR, Inc. Despite these similarities, SJG had a unique feel all their own and became popular with their releases. SJG's early titles were all microgames initially sold in ziploc bags, later in similarly sized plastic shell cases. Games such as Ogre, Car Wars and G.E.V (an Ogre spin-off) were popular during SJG's early years.
Today SJG publishes games of various varieties (card games, board games, strategy games) and genres (fantasy, sci-fi, gothic horror); they also publish the book Principia Discordia, the sacred text of the Discordian religion.
Raid[edit]
On March 1 1990, SJG's offices in Austin, Texas were raided by the United states secret service. The manuscript for GURPS Cyberpunk was confiscated although this was merely coincidence and not the actual purpose of the raid at all. The raid is often thought to have been related to Operation Sundevil, a nationwide investigation of computer crime, however Sundevil was based in Arizona and the Steve Jackson Raid was coordinated out of Chicago. More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages of $50,000 and attorneys' fees of $250,000 (amounts in USD) to SJ Games, ruling that the raid had been careless, illegal, and completely unjustified. Cyberpunk popularizer Bruce Sterling discussed the affair in his book The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. The case also helped motivate the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Best-known games[edit]
Card games[edit]
- Chez Geek, a card-game parody of Geek culture with many spin-offs and expansions.
- Hacker, a modern-day card game based on the mechanics of Illuminati.
- Illuminati, a conspiracy game, the original game on which INWO was based.
- INWO, Illuminati: New World Order, the trading card game of world domination.
- Munchkin, a card-game parody of hack-and-slash roleplaying with many spin-offs and expansions.
- Ninja Burger, a fast-paced ninja delivery card game.
Board games[edit]
- Car Wars, futuristic battles between automobiles.
- Frag, "a first-person shooter without a computer."
- Knightmare Chess, a chess variant played with cards.
- Ogre, the classic simulation of future war involving a cybernetic armored juggernaut.
- Ogre: G.E.V., a spin-off of Ogre focusing on futuristic but "conventional" infantry, artillery, and armor units.
Roleplaying games[edit]
- GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing System.
- In Nomine, a game about Angels and Demons based on the popular French roleplaying game In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas.
- Toon, the cartoon roleplaying game.
Miniatures[edit]
- Ogre & G.E.V have also been published as in miniatures wargaming format.
External links[edit]
- Steve Jackson Games' official web site.
- Fantasy for Fun and Profit: an article about the company from the Austin American Statesman, April 18 1988.
