Steve Peterson is an American
game designer
Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...
who has worked primarily on
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
s.
Career
When
George MacDonald
George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. ...
started work on role-playing games by adding more detailed super powers to
Gamescience
Gamescience is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements.
History
Gamescience Corp. was started by Phillip E. Orbanes in 1965. In that year, the company published the wargame Vietnam which was reviewed in issu ...
's ''
Superhero: 2044'' RPG and ultimately creating his own original system, Steve Peterson typed the game up, which eventually became the superhero RPG, ''
Champions
A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...
'' (1981).
MacDonald and Peterson had only enough money to print 1,500 copies of the game and hand-collated the pages, and they sold their new game at
Pacific Origins 1981; they were surprised to see it sell very well, selling 1,000 of their 1,500 copies at the convention.
After this early success, MacDonald and Peterson started
Hero Games
Hero Games (''DOJ, Inc dba Hero Games'') is the publisher of the Hero System, a generic roleplaying rules set that can be used to simulate many different genres, and was the co-developer of the ''Fuzion'' system.
History
In 1981, George MacDo ...
as a publishing label.
By 1982 MacDonald and Peterson opened up an office and asked player
Ray Greer
Ray Greer is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
Career
By 1982 George MacDonald and Steve Peterson opened up an office for their company Hero Games and asked player Ray Greer to join them as a partner and to handle ...
to join them as a partner and to handle marketing and sales.
MacDonald and Peterson designed the game ''
Espionage!'' (1983), which was later updated with
L. Douglas Garrett as ''
Danger International'' (1985).
By 1986, Peterson was working at
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted th ...
.
Peterson later formed a new company, Hero Software, which licensed ''Champions'' rights from Hero Games.
In 1990, Peterson gathered together a group of four designers and programmers as well as a few long-time Hero artists, as well as Hero founder Ray Greer to create a ''Champions'' computer game, but the project was never completed.
Peterson was involved, with Ray Greer and Bruce Harlick, in the Hero Games partnership with
R. Talsorian Games that began in 1996.
Mike Pondsmith
Michael Alyn Pondsmith is an American roleplaying, board, and video game designer. He is best known for founding the publisher R. Talsorian Games in 1982, where he developed a majority of the company's role-playing game lines. Pondsmith is the a ...
of R. Talsorian, and Hero Games owners Peterson and Greer built conversion rules to connect up Interlock and Hero Games, resulting in the
Fuzion
''Fuzion'' is a generic role-playing game system created by the collaboration of R. Talsorian Games and Hero Games. The rights to Fuzion are jointly held by Mike Pondsmith of R. Talsorian Games, along with Steve Peterson and Ray Greer of Her ...
system.
When Cybergames.com acquired Hero Games in 2000, Peterson was hired on as Vice President of Marketing and Product Development.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterson, Steve
Living people
Role-playing game designers
Year of birth missing (living people)