Jon Hare

Jon "Jops" Hare (born 20 January 1966, Ilford, Essex, England) is an English computer game designer, game artist and musician. He is one of the two founder members and directors, with Chris Yates, of Sensible Software, one of the most successful European games development companies of the late 1980s and 1990s. Hare has had a total of 11 #1 games titles in a career which began in 1985, including #1 soccer games in 4 consecutive decades:- Microprose Soccer (1988), Sensible World of Soccer (1994), Sensible Soccer Mobile (2004) and Sociable Soccer (2019). Sensible Software Hare was the lead designer, creative director, and predominant lead artist and musical composer of the Sensible Soccer series, the Cannon Fodder series and Mega Lo Mania, some of the most popular software franchises of the mid-1990s. Prior to that Hare was also co-designer and lead artist of all of Sensible's games including Parallax, Wizball, Microprose Soccer, SEUCK and Wizkid. In 2013, Sensible Software 1986-1999 a biographical book about Sensible Software featuring extensive interviews with Hare, and numerous other Sensible members and game industry personalities, plus over 100 pages of artwork reproductions of much of Hare's earlier work as a game artist, was launched by independent book publisher ROM. Written by games journalist Gary Penn it was the first ever book about the computer games industry to feature in the BAFTA library and archive in Piccadilly, London. Tower Studios Hare is the sole owner and one of the original founders of games company Tower Studios, founded in 2004 with two former Bitmap Brothers it has developed a number of successful titles including mobile phone versions of Cannon Fodder and Sensible Soccer. Hare's most successful title as a publisher to date has been Tower's 'Speedball 2 Evolution' a remake of The Bitmap Brothers classic game which topped the iPad and Mac charts across Europe in 2011. In 2014 Hare also announced the imminent release of 'Word Explorer' his first published original game in 20 years, which was followed up in 2016, with exhibitions in the London Science Museum and numerous other European games events of a new football game Sociable Soccer for many PC, console, mobile and VR platforms. Hare had persisted with the game's development with Finnish development partners Combo Breaker, despite a cancelled Kickstarter for the game in 2015. Following an Early Access version of the game on Steam in 2017, Sociable Soccer's full commercial release in 2019 on Apple Arcade achieved number one status for one week in December 2019, with further platform releases promised in 2021. Other Games Work Since the sale of Sensible Software to Codemasters in 1999, Hare worked as a consultant for Codemasters for 3 years, during which time he worked on Prince Naseem Boxing and Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing before continuing in the capacity of a consultant designer on many games including numerous strategy, action and sports games including Real World Golf, Casper Scare School and Sensible Soccer 2006. In July 2009, Hare also briefly joined Jagex, makers of browser-based MMORPG Runescape as their Head of Publishing. Composing and Musicianship Hare has also been a prolific songwriter since 1982 and has featured in a number of bands over the years as a singer and guitarist, including Essex outfits Hamsterfish, Dark Globe and Touchstone, all of which also featured Chris Yates on lead guitar. Dark Globe was particularly important in the formation of the creative relationship between Hare and Yates prior to the formation of Sensible Software. Hare was also a frequent musical collaborator with Richard Joseph, another close friend with whom he co-wrote and arranged all of Sensible Software's best known musical tracks including the soundtracks for Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, Sensible Golf and the never released Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll. The soundtrack of the GBA version of Cannon Fodder which was also nominated for a BAFTA in 2000, and is still the only small-format soundtrack to be recognized by BAFTA to this day. Since 2000 Hare has also written for and performed with a number of outfits including the Little Big Band featuring Jack Monck, Sid 80s featuring Ben Daglish and Mark Knight and Sensible Band featuring Andrew Barnabas. Education and Mentoring Since 2017 Hare has been Visiting Professor of Games at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. Prior to this he enjoyed a 6-year tenure as visiting lecturer at University of Westminster, London for "Professional Practice in Games Development" between 2011 and 2016. He has also spoken and mentored at numerous national and international lectures on games design, business and his career at universities across Europe as far apart as Cambridge, Istanbul, Copenhagen and Stockholm Hare has been a voting member of BAFTA across all media since 2004 and has been a frequent Chair of BAFTA Games Awards juries .