Dave Jones
From Lemmings to liberty
Founded DMA Design in Dundee, created Lemmings and originated Grand Theft Auto — and established a games industry in a city that had none.
Not to be confused with David Jones of Mastertronic, author of the Magic Knight games. Two British programmers, the same name, the same decade. Your Sinclair was already making the joke in 1986.
A bedroom coder who built an industry. Dave Jones founded DMA Design in Dundee at 22, and made games that defined genres: Lemmings became a puzzle phenomenon, and Grand Theft Auto originated under his direction before he left. His career — Amiga demos to industry-shaping franchises — is the clearest single example of a British bedroom coder building something enormous.
Fast facts
- Born: 1965, Dundee, Scotland.
- Founded: DMA Design (1988), Realtime Worlds (2002).
- Key games: Menace, Blood Money, Lemmings, Uniracers, Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown.
- Legacy: the Dundee games scene.
DMA Design era
| Year | Achievement |
|---|---|
| 1988 | Founded DMA Design |
| 1989 | Menace (shoot ’em up) |
| 1991 | Lemmings released |
| 1997 | Grand Theft Auto released |
| 1999 | Left DMA Design |
Lemmings
Jones and artist Mike Dailly made Lemmings out of an animation test. Dailly drew tiny walking figures; Jones saw a game in them. The puzzle mechanics — guiding creatures who will not stop walking, by changing the world, not by commanding them — came partly out of technical constraint, and turned into one of the era’s most-copied designs.
Grand Theft Auto origins
GTA began as “Race’n’Chase”, a cops-and-robbers concept, and Jones directed the project through its change into an open-world crime game. He left DMA before GTA III moved the series into 3D, but the foundation was his.
Post-DMA
| Studio | Era | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Realtime Worlds | 2002–10 | Crackdown, APB |
| Cloudgine | 2012–18 | Cloud computing middleware |
Realtime Worlds collapsed after APB’s troubled launch, one of the industry’s most expensive failures. Cloudgine was later acquired by Epic Games.
Dundee
Jones established Dundee as a development centre. DMA’s presence drew talent, the University of Abertay launched Europe’s first games degree, and studios including 4J and Ruffian grew from the same ground.