| Steve Jackson Games (abbreviated as SJG) is a game company that creates and
publishes role-playing, board, and card games. It was founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson.
History
Founded during the hey-day of role-playing games and the birth
of Dungeons & Dragons, SJG created several
role-playing and strategy games with a sci-fi bent. SJG borrowed and
expanded upon ideas pioneered by strategy game companies such as Avalon Hill
and TSR. Despite these similarities, SJG had a unique feel all their own and became popular
with their releases. 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).
Raid
On March 1, 1990, because of a
misunderstanding about a game under development called GURPS
Cyberpunk, SJG's offices in Austin, Texas were raided by the
U.S. Secret Service. The raid was part of
Operation Sundevil, a nationwide investigation of computer
crime. More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages and attorneys' fees of US$51,040 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 motivated the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. See GURPS Cyberpunk for more information on the raid and the ensuing
case.
Best-known games
- Car Wars, futuristic battles between automobiles
- Chez Geek, a card-game parody of Geek culture with many spinoffs and expansions
- G.E.V., a spin-off of Ogre focusing on futuristic but "conventional"
infantry, artillery, and armor units
- GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing System
- INWO, Illuminati New World Order,
the trading card game of world domination
- Illuminati, the original game on which INWO was based
- In Nomine, a game about
Angels and Demons based on the popular French roleplaying game
In Nomine Satanis / Magna
Veritas
- Knightmare Chess, a chess variant played with cards
- Munchkin, a card-game parody of
hack-and-slash roleplaying with many spinoffs and expansions
- Ogre, the classic simulation of future war involving a
cybernetic armored juggernaut
- Toon, the cartoon roleplaying
game
External links
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