John Pickford

John Pickford was born in Stockport, near Manchester, UK, in 1967, and became interested in home computers aged 13, teaching himself to program in BASIC on a Sinclair ZX81. John sold his first commercial game, Ghost Town, to Virgin Games while still at High School, then left to join the newly formed proto-developer Binary Design as their ZX Spectrum programmer in 1986, designing and programming home computer games like Glider Rider, Zub, Feud and Amaurote.

Forming Zippo Games with his brother Ste Pickford in the late 1980s, John helped create NES classics such as Solar Jetman and Ironsword for Rare and Nintendo, before selling up and turning the studio into Rare Manchester.

John joined Software Creations in the early 1990s, becoming senior Producer and designing SNES classics such as Equinox, Plok and Maximum Carnage, before leaving to form the studio Zed Two once again with his brother in 1996, where he co-created Wetrix, Aqua Aqua and Future Tactics.

In October 2006, he founded The Pickford Brothers along with his brother Ste. The company is more like a laboratory than a studio, and they create original game concepts and new video game IP. Their first self-funded indie video game is Naked War. They also work with established developers on new game concepts based on existing IP. At the same time, the two founded the licensing and publishing venture, Zee-3, a virtual company to exclusively publish and distribute all new Pickford Brothers games over the internet, as well as license their IP for other video game platforms and other media.