![]() He'd turned in a game for his final project, but his ageing teachers wanted nothing of the sort - nor did they care for the AMOS language he'd written it in. Overwhelmed, Read dropped maths two months in, and he ended up with an E in computer science. But things - not for the first time - didn't go as planned. It never attracted any kind of attention, but he retains a sense of achievement nonetheless.īy now he knew that he wanted to make games for a living, so he aligned his A-Level subjects accordingly, picking computer science, maths and art. One of the first games he released was an Another World copy called Captain Bonus. I would just break down and go mad at my mum," he chuckles, belatedly embarrassed, "because it was just heart-breaking." ![]() "Back then we used to have a 50p meter in the house," he says, "and there have been several times where I'd been coding for hours and I hadn't saved it and the electricity would run out. A fond memory of computing in those days springs to mind. He didn't start making games until his teens, riffing first on Sensible Soccer with Sensational Soccer, then diving into football management games inspired by Kevin Tom's Football Manager. It was just a cracking game." Then came Kick-Off 2, he remembers, and then an Amiga and Sensible Soccer. The next one we got into was Emlyn Hughes International Soccer, and that was just awesome. That's where this passion for football games started - that competition between friends. I had a mate down the road who had a Spectrum and we both had Match Day so we'd play each other. Like most boys in England he liked football, but it was football computer games he really loved. "I got the bug for programming from an early age," he recalls. He didn't have a lot, but his parents made sure he had second-hand computers, first a ZX81, then a VIC-20 and later an Amstrad CPC. The son of a lorry driver and a mum kept out of work because of a bad back, Simon Read grew up modestly in the village of Woburn near Milton Keynes. "No, 10 years ago I would have just said that was nonsense." What would he have said if I told him 10 years ago he'd one day win a BAFTA for New Star Soccer? "I would have thought you were talking nuts," he replies. "It's almost like I'm living in a dream." ![]() "How have I managed to fashion this lifestyle?" he asks himself. He's a man who pinches himself not because he can afford this or that sports car, but because he can break from work to play and have lunch with his toddler in the garden he didn't used to have. It surprises me that with his new-found wealth he opts for Pret A Manger as a place to eat, but it's also typical of the modest, plainly dressed 37-year-old standing before me. Read, looking all spiffy as he picks up his BAFTA from some German chap. Today he has that, because not only did New Star Soccer on mobile not fail, it succeeded in a way Simon Read never imagined, touching 3 million downloads and making more than $1 million. "All I ever wanted was a nice house for my wife and family," he tells me in between chews. We chat over a sandwich having walked 10 minutes from his old flat, the place he created New Star Soccer on the dining room table more than 10 years ago. I don't know if I could have persuaded my wife that was the way to go any longer." "If that would have failed I would have given up believing and gone back to doing it as a hobby. Even worse, he realised that this time it was a last hurrah. ![]() This mobile version of New Star Soccer was nothing more than an experiment. Normally he'd proclaim to his wife that the next version of the game would be the one, but not this time. He'd tried for years to make a living from New Star Soccer, and he'd been through thick and thin and out the other side. ![]()
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