Way before I worked in the games industry I grew up with a passion for video games, I am very grateful for memories, friendships and relationships they have helped me create.

I remember being 7yrs old sitting on my dad’s lap playing Mario Bros G&W passing crates back and forth across two LCD screens.

Since then video games have gifted me with over four decades of great memories playing, discussing and bonding with my friends, family, coworkers, game developers as well as strangers who became friends.

I have fond old memories of my best friend and I playing Monty Mole, Daley Thompson's decathlon, Double Dragon, Micro Machines, Golden Axe and Shadow Warriors in our youth I have great new memories of us on my sofa playing Tony Hawks in our 40’s (and of watching my 9yr old kick Tag steal his ramp)

I have happy memories of my wife (then girlfriend) competing with me in Burnout Revenge & Bomberman and collaborating together on Lego Indiana Jones and Overcooked. Video games continue to connect us to each other, our children and our friends.

I have lots of memories gaming with my kids, we have shared adventures and emotions Joy, tears, laughter, anger and celebration. Playing Bomberman, Worms, Minecraft, Little Big Planet, It Takes Two, Mario Kart, Luigi’s Mansion, Wii Sports, Halo 2, Fortnite and many more.

Gaming has provided my family with the ultimate playground for a 5yr, 10yr, 12yr, 17yr, 19yr, 35 and 47yr old to play together.

I want my children to continue to create fond memories of gaming. I want to collaborate with others who share my passion to ensure all children experience the amazing adventures video games can provide whilst providing them with a positive, safe, friendly and inclusive gaming environment both online and offline IRL (in person) to ensure their memories are positive ones.

My story is similar to Kevin's, and started a decade earlier.

I was first introduced to the ZX81 by our school maths teacher (thank you Mr Carrington). I couldn't believe that you could give it instructions to do things, and you immediately saw the results on a black and white TV.

I was hooked. I spent every lunchtime that I could in Mr Carrington's class room, figuring out how to instruct the ZX81 how to do things. I got part time jobs (“spud bashing” a.k.a. potato picking) to buy one for myself.

As well as programming, I managed to find other people who were into home computers. They were gamers, and a one or two programmers (VIC20). I was also a gamer, having gotten hooked on table-top Space Invaders. It was amazing to me that we could program these computers to play games.

In the early days of the industry, games were single-player experiences. That didn't stop cooperative and competitive play. High score tables provided the competitive play, and cooperative was via swapping controllers when a life had been lost, usually accompanied with an "I can get through this next section”.

There are so many memories around getting together at a friend's house (who was lucky enough to own a computer), or at a computer club, to play games together.

There were many ground-breaking games over the years (inevitable in a fledgeling industry) - 3D Monster Maze was truly terrifying when it was released, and inspired me to write "Revenge of the Purple Bat 3D" for the ZX Spectrum. Sadly, though I approached many publishers, no one wanted to publish it! It didn’t stop me, and I sold my first game to a publisher aged 17 (actually, my dad had to sign as I wasn’t old enough)!

A small selection of inspirations (there are too many to list): Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg, The Hobbit (through which I found JRR Tolkien), Tranz Am by Ultimate Play The Game (which became Rare), and the "I don't know how they did that" Knightlore.

My favourite game of all time is Zelda: A Link To The Past (SNES) - because my wife and I spent weeks and weeks of our life playing and mapping out the game to beat it.

I have similar memories with my now-grown-up-children (both big gamers) with Mario 64, Wii Sports, Zelda, Mario Kart, and more recently Overcooked (apparently I am useless at taking instruction, but “will do” good enough if no one else is around)!

In the early years, at work we would stay late to play Doom and Quake (mini-LAN parties) - I've lost count of how many, but I remember I won one!

I've also been fortunate to work on many online competitive / cooperative, and couch-coop games (not an exhaustive list): Blast Chamber, Rollcage, Battleffield: Modern Combat, Crysis2, Crysis3, Syndicate, Titanfall, Unravel, A Way Out, Unravel2, Titanfall2, It Takes Two and Apex Legends (which has squads of three players and the Ping System to recreate the feel of a LAN-party, even if players aren’t in the same room).

My favourite games are those you play with people in the same room as the connections are stronger, last longer, and unerringly positive irrespective of what goes on in the game.