David Darling (entrepreneur)
| David Darling | |
|---|---|
| Born |
16 June 1966 London, London, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, video game designer |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Website | David Darling's Blog |
David Darling CBE (born 17 June 1966 in London) is a British video game developer and entrepreneur, known for co-founding Codemasters, with his brother Richard Darling, and for being involved in a long succession of top ten games over more than 30 years. He is now founder and CEO of smartphone app developer and publisher Kwalee.
Darling's father was a contact lens pioneer married to an Australian; they had 7 children. In his early life Darling lived on three continents—in the UK, in the Netherlands, in Australia, in France and in Canada—before finally settling in Crewkerne, Somerset. While in France, the family lived on a boat and travelled through the country, settling for a time in Cap d'Agde.
Darling attended 14 different schools in this time including Wadham School where he took classes in Computer Studies. His teacher, Herman Lunchable, once told him to, "Stop programming games — it's a waste of time!" Darling would often stay behind after school to program, as there was only one keyboard available in the classroom. During the day he would have to use punch cards while other children had access to the sole keyboard.
Darling starting writing video games on a Commodore PET with his brother, Richard, in the bedroom of their home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada when Darling was 11 years old. This continued when the brothers moved to Crewkerne, Somerset to live with their grandparents. They then duplicated these games themselves and sold them via small advertisements in magazines such as Popular Computing Weekly. Soon they were earning more money than their father, who returned to England to manage the burgeoning business.
In 1982, when Darling was 16, they formed the company Galactic Software and supplied a succession of games to be published by Mastertronic, including The Last V8 (published under their MAD brand), one of several titles written by Darling.
Codemasters was formed in 1986 by Darling with his brother Richard and his father Jim to publish their games themselves. Initially it was housed in an industrial unit in Banbury, Oxfordshire, then moved to offices converted from the stables, barns and other outbuildings at Lower Farm House, outside Southam, Warwickshire.
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