Greg Costikyan

Greg Costikyan
Game designer Greg Costikyan
Born	(1959-07-22) July 22, 1959 (age 57) New York City, New York
Pen name	Designer X
Occupation	Game designer, science fiction writer
Nationality	American
Genre	Role-playing games

Greg Costikyan (born July 22, 1959, in New York City), sometimes known under the pseudonym "Designer X", is an American game designer and science fiction writer. Costikyan's career spans nearly all extant genres of gaming, including: hex-based wargames, role-playing games, boardgames, card games, computer games, online games and mobile games. Several of his games have won Origins Awards. He co-founded Manifesto Games, now out of business, with Johnny Wilson in 2005.

Greg Costikyan is the son of attorney and politician Edward N. and Frances (Holmgren) Costikyan. He married Louise Disbrow (a securities analyst), September 4, 1986. Costikyan lives in New York City near his three children and is a 1982 graduate (B.S.) of Brown University. He is a frequent speaker at game industry events including the Game Developers Conference and E³.

Greg Costikyan has been a game designer since the 1970s. Costikyan worked at SPI until it was closed by TSR in 1982; he came to West End Games in 1983. His 1983 game Bug-Eyed Monsters brought West End Games into the science-fiction and fantasy genres, and the following year he licensed his Paranoia role-playing game to West End Games for publishing after trying unsuccessfully to find a publisher. Costikyan designed Toon (1984) for Steve Jackson Games after developing it from an idea suggested by Jeff Dee; Costikyan felt that the game system was largely "arbitrary" and that the theme behind the game was more important. West End Games acquired licensing to make a game based on Star Wars, and Costikyan designed Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, published in 1987, with help from Doug Kaufman and others. Costikyan and Eric Goldberg left West End Games in January 1987, forming the short-lived Goldberg Associates. When West End Games declared bankruptcy in 1998, Costikyan and Goldberg tried to recover the rights to Paranoia; although West End's founder Scott Palter fought this, a judge gave the rights back to the creators in 2000. Costikyan designed the role-playing game Violence (1999) under the pseudonym "Designer X" for Hogshead Publishing, and made the game widely available under a Creative Commons license. Costikyan and Goldberg licensed Paranoia to Mongoose Publishing, which began producing new books for the game in 2004.