Remembering David Lawson, one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry

David Lawson, co-founder of Imagine Software and Psygnosis, passed away in August aged 62, Eurogamer has learned.

Lawson co-founded Liverpool-based Imagine Software in 1982, aged 23, and within 12 months the company had grown to become the biggest software house in the UK, reportedly turning over £1 million a month. Imagine released games for a range of 8-bit computers, including the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore VIC-20 and Dragon 32, and became well-known for titles such as Alchemist, Zzoom and Wacky Waiters.

Initially Lawson oversaw software development and he wrote the early hits Arcadia and Ah Diddums, which provided a foundation on which the firm could build. And build it did. By 1983 Imagine occupied a four-storey HQ in the centre of Liverpool, employed more than 100 people, and was apparently rubbing shoulders with the likes of IBM and Apple.

But in July 1984 the company collapsed – in front of TV cameras, as it would happen. A BBC crew was on location in Liverpool at the time, filming a programme about the burgeoning UK software scene. What might have been a boring business documentary turned into TV gold as the bailiffs descended. It seemed that the rents, rates and salaries had drained the firm’s finances, and the so-called ‘mega games’ – Bandersnatch and Psyclapse – failed to materialise.

Following the fallout, many of the key people involved in Imagine would go on to enjoy long careers in the software industry. Lawson co-founded Psygnosis and earned developer credits on several of its games including Brataccas and Obliterator. Psygnosis was bought by Sony in 1993 and would become one of the most influential software houses of the 16-bit and 32-bit eras.