Chris Jones (Access Software)

For the videogame designer from Obsidian Entertainment, see Chris Jones (game developer).

Christopher "Chris" Jones (born March 4, 1955)[1] is a videogame designer, video game producer, CEO, finance professional and actor. He is most famous for his series of interactive movies starring the hard-boiled, out-of-his-time gumshoe Tex Murphy, played by Jones himself, a private investigator that lives in San Francisco in the middle of the 21st century.

Career

Jones was a founding member of Access Software, along with Bruce Carver and his brother Roger Carver, and remained its CFO until it was sold to Microsoft in 1999.

At Access, Jones served as a finance executive, but, as the company's output turned toward more story-driven titles, Jones became more involved in writing, design, and production. He designed and wrote the point-and-click adventure games Amazon: Guardians of Eden and Countdown, and served as producer on various titles in the Links golf franchise, and others.

Jones is best recognized by many gamers for the creation and portrayal of Tex Murphy in a series of adventure games, beginning with 1989's Mean Streets. Initially, this meant little more than posing for the game's digitized sprites, but as the series transitioned to full motion video with the third installment Under A Killing Moon Jones' role became increasingly cinematic, acting alongside established Hollywood actors such as Brian Keith and Russell Means.

After Access was re-christened Indie Built, and sold to Take Two Interactive, he was the company's Chief Financial Officer until its dissolution in 2006.

Following the dissolution of Indie Built, the company's golf division was spun off into a new company, TruGolf, focusing on high-end golf simulators using real clubs. Jones serves as Finance Executive for TruGolf and, in 2007, he founded Big Finish Games, which shares the same office. Big Finish Games initially aimed to bridge the gap between casual games and the traditional adventure game audience, by offering simple hidden object games with a heavy focus on story. Their first title, Three Cards to Midnight, was released in May 2009. Other Big Finish titles include Three Cards to Dead Time (2010), Murder Island: Secret of Tantalus (2011), Escape from Thunder Island (2011), and Rita James and the Race to Shangri La (2012).

Big Finish, which employs several longtime members of Access Software, had hoped to raise funds to revive the Tex Murphy series, even going as far as announcing a new project, but after failing to generate enough, they instead decided to crowdfund the remainder of the money on Kickstarter. They successfully raised almost $600,000 on Kickstarter, exceeding their stated goal of $450,000*.[2] On June 18, 2012, Big Finish Games began production on a new Tex Murphy game that would again star Jones.

Personal life

Chris Jones was born on March 4th.[3]

Chris' late brother, Kevin L. Jones, played Mac Malden in the Tex Murphy games.

He lives in Bountiful, Utah.

He is married to Audree Jones and has three children, two sons, Ryan L. Jones and Mason R. Jones; and daughter Courtney Jones.[4]

He is of Finnish extraction.[5]

He admitted in a 1998 interview chat that he and Aaron Conners supported Ross Perot.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "United States Public Records, 1970-2009". FamilySearch.org.
  2. ↑ "Tex Murphy - Project Fedora on Kickstarter".
  3. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-06-13.
  4. ↑ "Kevin Jones Obituary - Salt Lake City, UT - Salt Lake Tribune". Salt Lake Tribune.
  5. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0427742/reference
  6. ↑ http://www.unofficialtexmurphy.com/chatlogs/chatlog.php?id=4

External links

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