August 20, 2005: The Best News This Year, With More To Come

As those who have read my Report to the Stakeholders know, one of my long-standing goals has been to step down from day-to-day management of the company so I can concentrate on making games.

SUCCESS!

I am delighted to announce Stephen Sopko has joined SJ Games as Chief Operating Officer. I have known Steve (who will go by Sopko around the office, to avoid confusion) for several years, and he's given me some valuable advice in the past. His background is international business, high technology R&D, military, oil & gas, and startup companies - sometimes all at once. He's played roleplaying games for 20+ years, and, as he puts it, is "tremendously excited to leave a steady job with a Fortune 50 computer giant to run a gaming company." But he's not here to play games, or even to make them . . . he's here to organize those of us who DO make them.

This has already paid off for us in two ways. I'm getting more design done, because I can spend about four times as much time DOING it . . . so you'll see more new stuff next year. And other people are getting more done too, because Sopko is an enthusiastic professional manager, not a self-taught amateur who would rather be writing. So far, we're all happy.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We will announce more evil plans soon . . .

-- Steve Jackson

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