Reviewer, Editor & Game Developer · Zzap!64, The One · 1980s · British
One of the original Zzap!64 reviewers, later editor of The One, who moved into development and was creative director at DMA Design when the first Grand Theft Auto shipped.
Gary Penn, from Berkhamsted in England, was among the reviewers of Zzap!64 from its earliest issues in 1985. Published by Newsfield, Zzap!64 became the defining Commodore 64 magazine in Britain, known for its multi-reviewer format in which several writers gave their own short opinions of each game, with their faces drawn alongside — a style that made the reviewers personalities in their own right. From 1988 to 1990 Penn edited The One, a magazine covering 16-bit computer games. He then moved into the industry he had been reviewing. By 1997 he was creative director at DMA Design in Dundee, where he oversaw the release of the first Grand Theft Auto, the game that would turn DMA into Rockstar North. Penn later worked at a number of British studios, and in 2011 he was head of development at Denki, the Dundee developer of puzzle and casual games. He has remained one of the industry's chroniclers. In 2007 he received a Games Media Legend award, and in 2013 he wrote Sensible Software 1986–1999, a history of the British studio behind Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder.