Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson has been appointed an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to the computer games industry in the Queen’s New Year Honours list.
Jacobson joins Peter Molyneux, Eidos life president Ian Livingstone, Codemasters’ Rod Cousens, the Darling Brothers and Argonaut founder Jez San, British video game luminaries who have all been awarded the OBE in previous years.
Sports Interactive co-founder Oliver Collyer
paid tribute to his friend and colleague on the
Football Manager forums.
"We think this is very much deserved for all the hard work involved in not only establishing a good sense of business to a raw and young Sports Interactive all those years ago, but also evolving the studio into an equal and more professional partner with its publisher and also a responsible one, via the involvement with various charities," he wrote.
"The honour is also deserved recognition for lots of other work Miles has done away from SI over the years on the BAFTA games committee, Develop advisory board and as a founding trustee of GamesAid as well as many other advisory committees."
Speaking to VG24/7, Jacobson said: “It does feel quite strange, to be honest,” while affirming that he is "delighted" the work of his studio, which develops the
Football Manager series, has been recognized in such a way.
Nevertheless, while Jacobson acknowledged that the OBE "adds legitimacy to the industry” in the UK, he also attacked the way in which video games continue to be covered by sections of the mainstream press. "We’ve still got a long road ahead of us in the games industry," he said.
"We’re still a really young entertainment industry, and whilst there are fantastic specialist sites out there and some of the mainstream press have started taking gaming seriously, I, like a lot of other people, don’t enjoy the fact that we, as an industry, get hit quite hard whenever there’s anything negative going on and the positive stuff tends to get ignored."
