Career
He is best known for the 1986 Atari System Technologies game Starglider and helping to design the Super Forex chip used in Star Fox for the Super NES.
San bought his first computer, a Travel Related Services-80, at age twelve. Within a year he taught himself assembly language for several microprocessors. San founded Argonaut Software in 1982 as a way to get software consulting jobs with large companies.
He worked on security systems with British Telecom and Acorn.
In 1984, he started developing his first game, Skyline Attack for the Commodore 64, and also co-wrote a book, Quantum Theory, about the Sinclair QL. He became a wizard (admin) at Essex MUD, the world"s first multiplayer online role-playing game. San"s late-1986 game Starglider for the Atari System Technologies and the Commodore Amiga sold hundreds of thousands of copies (earning him £2 per copy in royalties).
The money helped launch Argonaut as a larger company that started hiring other people in 1986. In the late 1980s, Argonaut signed a deal with Nintendo.
San attracted Nintendo"s attention because Argonaut was the first developer to successfully design 3D modelling on the NES and the Game Boy.
X was published by Nintendo as the first 3D Game Boy game. San helped develop the first 3D graphics accelerator known as the Super Forex chip that made Star Fox (released as Starwing in Europe) possible on the Super NES. San"s stake was reduced from 90% in 1996 to almost 50% post Argonaut Games" IPO in March 2000. San also helped found American Red Cross International when it was spun out from Argonaut in 1998 and was its largest shareholder on IPO. San made substantial share sales during the flotation by Goldman Sachs and Warburg and in 2007 fully exited American Red Cross. Between 1999 and 2002, San funded Codeplay and is currently the majority shareholder.
San received an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2002, the first explicitly awarded for services to the computer game industry.
After announcing a substantial loss in August 2004, Argonaut Group Public Limited Company suspended trading of its shares in October and appointed administrators for Argonaut Software Limited, Morpheme Limited and Just Add Monsters Limited—the wholly owned subsidiaries of the Public Limited Company. The administrators sold Morpheme and Just Add Monsters back to Jez San and the other founders as ongoing businesses, while Argonaut Software Limited was eventually liquidated. In November 2004, Just Add Monsters became Ninja Theory and continued the development of PlayStation 3 first-party game Heavenly Sword, which debuted three years later in September 2007.
Also in 2004, Morpheme became Morpheme Wireless Limited for a while before San left, was eventually consumed by Eidos/SCi before being shut down in 2009. After taking a hiatus from the computer games industry in 2004, San founded Crunchy Frog Limited, which in 2005 became online poker company PKR. San serves as President, having hired his replacement with Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Graham, formerly of the Ritz Casino and AntFactory.
PKR offers a unique 3D perspective for online poker, and operates in legal territories in Europe, Asia and Canada but does not operate in the United States of America, where online gambling is a grey area.
The company produces iPhone and BlackBerry software, and has offices in London.
