Local role playing games conventions such as Melbourne’s Arcanacon and Canberra’s Cancon were important in the 1980s in bringing together people who were interested in the emerging genre of home computer games. Steve Fawkner, author of the “Warlords” series and “Puzzlequest” games, recalls taking the first computer game he wrote “Quest for the Holy Grail” to a games convention in Melbourne in 1984 and giving it away.
Roger Keating is one of the two original founders of Strategic Studies Group (SSG). In 1979 Keating wrote and produced his first computer game called ‘Conflict’ for the Apple II. The game was picked up by the American strategy games company Strategic Simulations, Inc and published as ‘Computer Conflict’. Over the last twenty years Keating has been involved with the production of over 50 computer games
Steve Fawkner began distributing his own games in the 1980s at games conventions such as Arcanacon and Fanasticon. From 1983 Fawkner recalls making about a game a year which he would give away each year at the various local game conventions. Over the years his games got more polished and his game “Warlords” had real commercial quality. Publishers ´SSG helped him refine and polish the game and it was immediately successful. Fawkner founded Infinite Interactive and designed four more games and a number of expansion packs in the “Warlords” series.
Strategic Studies Group (SSG) was founded in New South Wales in 1982 by wargame specialists Roger Keating and Ian Trout. SSG was both a developer and a publisher. Their first game, “Reach for the Stars” (1983), is identified with launching the 4X genre of space games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate).