Draft:Dan Pinchbeck

Dan Pinchbeck is a multi-BAFTA and Writer's Guild of Great Britain award winning author, scriptwriter, and game developer, best known as the former co-founder and studio head of the British video game development studio The Chinese Room.

Pinchbeck started making games whilst undertaking a PhD and working as a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. After receiving a grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council..^[1], he led a team that made a series of experimental game mods exploring different aspects of game design. Pinchbeck worked closely with the composer Jessica Curry on the development of the mods, which were released for free on the Moddb website. One of the mods, Dear Esther, was a breakout, if controversial, hit that has gone on to be a frequently cited title in conversations about the definition of games and the relationship between games and art.^[2][3][4].

In 2009, Pinchbeck and Curry were approached by game artist Robert Briscoe about creating a commercial version of Dear Esther. They secured investment from the US backer Indie Fund and the game was launched in 2012, paying back its investment in less than six hours^[5]. The game was an overnight cult hit. In his review for The Telegraph, Tom Hoggins described it as "oil painting, poetry, eulogy and video game all at once"^[6]. For IGN, Keza MacDonald noted that "Dear Esther doesn't need puzzles or mechanics to draw you in. The strength of the writing and the world alone is enough", praising the writing's depth: "I can't give away anything of Dear Esther's story and premise without spoiling it, but it's layered enough to support multiple playthroughs. The writing is dense with intertextual references, most of them biblical, and there are clues and allusions in the narrator's musings that you won't notice the first time you play through.". She concluded that "Dear Esther can change your perspective on what games could be doing."^[7]. Dear Esther "is generally regarded as kick-starting the walking simulator sub-genre."^[8]

At that point, under the brand name The Chinese Room, the development team had begun working on a sequel to Frictional Games' Amnesia: The Dark Descent.^[9]. The game, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was released in 2013^[10].

In his review of the game, Kirk Hamilton singled out Pinchbeck's writing: "It’s frequently dread-inducing, occasionally terrifying, and wonderfully, goofily grandiose. The story is a hoot. As fun as the more immediate shocks and scares can be, the mystery at the heart of it all—What is this place? What’s happening here? And why?—was by far the game’s more engrossing and ultimately successful aspect. Writer Dan Pinchbeck has stitched together literary influences both obvious and surprising, and the result is a wonderfully macabre indictment of the industrial revolution: Upton Sinclair‘s The Jungle meets H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau.”^[11]

By the time of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs release, The Chinese Room were working on a prototype for the openworld game Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. At this point, the company was incorporated and Pinchbeck and Curry became the directors of the company.

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was released in 2015 and was a critical and commercial hit with Pinchbeck's writing frequently cited as major factor in its success. In his review for IGN, Marty Sliva wrote "For a span of five hours, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture transported me to one of the most detailed, fully realized worlds I’ve ever experienced in a video game. Even the most earth shattering of these revelations are presented in a way that’s painfully melancholy, but I wholly appreciated that Rapture made me actually feel connected to these characters and this place in a way that stirred something in me, which is a task not very many video game stories have managed to accomplish."^[12]. Andy Kelly in PC Gamer picked up on the deliberate literary skew of the story, writing that "Apocalyptic fiction rarely focuses on how normal, everyday people would cope when faced with the end of the world, which makes Rapture’s story all the more powerful. I couldn’t help but see myself and my loved ones in the people living in the valley, which gave it an extra resonance".^[13].

Following the release of the mobile VR title So Let Us Melt in 2017, The Chinese Room became a subsidiary studio of Sumo Digital^[14][15]. Pinchbeck led the studio through acquisition and the development of 2020's Little Orpheus.. The game saw Pinchbeck expand his writing and directing into comedy and once again, this was picked out as a central plank in the game's success. In Eurogamer, Vikki Blake called it "a captivating yarn, and a glorious adventure to boot"^[16] and Thomas Hughes in The Sixth Axis described the game as setting "a new bar in mobile gaming experiences" with "Its rich, lush world is only surpassed by the fantastic narrative and voice acting".^[17]. Writing for Switch Player, Joe Westcott said "It really is the story that makes Little Orpheus as enjoyable as it is... The juxtaposition between the fumbling, bumbling Ivan and the stoic General doesn’t portray a pairing that inspires anything new, but the writing is so sharp that the story feels fresh regardless. Unlikely relationships such as theirs have been mined for every shred of comedy they’re worth for years, so for me to still find enjoyment and laughter in what could have been a very stale scenario speaks to the strength of both the writing and the acting."^[18]

Pinchbeck's last game for The Chinese Room was the original horror title Still Wakes the Deep. Pitched as "The Thing Meets Boys From the Black Stuff on an oil rig. Oil Rig sinks"^[19], Still Wakes the Deep saw Pinchbeck return to the blend of social drama and horror of Machine for Pigs and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. James Stephanie Sterling described it as "an impeccable horror production, a gorgeously sickening nightmare in a rarely used setting propelled by stellar acting and sublimely nasty body horror. It’s more than just “The Thing on an oil rig,” though it makes good on that elevator pitch too. It’s going to  remain with me for a long time. A true genre classic."^[20]

Pinchbeck conceived, wrote and directed all of The Chinese Room's games and was directly involved in all aspects of development, including art, audio and production. He also secured the studio's involvement in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 and wrote the original story and directed the initial stages of the project. He is passionate proponent of diversity and inclusion and created TCR's Entry Scheme - a fully paid internship designed to offer a starting point for developers facing barriers to entry into the industry, that has launched the careers of a number of game developers.^[21]

In 2023, Pinchbeck stepped down as co-Studio Head and Creative Director of The Chinese Room. In a letter to the studio's fans, Pinchbeck wrote:

"When Jessica and I started TCR, we were just a couple of artists working in a bedroom– there wasn’t any great plan other than to do something we really believed in and make games we wanted to make...all things have their season, and it’s time for something new... It’s time to step back and focus on being an artist again – writing, travelling, making"

He also took the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to ethical development and the need for diversity and tolerance in the industry:

"“We live in a world now where kindness, tolerance, support and understanding are more important than ever before. Fighting to protect working cultures where people are safe and dignified regardless of culture, race, class, health, gender identity, sexuality, faith, neurodiversity, economic or educational background or any other context, is a responsibility we all share and I still believe underpins the making of great games."^[22].

Since leaving the games industry, Pinchbeck has focused on being a full-time writer and is represented by the Mic Cheetham Literary Agency. He also works as a consultant and occasionally mentors and teaches at institutions such as the Royal College of Art and National Film and Television School.

Prior to starting The Chinese Room, Pinchbeck was a Reader in Computer Games at the University of Portsmouth where he lectured and researched game design and game narrative. He was part of the pan-European KEEP project exploring methodologies for digital preservation through emulation and published a number of research papers on various aspects of game design^[23].

In 2009, Pinchbeck completed his PhD, entitled Story as a function of gameplay in First Person Shooters and an analysis of FPS diegetic content 1998-2007^[24]

He is the author of Doom: ScaryDarkFast, an academic analysis of the 1993 video game Doom^[25]

Pinchbeck has been married to the composer Jessica Curry since 2002. He lives in Brighton and has one child.

Pinchbeck's games have been nominated for 23 BAFTAs and won 6. Other notable awards include 2 Apple Design Award nominations and 1 win, 4 DICE nominations, 4 Develop awards, 9 TIGA awards, an IGF award and nominations and wins at GDC Choice, South by SouthWest (SXSW), Amaze, Golden Joystick, Indiecade and NAVGTR.