One of the few genuine mavericks of the videogame industry, Richard Darling is the co-founder of Codemasters, the legendary creators of a string of smash hit games for all the major formats, including the brilliant Colin McRae Rally. His company has not only been innovative in terms of game design - it was also one which took risks in its early days, risks that have since had a significant effect on the growth of console games worldwide.

Codemasters started business in 1986 as virtually a family firm of five people, which included Darling himself, his bother and his dad. He was only 16 at the time and programming games like BMX Simulatorfor the 8bit machines. The company, as is often the case, had relatively little money to start with and relied on bank loans and outside contractors, but they took their first step into the big time when Nintendo's NES system was launched in America. Refused a licence by Nintendo, Darling realised the only way of breaking the licensing monopoly literally meant taking an NES machine apart so they could program from a PC.

Despite the difficulties this caused, Game Genie was born, a revolutionary utility that allowed players to alter the parameters, like the number of lives you could have, of their NES games. But the Game Genie was to have an even greater impact on the gaming world in a different way, for when Nintendo sued Codemasters for bringing it out, the Japanese firm lost. Sega were also to attempt legal action a few years later when Codemasters began producing their own Mega Drive cartridges, but again it was the giants who were kicked out of court, leaving the way open for Codemasters and small independent companies to thrive.

And thrive Codemasters did. Just as PlayStation was launched, Darling set up his own in-house development studio, from which all their subsequent hits have come. These include games such as Toca 2, Brian Lara Cricket, Colin McRae Rally (when most people were concentrating on F1) and, more recently, LMA Manager (the first decent football management sim for the PlayStation) and the innovative Music 2000. Darling, now under the guise of Games Design Director at his firm, these days contents himself with only the early and later stages of game development, but his philosophy of quality and invention, coupled with bravery, means he'll long be regarded as one the industry's more important figures.