Page "The Creative Assembly" Paragraph 2

The Creative Assembly was founded on 18 August 1987 as a limited company.

The founder, Tim Ansell, had begun professional computer programming in 1985, working on video game titles for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and Atari 800.

Initially, Ansell kept the company small so he could personally work on computer programming.

The company's early work, often produced personally by Ansell, involved porting games from the Amiga and ZX Spectrum platforms to DOS, such as the 1989 titles Geoff Crammond's Stunt Car Racer and Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis.

The Creative Assembly began work with Electronic Arts in 1993, producing titles under the EA Sports label, starting with the DOS version of the early FIFA games.

With EA Sports, The Creative Assembly was able to produce low development risk products bearing official league endorsements.

The company's products included official Rugby World Cup titles for 1995 and 2001, the official game for the 1999 Cricket World Cup and the Australian Football League games for 1998 and 1999, of which the AFL98 title was particularly successful in the Australian market.

When it became clear that the company needed to expand further, Ansell employed Michael Simpson in 1996 as studio director.

Simpson, a microchip designer turned video game designer, later became the driving force for the creative design of the Total War series.