His career in game development began in 1987 with the formation of Bullfrog Productions. The company’s future was assured with the release of Populous, a ground breaking game, which created a new genre of computer games, “the god game”. Populous was a massive world wide hit and has since sold over 4 million copies placing it amongst the top ten most successful computer games of all time.
Peter and his team at Bullfrog developed a string of top selling games including Powermonger, Theme Park, Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper. The company quickly became recognized as the UK’s most creative and successful development studio and sales of the studios games topped ten million copies.
In 1997 Peter left Bullfrog Productions to form a new games development company Lionhead Studios. Due in part to Peter’s track record, Black & White attracted a huge amount of media attention throughout its development. It was voted Game of Show at E3 2000 which is the games industry’s leading event, held in Los Angeles. Black & White was released to wide spread critical acclaim in April 2001 and sales currently exceed the two million mark. It has won numerous industry awards including two BAFTAs and three EMMA’s. In late 2004 Lionhead released its second game Fable on Xbox and sales are currently topping two million copies. Autumn 2005 saw a flurry of further releases Fable: The Lost Chapters, Black & White 2 and The Movies, all for PC. An enhanced Xbox version of Fable (Fable the Lost Chapters) was also released. Cumulative sales of these games now exceed one million copies. In April 2006 Lionhead Studios was sold to Microsoft Corp but Peter remains as CEO. The company’s first release under Microsoft ownership, Fable 2 went on sale in October 2008 and shot straight to the top of UK All Formats chart in its first week of launch,
Peter is recognised as one of the computer games industry’s most articulate and eloquent speakers on the subject of the development of computer games. He has spoken at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the British Film Institute, ICA (London), the Tate Gallery and the Dortmund Museum of History and Culture. He is regarded as the games industry’s major spokesperson and in this capacity has been featured in most national newspapers, including the Financial Times. Peter has been profiled on both BBC Business Breakfast and BBC 2 the Money Programme. He has also been interviewed by BBC 1’s 6.0’clock News. He has received four honorary doctorates from the Universities of Abertay, Bournemouth, Southampton and Surrey. He was also inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame this honour has been awarded to just six of his contemporaries and Peter was the first European developer to be recognised in this way, Peter was also awarded an OBE in the 2005 New Years Honours List for services to the computer video games industry.
In 2007 his achievements were recognised by the French Government who awarded him the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Knighthood in the Order of Arts and Letters).