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Jim Mackonochie is set to return to the video games industry through his partners at The Fighter Collection.
Mackonochie has previously worked as the managing director at various companies, including Mattel Interactive, Mindscape and The Learning Company. He also founded Mirrorsoft, a software company within Mirror Group Newspapers.
He currently runs a software consultancy company, Mackonochie Associates, which primarily handles business development for The Fighter Collection, a private aviation business with a software simulation division.
In a way, I never left games,” Mackonochie told MCV.
After the collapse of The Learning Company, I worked as a consultant handling brands for Encore Software, a US publisher. However, I have always been an enthusiastic publisher of flight simulator titles, so working with TFC on both military and game simulations was natural. It is great to be back in publishing.”
The Fighter Collection is preparing to self-publish the first in its new flight sim series, DCS: Black Shark. The game is a part of the Digital Combat Simulation franchise, which will focus on the Russian Ka-50 ‘Black Shark’ attack helicopter.
It is the first time the publisher has released a game themselves, having previously gone through Mindscape and Ubisoft.
We decided to self-publish the add-on to our Lock On game in 2005,” said Mackonochie. It was a technical and financial success. From then on, it became clear that we had the experience and skillsets to publish our own products in the flight sim market.
We have now set up a distribution network stretching from Ecuador to South Korea and Alaska to New Zealand. Gem will be our UK distributor.
We are committed to the industry, because it’s one side of a two-headed coin. Military simulation and games. And who knows, now Microsoft is to close its ACES studio that produced Flight Simulator, I guess we could become the only girl left in town.”
