Lisa Stevens

Lisa Stevens is an American editor, CEO and founder of Paizo Publishing, and COO of Goblinworks. She announced her gradual retirement from her role in June 2020.

Lisa Stevens on August 13, 2009, at the Gen Con ENnies awards show
BornLisa Stevens
United States
OccupationEditor
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
GenreRole-playing games

Education

Stevens attended Saint Olaf College, where she met game designers Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen.[1] Stevens received an MBA from the University of Washington.[2] After graduating, she continued to hang out on campus running Dungeons & Dragons games.[3]:232

Career

Stevens joined Tweet and Rein-Hagen in the game company Lion Rampant, which published Ars Magica in 1987.[1] Lion Rampant was a volunteer organization, and Stevens's editorial experience was needed at the company.[3]:232 After Stevens pitched the idea to Rein-Hagen and Stewart Wieck,[3]:235 Lion Rampant merged with White Wolf in 1990.[2] While on the road to GenCon 23 in 1990 with Stevens and Wieck, Rein-Hagen envisioned Vampire: The Masquerade, which the new company published in 1991.[3]:216 After meeting Rich Kaalaas of Wizards of the Coast at a GTS convention in March 1991 and then GenCon 25,[3]:276–277 Stevens left White Wolf that same year to join Wizards,[2] becoming that company's first full-time employee.[3]:277 She was a vice president for Wizards when they published Magic: The Gathering in 1993,[4] and she launched The Duelist to support it.[5] Having worked on the game while at Lion Rampant, she advised Wizards to acquire Ars Magica, which they did in 1994.[3]:279 After Wizards purchased TSR, Stevens became the Brand Manager for the RPGA and Greyhawk.[3]:282

She is also an expert on Star Wars collectibles,[6] and was the brand manager for Wizards' Star Wars role-playing game.[7]

Stevens left Wizards of the Coast in 2000, and made it known that she wanted to acquire the rights to Wizards' magazines if they ever became available.[3]:412 In May 2002, she formed Paizo Publishing, and is the CEO of the company.[8][2] When Wizards' entire magazine department was cut in 2002, Dragon, Dungeon, and Star Wars Insider magazines were all licensed to Paizo.[3]:291

In 2011, Paizo set up a company called GoblinWorks with Stevens as COO to handle the development of Pathfinder Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.[9]

On June 15 2020 Paizo announced she was going to step down from daily operations in preparation for her retirement.[10]

gollark: Never mind, it seems I can simply send it whatever.
gollark: But then the jIT functionality won't work.
gollark: What am I meant to do, just disallow stdlib access?
gollark: It's ARBITRARY C!
gollark: HOW?!

References
  1. Appelcline, Shannon. "History of Game, #10". 3 January 2007. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  2. "Paizo People: Lisa Stevens".
  3. Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  4. Cherie Henderson (July 23, 1994). "It's Magic! Popular Cards Do a Disappearing Act". The Miami Herald. p. G1.
  5. Adrienne Ward Fawcett (June 26, 1995). "The Marketing 100: Lisa Stevens". Advertising Age. p. S24.
  6. Bonnie Britton (March 31, 2002). "The Force Will Be with Us". The Indianapolis Star. p. I1.
  7. Frank Vinluan (November 12, 2000). "Game Gives Sci-Fi Fans Free Rein". The Seattle Times. p. B4.
  8. Jayson Peters (August 5, 2009). "Pathfinder RPG Uses Its Charisma Bonus, Sells Out First Run". East Valley Tribune: Nerdvana. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015.
  9. David Miller (December 6, 2011). "Pathfinder Online MMO". Purple Pawn.
  10. "Paizo / Press". paizo.com. 2020-06-15. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
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