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The Vancouver video game community lost one of its bright lights over the Christmas holiday period.

Martin Sikes, a founder of Black Box Games, United Front Games and the Soundproof deejay collective, died suddenly on Christmas Eve. He was 39.

After leaving the University of British Columbia, where he was president of the Electrical Engineering student club, Sikes went to work for Radical Entertainment in the Vancouver game company's tools department. In 1998, he co-founded Black Box Games in downtown Vancouver. In four years, Black Box grew from a dozen employees to 100 before it was bought by Electronic Arts Canada. Sikes continued at EA Canada's Black Box for four more years, and was a programmer for a half-dozen games in the company's lucrative Need for Speed franchise.

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Sikes co-founded United Front Games, although he had recently left the company.

"Martin was really good at building communities," said freelance graphic designer Jeff Johnston, who worked with Sikes at Radical, Black Box, EA Canada and is also a member of Soundproof. "Everywhere he went communities would grow up around him."

Despite his background in electrical engineering, Sikes always wanted video games to be easy to play.

"His philosophy was very much to keep things as simple as possible and just do it," said Johnston. "He wouldn't over-engineer something. He was a guy who got things done.

"The technology that he built using this approach was the foundation of all the games we made."

Sikes is survived by his daughter Brooklyn, parents Rita and John, and sister Belinda. A celebration of life will be held Sunday, January 6, 4 p.m. at the Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver.

mandrews@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008