Lara Croft, virtual heroine of best-selling game Tomb Raider, sex symbol to millions of Nintendo players and a millennium design product, is facing a challenge to her role as the computer games sector’s most important asset. Rumblings in the industry suggest that a team of twentysomething programmers working from a converted loft in Camden, north London, may soon produce a game that will redefine the business’s standards. Integral to it all is Demis Hassabis. Aged 23, from Hendon in north London with a Greek Cypriot father and Singaporean mother, he was a chess master at 12, went to the local comprehensive and gained a double first at Cambridge. Now he is a paper millionaire, the World Mind Games champion and a tidy footballer. The co-founder and managing director of Elixir Studios is, the rumours say, working on a product his publisher Eidos hopes will match Tomb Raider’s phenomenal sales. Secrecy surrounds the project but an early version will be on show before Christmas and the finished product goes to the shops next autumn. Elixir’s office is a shrine to games. Product posters line the walls, figurines and inflatable aliens are scattered on the desks; a table-football machine and Nintendo console are in a side room. Sitting in a black leather chair that looks a little big for him, Mr Hassabis does not look like an "anorak". Slight and fashionably dressed, he talks quickly and confidently about his aspirations. Commercial confidentiality means the new game is off limits. "Long term, I want to be the best games developer in the world’ he says. "It is as simple as that: bring out a stream of number one hits, employ a lot of great people and produce some really good games."

Prize and proof

Mr Hassabis has already proved his worth. At 15, he won a magazine prize - to work for a games design firm. He was too young to work full time and was offered a summer placement, during which he co-created Theme Park. The game shifted 3.5m units worldwide and still features among the top 20 sellers. In a market where technological skills are as crucial as storylines, he has assembled the team he believes can meet his goal. They put in the sort of hours City bankers and lawyers would boast about and often work through the night and weekends when deadlines loom. For Elixir PC games are about pushing technology’s boundaries. "If you haven’t got the best technology your game is going to be nowhere - it’s one of the most cutthroat businesses around. We are constantly searching for concepts ... thinking how we can be a few leaps ahead of everyone else. The aim is to predict what is going to happen five years down the line and do it now. Nobody knows what it’s going to be like, but as an industry we’re only at the start. We’re still in the infancy of making things behave believably. The challenge is to make games a far more emotional experience. Artificial intelligence and believable environments will do that.". Annual sales in the UK games sector now exceed those in films and almost match the music industry’s. Mr Hassabis is determined that a wider variety of people start to enjoy computer games. "Games are still quite a niche product because, sports and car games apart, they’re all sci-fi or set in fantasy worlds. It’s because the gamers who design them have grown up with Tolkien and Star Trek, and that is what they are influenced by. The average man in the street is not going to be attracted by wizards killing orks. They won’t even know what you mean, and it’s not relevant to them. We need to produce a far richer environment, rooted in the real world, offering role play and interaction - things people connect with."

Mr Hassabis’ obsession with games began at the age of four when he was given a chess board. Self-taught, he began trying every board game he could. He bought his first computer at eight, with winnings from a chess tournament. At 12 he became a chess master, the highest ranked boy of his age in the world. "I was probably going to become a chess professional but my world fell apart during a tournament in Austria. I was playing against a 40-year-old Danish champion and needed a draw to become youngest person to take the title. We played for 14 hours, I hadn’t eaten all day, he was chain smoking the whole way

‘We need to produce a richer environment, rooted in the real world, offering things people connect with’

through and everyone else had left. "I was exhausted and couldn’t see away out of my position, so I resigned. The moment I resigned, I realised I could have done it. It was one of the worst moments of my life. Maybe if I’d have won that game I would have become a professional, but afterwards I realised how absurd it all was. We used so much brain power in that game and ultimately neither of us gained anything. It was a waste."

He turned to computing. With his brother, George, he played at programming games until at 15 - the year he passed his A-levels he won the prize that led to Theme Park. Its success and use of artificial intelligence prompted high-paid job offers, but instead he took up a place at Cambridge.

Console life

After graduating he helped set up Lionhead Studios with Theme Park co-creator Peter Molyneux and the former managing director of Games Workshop, Steve Jackson. In February last year Mt Hassabis and a university friend, David Silver, founded Elixir. Funded by Mr Hassabis’s savings and credit cards they agreed a deal with Eidos which covered costs and paid them a salary, in return for a 5% stake. It was the valuation of Elixir in this deal which made Mr Hassabis a paper millionaire. Mr Hassabis says all Elixir staff are given a stake in the company but personal wealth is low on their list of priorities. "People work here because they love it and have a passion for games. If they want to get rich quick they might as well go and work for an internet company."

For all his paper wealth, Mr Hassabis’ bank account is far from healthy. He was driving his mother’s Astra until recently but the clutch went, and now he uses the bus. His typical day starts at lOam. Administration takes most of his time until 6pm, when he starts writing code. Around midnight he sees his girlfriend or goes home to work until the early hours. He may talk of egalitarianism at Elixir but there is little doubt who is in control. It was he who represented Elixir in talks with Eidos. "They rolled out the big boys. The chairman, chief executive, chief operating officer, lawyer and accountant all played tag team negotiations with me. I sat on my own. I treated it as a game, and I’m sure they did," he smiles. "They come here every so often to check on our progress, but basically leave us alone." The little time he spends out of the office is dominated by games. Last month he beat 4,000 other board game fanatics to win the Mind Games Olympiad, a competition which attracts chess grand masters and offers a £100,O00 pot. Although for the immediate future Mr Hassabis is focused on completing Elixir’s contract with Eidos, in the longer term he wants to take a year out. "I’m very influenced by Japan, their ethic of self-improvement, love of games, culture. In five years from now I’d love to just go out there, immerse myself in the companies and play every game I could." By then, of course, Lara Croft may be a distant memory.

The CV

Age 23 Education took A-levels at 15, graduated from Cambridge with double first in computer science

Career at 15, co-created Theme Park with Peter Molyneux; the game was released to critical acclaim and shot to world number one, selling 3.5m units. After graduating helped establish Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux, Steve Jackson of Games Workshop and Mark Webley senior programmer on their first game, Black & White. Left to form new company, Elixir Studios, in February 1998

Interests board games; chess master at 12, Mind Games Olympiad champion for two years. Sports, including football, volleyball and badminton