[6] His career in the video game industry began in 1987 after he was made redundant from the Timex factory in Dundee, using the severance pay towards an Amiga 1000 computer with which he developed indie game Menace, under the company name DMA Design along with friends Russell Kay, Steve Hammond and Mike Dailly.

[9] DMA Design created several more games over the next few years, but Jones spent time on developing an idea for a fighting simulator set in a city; after the release of Syndicate Wars (1996), the company revised the concept to set it in a "living city" and cross it with a driving game, resulting in the successful and controversial Grand Theft Auto, which in turn sparked an entire franchise.

[11] DMA Design was soon after acquired by Gremlin Interactive, starting a chain of purchases that resulted in the studio becoming Rockstar North.

[16] In 2012 David Jones started work on ChronoBlade, a Facebook action-RPG game, with Stieg Hedlund as part of San Francisco-based development team nWay.

[18] In the same year Jones founded Reagent Games, serving as Creative Director, to lead the development of Microsoft Xbox One title Crackdown 3.