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Most Influencial/Popular/Inovative/Original/Important Game Designers

D

Date of Lies

Banned
Sixth Update

Akira Yamaoka (Konami)
Al Alcorn
Alan Miller (Activision)
Alexei Pajitnov (Tetris)
Al Lowe (Sierra)
Barry Murry
Bill Budge
Bob Brown
Bob Whitehead (Activision)
Brian Reynolds (Big Huge Games)
Chris Crawford (Atari)
Chris Miller (Blizzard)
Chris Roberts (Point of No Return Entertainment)
Dave Murry
Dave Theurer (Atari)
David Crane (Activision)
David Jones (Realtime Worlds)
David Perry (Shiny)
Don Woods
Doug Church (Harmonix)
Douglas Neubauer (Atari)
Doug Smith
Ed Boon (Midway)
Ed Logg (Atari)
Ed Rotberg (Atari)
Eiji Aonuma (Nintendo)
Eugene Jarvis
Fumito Ueda (Sony)
George Broussard (3D Realms)
Greg Zeschuk (BioWare)
Gunpei Yakoi (Nintendo)
Hideo Kojima (Konami)
Hideki Kamiya (Capcom)
Hironobu Sakaguchi (Squaresoft)
Howard Scott Warshaw (Atari)
Jason Rubin (Sony)
Jeff Minter (Llamasoft)
John Carmack (id Software)
John Romero (Id Software)
John Tobias (Midway)
Jordan Mechner
Kazunori Yamauchi (Sony)
Ken Williams
Koji Igarashi (Konami)
Larry Kaplan (Activision)
Masaya Matsuura (Sony)
Mark Cerny (Cerny Games)
Mark Turmell (EA)
Martin Hollis (Rare)
Nolan Bushnell (Atari)
Owen Rubin (Atari)
Peter Molyneux (LionHead)
Ralph Baer (Sanders Associates, Magnavox)
Rand Miller
Ray Muzyka (Bioware)
Richard Gariott (Ultima series)
Rieko Kodama (Sega)
Roberta Williams (Sierra)
Rob Fulop (Imagic)
Robyn Miller
Ron Gilbert (Hulabee Entertainment)
Ron Miller (Blizzard)
Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo)
Shinji Mikami (Capcom)
Sid Meier (Firaxis)
Steve Jobs (Atari/Apple Computer)
Steve Wozniak (Atari/Apple Computer)
Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Sega)
Tetsuya Nomura (Square Enix)
Tim Schafer (LucasArts)
Toby Gard (Confounding Factor)
Tod Frye (Atari)
Tomohiro Nishikado
Tom Zito (Digital Pictures)
Toru Iwatani (Namco)
Toshiro Nagoshi (Sega)
Trip Hawkins (Electronic Arts and 3DO)
Warren Robinett (Atari)
Warren Spector (Ion Storm)
William Crowther
Will Wright (Maxis)
Yasumi Matsuno (Square Enix)
Yoot Saito (Nintendo)
Yoshiki Okamoto (Capcom)
Yuji Naka (Sega)
Yuji Horii (Enix)
Yu Suzuki (Sega)



I'm making a list of all noteworthy (for whatever reason: fame, popularity, abnoxious, etc) game designers and videogame industry workers. So add the ones you know.



NOTE: if you're going to name people from Square Enix, please specify which branch they were with before the merger (square or enix)


names people, names.
 
K

Kobun Heat

Member
Fumito Ueda (ICO)
Tetsuya Mizuguchi (SC5, Rez)
Masaya Matsuura (Parappa the Rapper)
Yoot Saito (Seaman, Odama)

would be the ones I would add, just off the top of my head.
 
M

metsallica

Member
Quick, off the top of my head:

Warren Spector (Ion Storm, among others)
John Romero (you said fame, popularity and obnoxious, right?)
Shinji Mikami (Capcom - RE/DMC/etc)
Eiji Aonuma (Nintendo)

EDIT:
Yoshiki Okamoto (SF creator, recently left Capcom)
 
D

Date of Lies

Banned
Tekuno: True, Bear is the "father of videogames" but you can say that Higinbotham is the creator of the first videogame, even if it's not really video, more of an "electronic game."

Kobun: Excellent additions, I never took the time to write down the creators of ICO, Rez, etc.

metsallica: John Romero is a great example of industry workers I'm looking for, famous for whatever reason.
 
T

TekunoRobby

Tag of Excellence
Date of Lies said:
Tekuno: True, Bear is the "father of videogames" but you can say that Higinbotham is the creator of the first videogame, even if it's not really video, more of an "electronic game."
Click to expand...
Baer is the father of the "modern videogame industry" but he still isn't the "father of videogames." Whoever concocted that quote didn't do his/her homework. Baer still rocks the house and we should all worship him for his work but he still didn't create videogames.

If it's a game that is played on an electronic display, then yes it is a videogame. Just because an oscilloscope isn't as complex as your modern TV sets doesn't discount it as being a video projector of some kind.

The honor still goes William Higinbotham no matter all the "meh"ing Kobun Heat does. :)

If you want to get technical then you can thank the Pinball industry as being the analogue precursor to videogames.
 
T

TekunoRobby

Tag of Excellence
Date of Lies said:
Truth is, he didnt care much for his invention and took it off display for some cosmic ray display.
Click to expand...
Well just because he invented it doesn't mean he had to love it. There've been countless of inventions throughout human history that were neglected by their original designers. Humans make mistakes, I don't blame Higinbotham for his shortsightedness.

Thanks to Baer we have the excellent industry and products we have today and I love him for that.
 
D

Date of Lies

Banned
Nah, I know, it's just that I'm not putting him on the list cause there's not much about his input in the industry. I know he created lots of other things though.
 
R

RiZ III

Member
The guy behind the Sims. Will Wright

Did Yuji Naka actually design any games? He was a programmer on the Sonic game(s) in the genesis days and ever since hasnt he just been the head and producer in sonic team?
 
K

Kobun Heat

Member
If you're listing by developer, ICO is a Sony game and Baer worked for Sanders Associates, and his Odyssey was released by Magnavox.

And then there's the other side of the story, by the way: http://www.pong-story.com/inventor.htm

Higginbotham’s demonstration of a ball’s/dot’s ballistic motion and rebounding action may have qualified as a game but cannot plausibly be credited with being the “first video game”. His demo used an oscilloscope as a display and an analog computer to move the CRT spot around. To qualify as a video game, you have to have to pass one major test: Can you play the game on a standard home TV set or a TV monitor ?

By definition, video games use video displays (ordinary TV sets or TV monitors). Higginbotham’s apparatus was that small Donner analog computer hooked up to an oscilloscope. It involved no video signals, being a strictly point-plotting circuit arrangement. All Higginbotham “built” was to attach a switch to the analog computer for user interaction. He then programmed the computer to create the ballistically-moving spot and its reversal upon intercept. His was one-time physics demo for an open-house occasion. No effort was made to commercialize that demo nor was it thought of as a commercial product at the time. Nor were patents applied for. Nobody thought it was a big deal until Nintendo’s lawyers dragged it up in court in 1985 to prove a point. They lost.

If this arrangement of hardware still qualifies in anyone’s mind as a video game, then he/she might wish to look into much earlier interactive uses of random access displays such as a scope. During and shortly after WW II both the US and the German army used such displays for missile tracking... definitely an interactive use....but were these video games? Not by any rational definition of that word. Nor is Higginbotham’s demo.
Click to expand...
 
Agent X

Agent X

Member
Date of Lies said:
Ralph Bear (n/a, creator of first videogame)
Click to expand...

His last name is spelled "Baer".

I'm surprised you didn't include Nolan Bushnell on the list. Although his Pong was clearly inspired by Baer's Odyssey system, it was Bushnell who got video games into arcades, and founded the first company dedicated to video games (that being Atari, of course).

Some other early Atari people of note, along with some of their most famous works:
Ed Logg: The arcade games Asteroids, Centipede, Gauntlet, and San Francisco Rush, and most of the arcade sequels to these, among many others. He also did Othello for the Atari 2600, a few N64 games (mostly based on his arcade games), and recently worked on Dr. Muto from Midway.
Dave Theurer: The arcade games Missile Command and Tempest.
Ed Rotberg: The arcade game Battlezone.
Alan Miller, Bob Whitehead, David Crane, Larry Kaplan: A bunch of early 2600 games, of which I don't really remember who did what. More important might be what they did after they left Atari--they were the original members of Activision, the first ever third party video game producer. Of course, they are best known for what they created under the Activision label from 1980-1984.
Rob Fulop: The 2600 versions of Night Driver and Missile Command. Like the four guys above who left Atari to form Activision, Fulop became disenchanted with some of Atari's policies, and left to form another early third party software producer, Imagic. His best known Imagic game is Demon Attack. Several years later, he helped develop the early FMV games Night Trap and Sewer Shark.
Tod Frye: The notorious 2600 version of Pac-Man.
Howard Scott Warshaw: The 2600 games Yars' Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Most people cherish at least one of these three games, and despise at least one of the others. I happen to like all three, myself.

Some other non-Atari people that come to mind:
Jordan Mechner (Karateka, Prince of Persia, The Last Express)
Rand & Robyn Miller (Myst)
Toru Iwatani (the arcade game Pac-Man)
Eugene Jarvis (the arcade games Defender, Stargate, Robotron: 2084, Blaster, Smash TV, and many others)
Tom Zito (Digital Pictures--yes, I thought that company's games stunk, but they definitely left a mark on the industry, for better or for worse)
Alexey Pazhitnov (Tetris--BTW, Ed Logg did the arcade and NES versions of this for Atari Games)
Trip Hawkins (founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO)
 
K

Kobun Heat

Member
If we're going "golden-age", let's talk about:

Tomohiro Nishikado: Space Invaders
Al Alcorn: Designer of Pong
Bob Brown: Designer of Home Pong

And if we're looking at the PC, there's:

Roberta Williams: King's Quest
Al Lowe: Leisure Suit Larry

And the creators of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, if you can narrow those two down to a single creator each.
 
T

TekunoRobby

Tag of Excellence
Kobun Heat that was an fun counterpoint but too bad it's ridiculously stupid. His reasonings for what define video-games are borderline insane.

Stupid Man said:
To qualify as a video game, you have to have to pass one major test: Can you play the game on a standard home TV set or a TV monitor?
Click to expand...
Is this man joking or is he an idiot?

Thanks for the laughs however.
 
C

ced

Member
Dave and Barry Murry.

Sure they may not of been part of a big development studio (this was 84) but they created what might of been the first RTS game, The Ancient Art of War.

I still remember it being one of the first games I ever played on a PC, Pirates and Liesure suit larry being some of the others.
 
D

Date of Lies

Banned
Agent X: thanks for all those golden age designers, their names are hard to come by.

Kobun: thanks for the name of King's Quest's designer!


does anyone know Lara Croft's designer?

And the guy that made Lode Runner?
 
G

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
The Miller Bros.! Starcraft & Diablo, 'nuff said. Their fame factor has risen pretty high ( a PR is released any time they join a new company, most recently Lionhead), so thanks to that they deserve inclusion regardless of their actual accomplishments.
 
Agent X

Agent X

Member
Here are a few more:

Warren Robinett (Atari 2600 Adventure, precursor to modern adventure/role-playing games and also contained the first known video game "Easter egg")
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Atari arcade game Breakout; later founded Apple Computer)
Owen Rubin (Atari arcade games Battlezone, Space Duel, and Major Havoc)
Douglas Neubauer (Atari 400/800/XL/XE and 5200 versions of Star Raiders, Atari 2600 Solaris, Atari 2600 Super Football, Atari 2600 Radar Lock)
David Perry (Cool Spot, Global Gladiators, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, Enter the Matrix)
Bill Budge (Pinball Construction Set)
David Jones (Menace, Blood Money, Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto)
Koji Igarashi (many of the recent Castlevania games)
Ed Boon and John Tobias (Mortal Kombat)
Mark Turmell (Toy Bizarre, Smash TV, Total Carnage, NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, NBA Ballers)
Mark Cerny (arcade Major Havoc, arcade Marble Madness, Sega Genesis Kid Chameleon, Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog 2; more recently helped on the Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank games)
 
element

element

Member
David Jones - Realtime Worlds (GTA, Lemmings)
Mark Cerny - Cerny Games (Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Marble Madness)
Toby Gard - Confounding Factor (Tomb Raider, Galleon)
Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk - BioWare (BG I/II, NWN, MDK2, Jade Empire, Dragon Age)
Brian Reynolds - Big Huge Games (Civ, Civ 2, Alpha Centuari, Rise of Nations)
Chris Roberts - Point of No Return Entertainment (Wing Commander)
Doug Church - Harmonix (Ultima Underworlds, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex, Frequency)
George Broussard - 3D Realms (Duke Nukem, Max Payne, Max Payne 2)
Ron Gilbert - Hulabee Entertainment (Creator of SCUMM. Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, Total Annihilation)
 
D

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
William Crowther & Don Woods - Adventure (http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html)

I think the MIT guys who did all the Zork stuff should get heavy credit, too...

How about Chris Crawford? Worked at Atari and is now a writer on the industry (from a historical/educational perspective).

Mention Ken and Roberta Williams... you have to have both.
 
D

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
Shigeru Miyamoto, Gunpei Yakoi, and Nolan Bushnell are probably the three most important folks in the history of game design/manufacture. Baer came first, but his stuff just didn't go anywhere...
 
element

element

Member
boutrosinit said:
He wrote the renderer on the first two and only designed the last.
Click to expand...
Well he was an outside consultant for Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank. He also was a design consultant for a EA platformer that got cancelled a couple years ago.
 
D

Date of Lies

Banned
ok, fifth update, I had some requests but I forgot them.

I'll get back to this soon.

EDIT: The guy taking over Miyamoto for mario sunshine?
 
T

TekunoRobby

Tag of Excellence
You have a very cool list Date of Lies, do you mind if you alphabetize it so others (like myself) can glance through the list and add more developers if they are absent? Thanks for this thread.
 
T

TheGreenGiant

Banned
Date of Lies said:
Fifth Update

Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo)
Gunpei Yakoi (Nintendo)
Yuji Naka (Sega)
Yu Suzuki (Sega)
Sid Meier (Firaxis)
Hironobu Sakaguchi (Squaresoft)
John Carmack (id Software)
Shinji Mikami (Capcom)
Hideo Kojima (Konami)
Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Sega)
Warren Spector (Ion Storm)
John Romero (Id Software)
Eiji Aonuma (Nintendo)
Toshiro Nagoshi (Sega)
Yuji Horii (Enix)
TetsuyaNomura (Square Enix)
Richard Gariott (Ultima series)
Trip Hawkins (Electronic Arts and 3DO)
Roberta Williams (Sierra)
Al Lowe (Sierra)
Steve Jobs (Atari/Apple Computer)
Koji Igarashi (Konami)
Click to expand...

Those are the games/names that mean anything at all to me.
 
element

element

Member
TheGreenGiant, if you are going to have Warren Spector on there, you have to have Doug Church. He is just as resonsible for all the great games that LGS and Ion Storm did.

Doug kicks ass.

Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer (ex-Lucas Arts)
Click to expand...
I love Tim, but Tim isn't close to Ron. Ron rocks.
 
K

Keio

For a Finer World
The Russian guy who designed Tetris. This man is a genius.
Click to expand...

Alexei Pajitnov.

Underdogs.org said:
Although the name Alexei Pajitnov may not be well-known, his creation Tetris has infected millions of computers and since its release in 1986 has attracted millions of Tetris addicts worldwide. That the game so simple in concept and primitive in presentation was able to convert many non-gamers to instant addicts speaks highly of Pajitnov's creative mind. Less known, however, are dozens of other puzzle games he created at a rate of approximatedly one per year since Tetris for publisher Spectrum Holobyte and, most recently, Microsoft.
Click to expand...

http://old.the-underdogs.org/Pajitnov.htm
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I love Tim, but Tim isn't close to Ron. Ron rocks.
Click to expand...
Tim also rocks :p

I love them both equally for creating two of my most beloved adventures ever, Monkey Island and the sheer awesomeness called Grim Fandango. Steve Purcell also deserves a well placed stand on that list for Sam & Max.
 
T

TheGreenGiant

Banned
element said:
TheGreenGiant, if you are going to have Warren Spector on there, you have to have Doug Church. He is just as resonsible for all the great games that LGS and Ion Storm did..
Click to expand...

Not for that. For his roles in the Ultima series. See: Garriot. I hate FPS.
 
U

User 406

Banned
1058001924-00.jpg


David Braben and Ian Bell

2082118384.jpg


As shown (Paul also worked on Mail Order Monsters, and more recently Unholy War, an Archon type game for PSX)
 
D

Date of Lies

Banned
now in alphabetical order

Keep the names coming, but I'm going on vacation for a month and a half so I wont be able to update but if one of you wants to, copy/paste the list in their next post and update acordingly.
 
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