The big names in gaming

[Karimi]

Who are the people that have shaped and will shape the future of gaming? Our spielbergs/our tolkiens/etc.

So far I've got :

Richard Garriott

Tim Schafer

Ron Gilbert

Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final fantasy)

John Romero

Hideo Kojima

Peter Molyneux

Sid Meier

Will Wright

Warren Spector

Chris Remo

The Bioware guys (Ray M and Greg Z)

Feargus Urquhart

Michel Ancel (Beyond Good and Evil)

American McGee

John Carmack

People im tempted to add :

The guy who designed Indiana Jones and the fate of atlantis

Gary Gygax

The God of War designer

Bill Roper

On a side note I'd like to see an Idle Thumbs article about these people.

[Marek]

Hmmm.

Since "will shape the future of gaming" is one of your criteria, I would remove John Romero and even John Carmack. I know that's blasphemy to some, but I really don't think Carmack has had a great influence on game development in recent years.

I'd add Raph Koster, Gabe Newell and Fumito Ueda. Goichi Suda (Killer7 and Contact) and Atsushi Inaba (Viewtiful Joe, Okami) are worth keeping an eye on. I also thought Brian Reynolds might belong in that list, but I'm not too sure.

Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein (Fate of Atlantis) definitely do not.

[BigJKO]

How about Shigeru Myamoto?

[Marek]

Yeah who is that guy. Didn't he design Burnout Revenge?

[Nick]

Yuji Naka ?

[Moosferatu]

I might give the nod to Feargus, but I get the sinking feeling they're not going to do anything as brilliant as the Fallouts or Planescape anymore. Have to wait and see what Obsidian's first original IP game will be.

He didn't do Planescape anyway. That was Chris Avellone.

[Karimi]

Ok

Miyamoto is definately someone I must add. I guess I'll add Gabe as well.

I will remove Romero but keep Carmack since he is still involved to some extent in gaming and is definately a major persona in the industry.

[BigJKO]

Miyamoto is definately someone I must add.

Because he wasn't already added..

*loses temper*

ARRGH!

[elmuerte]

Frederick Raynal

Tom Hall

Both are on their return.

As for John Carmack, he might be a great programmer, but never really designed a game. John Romero... well... It was still mostly Tom Hall that made the games a success Romero worked on. Romero's own brain childs (Daikatana) wasn't that great, it wasn't terrible either, it just had very very very very bad PR.

[Moosferatu]

True, but I was thinking about him as the head of Obsidian and whether he'd even allow a game like Planescape to be made there.

I don't remember where, but I recall words being said to that effect.

ah, I didn't read what you said carefully enough. Yeah, it'll be nice when Obsidian stops being Bioware's bitch and makes an original game for themselves.

[Marek]

What is Tom Hall doing now that made you say that?

[Karimi]

Hmm , I had Feargus mainly because of Fallout,Planescape,and Bioware's role in shaping Rpgs. I've heard about Chris Avellone but not enough to add him, should I add him, forget him, or put him in Feargus' place?

[Moosferatu]

Hmm , I had Feargus mainly because of Fallout,Planescape,and Bioware's role in shaping Rpgs. I've heard about Chris Avellone but not enough to add him, should I add him, forget him, or put him in Feargus' place?

I don't know, but if I remember correctly he had some good stuff to say in this article.

[elmuerte]

What is Tom Hall doing now that made you say that?

Well... he's working on a game again, an MMOG at KingsIsle Ent. : http://www.kingsisle.com/index.html (hmm, they have a new website and they finally list names, liked the previous design more.).

After the monkeystone adventure he wasn't really creating games anymore, "reative Director over Third Party Products". And according to this article in the escapist he's working on a Anachronox-like MMOG.

[Salka]

Eric Chahi will return and shape the world in his image!

[Ben]

Yu Suzuki

Tetsuya Mizuguchi

Some other people not japanese and already mentioned.

[nsps]

So, to clarify: To qualify, a designer has to still be alive and working, right?

Maybe there should be a different thread devoted to people who are deceased and/or no longer working in gaming or haven't contributed anything new in recent years (Dan/Dani Bunten, for example).

[elmuerte]

How about Roberta Williams? and Al Lowe

[Erik]

I'm thinking about Clayton Kauzlaric.

I didn't know his face or even his name until I met him last week, but I knew of his work on the Total Annihilation franchise.

I had to "brief" him about what you can do in RTSs nowadays, a genre he doesn't have the time to play anymore although he contributed to it so much in the past.

Clever and funny talk we had, a big name in the industry for sure.

Now he's still associated with Ron Gilbert and they're onto something...

[hermes]

Jordan Mechner (for gods sake)..

You might say he isn't in the category as he is currently not working with games, but watch this table of his awesome innovativeness in relation to time:

Karateka - 1986

Prince of Persia - 1989

The Last Express - 1997

Prince of Persia TSOT - 2003

So he innovates gameplay averagely every 6 years. So I predict that in 2009 he will do it again!

I think he belongs here.

[SiN]

As for John Carmack, he might be a great programmer, but never really designed a game.

In recent years Carmack designed exactly one game : Quake 3 Arena.

THAT'S what happens when you let Carmack design a game ... it creates a revolution. Q3A was the first arena based DM game, and the first game that was a purely multiplayer affair.

Carmack is reponsible for much of what GPU's have become today, and the likes of nVidia and ATi come to him for answers on what should be done with graphics next.

Disappointingly, the Doom3 engine didn't take off quite as well as his previous engines (which in effect, allowed some of the greatest games to be created) but he is certainly still a huge force in the gaming industry

SiN

[n0wak]

Yu Suzuki

Tetsuya Mizuguchi

I'm surprised it took so long before these two were mentioned.

Also,

Shinji Mikami

Masahiro Sakurai (HAL Laboratories... worked with Mizuguchi on Meteos)

Alexey Pazhitnov (Tetris guy, apparently designed Hexic HD ?)

and lastly, but most importantly, Gunpei Yokoi.

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_designers

Kenta Cho (or do non-commercial guys not count?)

[n0wak]

Hey man, I did mention Mizuguchi.

Ok, well, I did say those TWO. At once.

But yeah, I missed that.

[Dingo Chavez]

Some other people that I don't see mentioned:

Takashi Tezuka

Eiji Aonuma

Shigesato Itoi - Mother 3 is coming. It's his comeback, people!

Mitsuhiro Takano, Hajime Takahashi - The script and event planners in the Wind Waker. They were rumored to be directing Twilight Princess when it was first shown, so there's definitely some potential in those two.

Kenji Kaido

Dave Grossman

And if Loco Roco ends up being as good as it looks, the heads behind should be added.

[n0wak]

And if Loco Roco ends up being as good as it looks, the heads behind should be added.

Then you might as well add the Chronic Logic people too