Top Game Creators

Among the PC RPG crowd, few developers carry the kind of weight (not to mention tongue twisting monikers) of Feargus Urquhart. Then again, presiding over one of the most successful and consistent western RPG dev houses in the industry will do that for a guy, which is probably why Interplay's Black Isle Studios is still spoken of with the kind of hushed reverence hardly offered to other developers past or present.

Much of it was the perfect storm of timing, talent and momentum, a surge that started with the original Fallout and its sequel, then progressed -- in remarkably rapid-fire succession -- through games like Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate series (developed by BioWare under the guidance of Black Isle). It was Urquhart's leadership role (and an actual Black Isle in his native Scotland) that held the entire process together, melding in-house talent with what would become the tireless BioWare hit-making factory.

When Interplay began to hit the skids in the early part of the 21st century, Urquhart, already a bit leaner after some of the Fallout team left a few years earlier to form Troika Games, struck out and formed Obsidian Entertainment in 2003 with some other Black Isle alum. In an interesting flip from the Black Isle days where BioWare was the external developer, Obsidian's first game was actually a continuation of BioWare's own Knights of the Old Republic franchise, with Urquhart at the helm of day-to-day operations, a role he continues to this day.

In May of 2002, Satoru Iwata became Nintendo Co., Ltd.'s fourth president since the company's founding by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889. That's quite the accomplishment -- but if you rewind a bit, you'd see that Iwata got his start working for HAL Laboratories. An important contributor to the Kirby games with Masahiro Sakurai, and eventual HAL president, Iwata played key roles in the development of some of Nintendo's most important games.

During the GameCube-era in particular, Iwata's involvement with game development greatly increased. He oversaw work on games such as Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker among many others. Under Iwata's leadership, Nintendo developments shifted focus away from what other companies were doing to opt for a simpler, more accessible game for the masses.

While these ideas earned Iwata criticism, it's hard to argue with the facts years after his vision began -- During the run of the GameCube Nintendo saw over a 40 percent increase in sales, while the Nintendo DS built an army of followers with games inspired by Iwata's ideals. Moreover, the Wii is immensely popular, selling millions upon millions of systems worldwide to become the most fashionable console this generation. You can trace these successes all the way back to Iwata's earliest contributions with Nintendo gaming -- Earthbound, Adventures of Lolo, and Pokémon were all about fun, appeal and simplicity over an abundance of bells and whistles.

When it comes to videogame scores, few composers in the industry manage to capture emotions of like Jeremy Soule. The award-winning composer has created memorable soundtracks for well over a decade and has been called the "Hans Zimmer of videogames."

As a composer for film in addition to software, Soule is adept at adapting scores for licensed titles, expanding upon them in ways that weren't previously done. His work on the Harry Potter series and Star Wars games, as well as children's franchises like Rugrats and Beauty and the Beast, highlight his versatility and have earned him praise from the likes of BAFTA. But his real strengths lie in huge symphonic productions for battle sequences and medieval-themed games -- as showcased in the multiple Elder Scrolls, Warhammer, and Guild Wars titles in his credits.

Soule's scores range from haunting and mystical to triumphant. In 2006, he won numerous awards for his work on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, arguably his most recognizable score. Soule pours a lot of himself into his pieces, working off real-life events to inject emotion into every soundtrack he composes. His score for Oblivion and Prey were played during the international Play Symphony tour that toured across Europe, North America, and Asia. Soule has contributed to the idea that videogames are an art form and his compositions seem to get better with every project.

Prior to designing some of the most recognizable and iconic characters in all of gaming, Tetsuya Nomura started off in vocational school, creating art for magazine advertisements. In 1991 he was hired by SquareSoft to work on the battle graphics for Final Fantasy V's monsters. Following his work on FFV, the young Nomura was appointed graphic director for Final Fantasy VI, a title that earned critical acclaim and is considered one of the best games in the Final Fantasy franchise to this day.

Nomura's big break came when he was chosen as the character designer for Final Fantasy VII. However, his involvement in the project was not limited to character design; Nomura created storyboards for many of the summon sequences and even had an influence in some of the key points in the story. When the game was finally released, his distinctive-looking characters caught the attention of gamers the world over and helped push the already-successful series in a new visual direction. From there he would go on to design the characters for Brave Fencer Musashi, Ergheiz, and Parasite Eve while working closely with Yoshinori Kitase on Final Fantasy VIII, where he was not only the character designer, but also the battle visual director, designing sequences for Limit Breaks and Guardian Force summons.

In 2000, Nomura designed characters for Square's first major releases on the PlayStation 2 platform: the Bouncer and Final Fantasy X. Shortly thereafter, he began work on Kingdom Hearts, not only as the game's character designer, but also as its director. The end result was well-received, and Nomura continued on in the same role for the following installments in the KH series -- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II.

Today, Nomura continues working for Square Enix as a director and character designer, lending his contemporary style to such projects as Final Fantasy XIII and Dissidia Final Fantasy.

As a child, Tetsuya Mizuguchi had no aspirations to work in the gaming industry. It wasn't until his years spent at Nihon University's Faculty of Arts that he began to look at gaming in a different way.

Mizuguchi's influential career began in 1990, when he joined SEGA. By designing the 1995 arcade racer SEGA Rally Championship, Mizuguchi brought rally-style racing and different driving surfaces to the masses, pleasing racing fans and putting his name on the development map.

Mizuguchi's superiors at SEGA were pleased with his work, and asked him to design a game with a broad enough appeal to draw in casual female gamers (while still appealing to more traditional gamers, too, of course). This request, coupled with Mizuguchi's love of music ultimately led to the 1999 Dreamcast hit Space Channel 5, a music game that required players to memorize dance steps and repeat them back in a Pelmanism-style fashion.

Following Space Channel 5's positive reception, Mizuguchi went to work on the music-driven PlayStation 2 shooter Rez. Although the game garnered a positive critical response, commercial attention in the United States was pretty low.

In 2003, Mizuguchi left SEGA, saying that, "Games are a very unique medium. They exist beyond language, beyond culture, and people are fascinated by games. I don't know how long I will live, but I want to learn more about games -- and there is more to learn about creating better games." He went on to form Q Entertainment, which is now known for its successful music-oriented puzzler Lumines, the DS puzzler Meteos, the Xbox 360 hack and slash adventure Ninety-Nine Nights, and the psychedelic PSP shooter Every Extend Extra.

Mizuguchi's most recent console release, Every Extend Extra Extreme (or E4) was released on the Xbox 360 via its Xbox Live service, bringing an enhanced version of the original 2005 PSP release to a wider audience.

Back in the days when adventure games were at their peak, LucasArts made some of the best around. And, in turn, Ron Gilbert made some of the best LucasArts had to offer.

The creative genius behind Maniac Mansion, Gilbert not only made interesting adventure games that are considered genre classics, but he also developed a script system that became the standard for LucasArts adventure games. The Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, better known as SCUMM, made development and porting of adventure games simpler and faster. After Maniac Mansion, Gilbert went on to develop the first two games in the Monkey Island series. The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge both hold up even today as fantastic storytelling examples. They're funny and engaging, with interesting puzzles and memorable characters. The lead, Guybrush Threepwood is a lovably pathetic chap and someone that everyone should meet at least once before their gaming days are over.

After Gilbert left LucasArts he co-founded Humongous Entertainment, a company focusing primarily on kid's software. There he developed adventure titles for a younger audience, like Pajama Sam, as well as the popular Backyard Sports series which included average kids playing with younger versions of professional athletes. Gilbert's other company, Cavedog Entertainment, was short-lived, but he used his time wisely to produce Chris Taylor's Total Annihilation -- one of the greatest RTS games of all time. Most recently, Gilbert tamed up with Hothead Games to help make Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness for Xbox Live and is currently working on his new original property and episodic adventure, DeathSpank.

As an alum of Black Isle Studios, Chris Avellone is one of a select few people who command almost universal adoration from the hardcore PC RPG crowd thanks to penning and designing large portions of games like the Baldur's Gate series (including the first console version, the decidedly more action-driven Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance), Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and its expansions, Neverwinter Nights and perhaps most famously Fallout 2 (which caused a bit of a stir among the Fallout faithful when Bethesda said it was moving closer to the original Fallout's setting and tone), as well as extensive work on the Interplay version of Fallout 3, then code-named Van Buren.

So revered was Avellone's work on Fallout 2 that his Fallout Bible has become the de facto standard for insights into the game's (and series') history, mythology, facts, timelines, development decisions and secrets (among other things), leading to the verbose scribe and game designer's talents being in very high demand indeed.

When Black Isle Studios folded along with the rest of Interplay -- or more specifically when head honcho Feargus Urquhart left -- Avellone followed suit. He wasn't out of work for long; a handful of other BIS mainstays (including Chris Parker, Chris Jones, Darren Monahan and Urquhart) founded Obsidian Entertainment in Irvine, California (keeping with the Orange County setting of Interplay), and have since worked on Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Knights II and the upcoming spy RPG Alpha Protocol for SEGA.

Back in 1985, Louis Castle founded Westwood Studios with his friend Brent Sperry. The duo were always developers of hardcore games, even during their run on a number of Disney titles (Did you play The Lion King for the Genesis? It will kick your ass!). But in 1995 Castle put Westwood on the map with one of the RTS godfathers, Command & Conquer.

Although not the first real-time strategy game, Command & Conquer popularized the genre in tandem with Warcraft during a time when most strategy games used turn-based hex grids and medieval fantasy themes. Adapting its formula from Dune II (considered the blueprint of the modern RTS), Westwood made a complex and addictive strategy opus set in an alternate Earth where factions fight over the precious mineral Tiberium. The game's huge success and numerous awards raised the bar for PC strategy ventures with concepts that still have a foothold today.

When Westwood was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1998, Castle came along for the ride and continued to improve on the popular strategy series. To date, there are more than a dozen Command & Conquer titles in all, spanning nearly every major console and handheld. Don't forget as well, that Command & Conquer was also one of the first real-time strategy games to offer multifaceted competitive online play -- which, as any fan of the genre can tell you, is where the game (and its spin-off series, Red Alert) truly excels. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat is even more satisfying when your opponent is a real person, and without Command & Conquer and Castle's contributions, it may have taken a lot longer for gamers to accept.

World-renowned artist Yoshitaka Amano has been making the Final Fantasy series beautiful for over two decades. His career began at the early age of 16, when he landed a job at Tatsunoku Productions where he was involved in the early anime movement. While working on anime character designs, Amano studied several different styles of illustration, ranging from early 20th century European art to the style seen in Western comic books. He left Tatsunoku Productions in 1982 and was hired to illustrate Vampire Hunter D the following year.

In 1987, Amano ventured into game design when he joined the struggling company SquareSoft to work on what was thought to be its last game, an RPG aptly titled Final Fantasy. The game achieved unprecedented success, and Amano returned as the character designer and illustrator for the next five games in the franchise. Beginning with Final Fantasy VII, the younger, more contemporary Tetsuya Nomura took over the character designs for the landmark series, while Amano continued in his role as illustrator, providing promotional artwork as well as his own impressions of Nomura's characters. He returned once more to design the cast of Final Fantasy IX.

Amano's immediately recognizable style continued to gain worldwide attention and inspire a new generation of artists. In addition to his contributions outside of videogames, including stints on Gaiman's The Sandman, a Vampire Hunter D animated feature, and a couple of Marvel Comics projects, Amano continued to plug away at even more gaming ventures -- Final Fantasies X through XII and El Dorado's Gate among them.

Yoshitaka Amano will continue to act as the title logo designer and image illustrator of the Final Fantasy series, and has been approached by Hironobu Sakaguchi to provide artwork for various titles for his company, Mistwalker.

While Tom Clancy gets his name on all of the games based on his licenses, people like Mathieu Ferland are the brains behind some of the best interactive action experiences of today.

Amazingly, Ferland first made his mark at Ubisoft working on the Donald Duck-licensed platformer "Goin' Quackers" before moving on to multiple Tom Clancy franchises a year later. Though Mathieu has produced a handful of Rainbow Six titles, it's Splinter Cell that emerged as the perfect vehicle for Ferland's talents.

As the producer for every major Splinter Cell game, Ferland has consistently delivered the industry's greatest stealth hero since Metal Gear's Solid Snake. Among the most ingenious action series out there, Splinter Cell has built a dynasty on its equally satisfying single- and multiplayer modes, smart writing and incredible atmosphere and gadgetry. Thanks to Ferland's guidance, several titles in the series have won multiple awards -- including a few Game of the Year honors -- since its inception seven years ago. It's a great testimony to the quality of the brand.

Ferland continued his legacy with Assassin's Creed in 2007, and despite mixed reactions from the gaming press, the slick-looking platformer did huge sales numbers and offered some truly fantastic concepts and ideas that have already influenced other top notch games in multiple genres (Prince of Persia anyone?).

It will certainly be interesting to see how Ferland will wow us next.

Best known for his creation of the insanely popular Dragon Ball Manga series, Akira Toriyama's unique illustrative style has powered some of the most important videogame RPG franchises since the 1980s.

Following up on the success of his blockbuster comic, Toriyama was hired as the character and monster designer for Enix's now-legendary Dragon Quest line of videogames more than two decades ago. The combination of Toriyama's artistic prowess and Yuji Horii's scenario designs was a winning formula -- producing what has now become one of the best-selling gaming IPs ever in Japan.

In 1994, Toriyama and Horii teamed up with Hironobu Sakaguchi (the man behind the wildly successful Final Fantasy franchise) for what was hailed as Toriyama's best designs since Dragon Ball. The project? The critically acclaimed Chrono Trigger, which is still considered not only one of the best RPGs of all-time, but also one of the greatest games ever made. Toriyama's work on CT not only gave the game its own distinctive look, but it also introduced gamers to what would be the first of many spiky-haired, sword-wielding protagonists to come.

Following Chrono Trigger, Toriyama oversaw the artistic design of the combatants for the somewhat-obscure Square fighter Tobal No. 1, as well as its cult favorite sequel, Tobal 2 (which never saw a US release) while also continuing his work on Dragon Quest. In 2007, Blue Dragon was released on the Xbox 360 console, and once again, the world took notice of Toriyama's distinct visual approach. Blue Dragon's release reaffirmed Toriyama's position as one of the best videogame artists on the planet, and may have also helped to set a record for Akira-san, who probably has an association with more original franchises with the word "dragon" in it than anyone else.

As the Creative Director for Criterion Games, Alex Ward is uniquely responsible for the company's entire conceptual direction. Considering Criterion's games division was born as much out of a desire to sell its own in-house RenderWare Engine as it was to actually make games, we'd say he's done rather well for himself in a relatively short period of time. Not bad for a guy who graduated from college with a Psychology degree, but then the games industry is nothing if not filled with people who have decidedly un-game-related majors.

Even with a degree, Ward's start in the industry wasn't particularly glamorous: QA for UK-based developer US Gold (which later was folded into Eidos Interactive), and helpdesk call jockey for Acclaim Entertainment (eventually notching public relations and product research titles in the company's UK office). Acclaim would go on to publish the first and second Burnout games before ultimately collapsing, at which point Ward jumped over to Criterion proper. Burnout's blend of daredevil racing and twitchy arcade tendencies lent itself to Ward's first non-racing game for Criterion, Black.

The game, dubbed "gun porn" by Criterion, had its story and screenplay penned by Ward (among others), and he served as one of the game's executive producers. He's continued to guide the company's future releases, including Burnout's move to an open world racer in Burnout Paradise, and often serves as the company spokesman when dealing with the press. From rising up the ranks from the bottom of the industry totem pole to heading up creative duties at one of the most consistently bankable developers, Alex Ward definitely deserves a spot on our list.

A veteran in the gaming industry, the outspoken David Jaffe first got his start as a tester for Sony Imagesoft before earning his design chops with the 1994 platformer Mickey Mania. After completing the well-received side-scroller, Jaffe's involvement with the fledgling Utah-based development studio SingleTrac paid off when he helped produce the original Twisted Metal on PlayStation -- one of the most influential and beloved games of the 32-bit era and the model for all future car combat games to come.

It was Twisted Metal 2, however, that catapulted Jaffe into the limelight. The game was not only met with great success by consumers, but also by critics and fellow game developers. It had done what all sequels are supposed to do -- take an already-engrossing formula and expand upon it in nearly every possible way.

After multiple buyouts and parent company changes, SingleTrac ceased to exist but was eventually reformed by many of its employees, including Jaffe, as Incognito Entertainment. With the support of his friends and colleagues, David took the reins of a number of high profile PlayStation 2 projects and hits. Twisted Metal: Black, considered by many as the best car combat game ever made was overseen by Jaffe himself, while his concepts for the innovative giant creature fighter, War of the Monsters cemented his status as a creative powerhouse.

But it was the voyages of the fallen Spartan warrior Kratos in God of War that made Jaffe a household name with game dorks. A smash blockbuster hit for Sony, God of War turned the action/adventure genre on its head with fantastic boss battles, incredible graphics and some of the most intuitive and responsive gameplay mechanics seen in years. Though Dave passed off the design duties for God of War II a few years later, he still served as creative director before turning his attention back to the driving genre where he helmed the PSN favorite, Calling All Cars.

These days Jaffe works on upcoming projects behind closed doors at Eat, Sleep, Play -- a development studio formed in conjunction with his longtime friend and ex-Incog'r, Scott Campbell. In his spare time, David regularly updates his blog "David Jaffe.biz" where he directly updates fans and admirers with his daily observations.

Satoshi Tajiri is the founder of Game Freak, and the creator of the worldwide phenomenon that is Pokémon. Need we say more?

The inspiration for Pokémon was actually a rather simple one. When Tajiri was a little kid he loved collecting insects. As the years went by and urbanization spread through even the most rural areas of Japan, Tajiri wanted to create something that would capture the excitement and fun of bug hunting. Though the game came out late in the Game Boy's life and wasn't expected to be much of a success, it quickly became one of Nintendo's biggest hits ever and spawned an entirely new universe.

The Pokémon series has grown immensely with each game using the same concept, while expanding upon it with more creatures and gameplay elements. The series won over parents with its lack of graphic violence, and became popular with everyone else because of its addictive RPG-lite game design. A fan of Shigeru Miyamoto, Tajiri has said that his developmental style bears similarities and for good reason -- he sees Miyamoto as a mentor and in the anime, the main rival characters are named Satoshi and Shigeru as homage to his point of view.

Tajiri's company GameFreak specializes almost entirely on Pokémon titles, spinning the series off into a number of different games and genres. And though Pokémon is more popular in Japan than America, Tajiri credits American audiences with understanding the concept better than his countrymen. Instead of focusing solely on Pikachu, American audiences have realized that Pokémon is a concept about partnership and so too is Tajiri's philosophy of "Game and Gamer."

The score to Halo 2 was the first videogame soundtrack to ever reach the Billboard charts. It made a statement about the validity of music in our medium and proved that Marty O'Donnell knows how to craft a memorable tune or two (or 20).

Halo 2's mix of ancient-sounding chants effectively complemented Bungie's grand science fiction universe -- not only in the second Halo but in those that have come before and since as well. After all, O'Donnell has been composing videogame music for years, after he switched to that from doing the jingle for Flintstones vitamins. Marty earned his chops as the sound designer for Riven, the sequel to Myst, and he also worked some of Bungie's earlier games, like Myth. O'Donnell joined Bungie while composing the score for Oni, and after its completion earned his role as Director of Sound Design and Voice Talent for Bungie's then-unannounced project that ultimately became Halo.

Ask anyone on the team -- O'Donnell's audio was instrumental in bringing out the themes and emotions of the games he handled. This connection came from more than just musical composition, as O'Donnell is also skilled in using sound effects and ambient sound to enhance the gameplay experience.

As any fan can tell you, O'Donnell favors the piano in his pieces, as exemplified by the popular original theme for Halo 3. His scores have been commended for their fluidity, and the soundtracks are so continuous that it's often hard to tell where one song ends and another begins. O'Donnell's work has been used in the popular Video Games Live concert tours, and he made a special arrangement of his scores to be played during the festivities. That sounds good to us.

Nick and Julian Gollop were indie devs and pubs before it was officially a movement. Through a series of self-written and -published early strategy games in their native England, the brothers built for themselves quite a following. Julian Gollop begin making games in the early '80s on a Sinclair ZX81 (a favorite jumping-off point of many of the folks on our list, actually) before eventually graduating to the Sinclair spectrum. Both bits of early hardware helped form the lessons that would allow them to enter the industry in 1982 while still attending school. Time Lords and Islandia were both birthed for BBC Mirco, then came Nebula and Rebelstar Raiders for publisher RedShift.

The time spent at RedShift was instrumental in building a strategy foundation for the Gollop's future endeavors, but it was while attending the London School of Economics in the study of economics (naturally) and sociology that Julian birthed Chaos for Games Workshop (yes, the Warhammer folks) and Rebelstar for Firebird, a budget label of larger Mirrorsoft (who were embroiled in all the Tetris licensing hoopla in the late '80s).

The success of his early titles gave Julian the gumption to form Target games with his brother Nick and set to work on Laser Squad and Lords of Chaos, the RPG-tinged sequel to the original Games Workshop title. It would be the sequel to Laser Squad, renamed X-COM: UFO Defense that would put the brothers (and their re-christened Mythos Games dev house) on the map. X-COM was a runaway success for the Gollops and publisher MicroProse.

A series of sequels followed, including a third follow-up to Chaos dubbed Magic & Mayhem and an attempt at reworking the original X-COM as a 3D title for Virgin Interactive, but the publisher was scooped up by France-based Titus and funding was cut. Mythos eventually became Codo Technologies and the Gollops have continued to ply their trade with sequels like Laser Squad Nemesis and Rebelstar: Tactical Command.

Music rhythm games are so complicated these days, what with their fake instruments and their downloadable content. Back in the day all we needed for a good rhythm game was a rapping puppy in an orange hat, and a talking onion that could teach him kung fu. And boy did Masaya Matsuura give us that!

Matsuura took a concept not yet seen in videogames, combined it with the crude, yet lovable art of Rodney Greenblat, and made PaRappa the Rapper, a memorable game about hip-hopping your way through life. The game has seen a sequel, and a spiritual successor with Um Jammer Lammy. Sure, Matsuura's PaRappa didn't invent the rhythm game, but it is largely responsible for making it popular. The style was unique, the songs were hilarious and catchy, and the ability for players to freestyle to earn more points gave it a more open gameplay experience than other rhythm efforts. The Parappa series is incredibly fun, bursting with personality and great characters.

And then there were the songs -- which were all over the place across the three games. Players rapped about making noodles, rocked out with lumberjacks, helped a giant caterpillar care for dozens of babies, and helped land a crashing plane, all through the power of music. Matsuura has gone on to do other unique classics like Vib-Ribbon and Tamagotchi Connection, and will be throwing his hat back into the music rhythm game ring once again with the upcoming Major Minor's Majestic March rather soon.

Eugene Jarvis is clearly in love with arcade games, and rightly so -- he was instrumental in helping the burgeoning arcade industry effectively give birth to the modern videogame. His tenure during the Golden Age of arcade games development is the stuff of legend, with creation or co-creation credits for classics like Defender and Blaster and Robotron: 2084 during the earliest of early days at Atari.

It didn't start that way, of course; like most early pioneers of the industry, Jarvis had another gig. Unlike most early pioneers, the pre-videogames gig (with Hewlett-Packard) lasted all of couple weeks before he got a call from the folks at Atari. Less than a month later and his Atari superiors had left, leaving Jarvis with the unenviable task of giving The Fuji's pinball division a continuous shot in the coin-op arm.

It was not to be, however, but Atari begat a chance to continue the early bit of dabbling he'd done with games when he headed to Williams. It would appear he was up to the task, going on to create the titles mentioned above, plus more modern arcade hits as Williams became Midway such as Smash TV, NARC and the Cruis'n series that kicked off with the original Cruis'n USA.

After years of creating arcade games for others, Jarvis eventually formed Raw Thrills the better part of a decade ago, pulling in a handful of his old Midway buddies to continue building original and license-based arcade games, some of which piggyback off more tried-and-true bits of gameplay such as The Fast and the Furious being patterned off the Crusin' titles.

The multi-talented Stieg Hedlund is a figure that stands out in the industry for many reasons. Toting over 20 years of experience working on games of nearly every genre, Hedlund is best known as the man behind the best-selling PC game Diablo II.

Hedlund's videogame career began in 1987, when he landed a position at Infinity Software, a small publisher that put out games for the Amiga, Macintosh, and Commodore 64. Three years later, Hedlund left Infinity to work for Japanese publisher Koei, where he was the lead designer for a handful of its titles.

Eventually, after working on an unreleased Lord of the Rings project for Electronic Arts, Hedlund went to work for SEGA Technical Institute in 1994. There he was the lead designer for Die Hard Arcade, The Ooze, Comix Zone, and the unreleased Sonic-X-treme. However, it wasn't until his move to Blizzard North (then named Condor Software) that he gained true recognition. After the release of Diablo, Hedlund became the sole designer the game's sequel, Diablo II. When it was released in 2000 it was an instant success, earning critical and commercial accolades and went on to become the second best-selling PC game of all time.

In the aftermath of Diablo II's success, Hedlund took part in the design of StarCraft and the Diablo II: Lord of Destruction expansion pack before departing from Blizzard North and joining Konami as its Creative Director. Two years later, he moved on to Ubisoft/Red Storm Entertainment, acting as the creative director on several of the Tom Clancy games, including Ghost Recon 2 and Rainbow 6: Lockdown.

The nomadic Hedlund changed companies once again in 2004, taking a position at Perpetual Entertainment as the Design Director on the ill-fated MMORPG Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising. Perpetual closed its doors in early 2008, and Hedlund founded the independent design firm Turpitude Design.

Now acting as Turpitude's Chief Creative Officer, Stieg's main goal, as stated on the Turpitude web page, is "to create awesome games that are fun, innovative, and 'sticky'." Given his impressive resume and invaluable experience in the gaming industry, there is no doubt that he will achieve that goal time and time again.

Like action/adventure games? Then send a thank you letter to Jordan Mechner because the dude pretty much invented the genre.

Back in 1989 Mechner created Prince of Persia, a platformer that combined unique puzzles, interesting traps, and impressive animations into a single cinematic package. The premise was simple enough and the game became an instant classic, being ported to nearly every major format available at the time. The influence of the Prince of Persia and its sequels can be seen in numerous platformer and action titles made ever since. It charted new territory for videogames that people hadn't previously thought of.

Later, Mechner used his already-established originality to create The Last Express, a mystery-adventure set on the Orient Express that offered unique gameplay elements like a rewind system instead of saving. It also featured digital rotoscoping technology to convert live action to animation. The game was not a financial sensation, but it did enjoy a cult following and helped popularize techniques later used for films like Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly.

When Ubisoft wanted to revive the Prince of Persia franchise they called on Mechner, who worked tirelessly to write a compelling script for the successful reboot, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. It was simple and elegant, and was the perfect spiritual successor to his original work, bringing the Prince into the current generation without feeling dated. Even though Mechner's resume isn't as packed as some of the other creators on our list, all of his games are a hell of a lot of fun, and still hold up to this day.

There are few who are as dedicated to their craft as Yasunori Mitsuda. He has pulled countless all-nighters, and worked through stomach ulcers and several other physical ailments to bring gamers some truly memorable music compositions.

Initially, Mitsuda was gearing his life towards that of a professional golfer before rekindling his childhood appreciation of music in high school (thanks to the scores of such films as Blade Runner and The Pink Panther). After graduating, he attended the Junior College of Music in Tokyo, where he gained valuable experience in and out of the classroom.

In April of 1992, after what he has referred to as a "disastrous" interview, Mitsuda was hired by SquareSoft as a sound composer, providing sound effects rather than music. In 1994, he famously gave Square's vice-president, Hironobu Sakaguchi (the man behind Final Fantasy) an ultimatum, stating that if he was not allowed to compose music, he would quit. His demand was met; Sakaguchi assigned him to work on the now-legendary Chrono Trigger under the watchful eye of veteran composer Nobuo Uematsu. After finishing Chrono Trigger, Mitsuda and Uematsu joined forces once more to work on Front Mission: Gun Hazard.

Mitsuda composed several more soundtracks for Square, and after completing the score for the 1998 RPG Xenogears, left the company to go freelance. He continued to work closely with Square, however, composing several more memorable musical tracks on such games as the PSX follow-up to Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, as well as a number of post-Square projects like Shadow Hearts I and II, Xenosaga Episode I, and Luminous Arc.

Not bad for a guy who originally wanted to hit golf balls instead of musical notes.

Like a few other people on our list, Bruce Shelley hails from the hallowed halls of MicroProse. Like fellow alums Sid Meier, he's since gone on to start his own company, but Shelley's origins couldn't have been more fitting for the career as a strategy games designer that he's made a name for himself in. Originally a co-founder at a traditional pen-and-paper RPG house, Shelley got his feet wet in crafting board games first and took those lessons learned into his starting gigs in the games industry.

In a perfect example of the cyclical nature of relationships in gaming, Shelley eventually left MicroProse, freelanced here and there and decided to hook back up with his pen-and-paper pals to form Ensemble Studios in 1995, which jumped right into all but printing cash with the Age of Empires series for Microsoft. The partnership was a long and fruitful one, with Shelley's role as Senior Game Designer helping to sculpt the direction of the developer's easy to learn/tough to master strategy concepts.

Given Shelley and Ensemble's enviable track record crafting one successful Age of Empires game (and the obvious expansions each spawned) after another, plus a turn at building a console RTS in Halo Wars, it was especially surprising to hear Microsoft had shut the dev house down, but with his knack for seemingly being able to build consistently great games, there's little doubt he'll be away from things for long.

Former Capcom employee Hideki Kamiya has brought gamers a collection of truly amazing titles throughout his flourishing career. Inspired by 8- and 16-bit classics like Xevious, Gradius, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Kamiya first gained fame as the planner for Resident Evil 1 before stepping into the role of director for the 1998 sequel; a game that is widely considered one of the best (if not the best) in the entire series thus far.

Due to Resident Evil 2's overwhelming success, it's no surprise that development on the third installment began (this time under Capcom's Production Studio 4), with Kamiya once again directing the project. A year later it was readily apparent that what he was working on had become a radical departure from what had already been established with the first two Resident Evil games. This new endeavor ultimately became the ultra-cool, ultra-stylish action/adventure Devil May Cry.

In a surprising move by Capcom, Hideaki Itsuno was appointed director on Devil May Cry 2, a decision that completely blind-sided Kamiya. Paranoid that his job at Capcom was in danger, Kamiya went on to direct the original Viewtiful Joe, which was well-received by critics and gamers alike. He migrated to Clover Studio and began working on the Japanese folklore-inspired "Game of the Year" winner (and frequent example used in the popular "games are art" debate), Okami.

Now a member of Platinum Games with other big names like Shinji Mikami, Yuta Kimura, Nao Ueda, and several others, Kamiya continues to develop cutting-edge videogames to this day. His sexually-charged actioner Bayonetta is the next project in his illustrious career, and with an approach to videogame design that involves treating each new project as though they were one of his own children, we don't expect his passion for creating unique gaming experiences to let up any time soon.

Jordan Weisman is an entrepreneurial juggernaut. He's started more companies than most people work for in their life. He's also behind the MechWarrior games, some of the highest selling and most acclaimed PC games of all time, and the franchise that's considered by many as the very definition of mech battling games. The combat mechanics and graphics were incredible for their time, and honestly the game still doesn't look bad nearly 15 years later. Oh, and Weisman is also responsible for creating the Crimson Skies series, one of the most entertaining and stylish flight combat games around.

Creating the MechWarrior and Crimson Skies series is reason enough to get on this list, but Weisman has done a hell of a lot more for flavor. He isn’t limited to the videogame industry, after all. He founded FASA Corporation, a company that makes pen-and-paper RPGs, including Battletech and Shadowrun, both of which have had numerous videogame versions. He also founded WizKids, a company that focuses on figurine games like Mage Knight, Heroclix, and its Halo spinoff version Haloclix. Weisman has also had a foray into alternate reality games, and is the mind behind the I Love Bees promo for Halo 2. He's even made an interactive novel, Cathy's Book, which sounds like, but is way cooler than, a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Weisman has had his hand in nearly every cookie jar imaginable, helping to expand the worlds and characters of videogames into unique franchises and ideas.

Takashi Tezuka is one of the most revered names in the gaming industry, and with good reason. As one of Nintendo's main designers, Tezuka has co-directed many of the company's iconic titles. Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Super Smash Bros., Pikmin, and Animal Crossing have all been touched by Tezuka in some way, shape, or form.

Tezuka's tenure at Nintendo began back in 1984 after he graduated from Osaka University of Arts' Design Department, working alongside Shigeru Miyamoto ever since. Their first title together, Devil World, was released for the Famicom at the tail end of 1984. Once complete, work on Super Mario Bros. began, with Tezuka taking the role of assistant director. The 8-bit exploit of the portly plumber was an instant success, but Tezuka and Miyamoto did not stop there. Tezuka worked on Miyamoto's next innovation, The Legend of Zelda, not only as assistant director, but also as the game's graphic designer. Subsequently, he co-directed Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 before stepping into the role of lead director on the first 16-bit Mario title, Super Mario World.

Since then, Tezuka has continued to serve as a director, producer, designer, or supervisor on all major Mario titles, up to and including New Super Mario Bros for Nintendo's handheld DS system, and the innovative Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. He has also directed The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as well as Link's Awakening, and was also an advisor/supervisor on Ocarina of Time. He produced Pikmin 2 and, more recently, the Animal Crossing series.

Tezuka's creative genius has given gamers just over two decades of incredible software. Now acting as a general manager of Nintendo's Entertainment and Analysis division along with long-time partner Miyamoto, we can be sure to enjoy more quality games from this visionary chap.

Easily one of the most enterprising folks on our list, Irish developer Dave Perry seemed to have a connection to crossover licenses from the moment he began making games professionally. He broke into the industry in his mid-teens, first pulling from, and then submitting, games to magazines in the UK as nothing but code.

It was his move to the US working for Virgin Games in 1991 that helped him understand the facets of working with pre-existing licenses, ranging from Global Gladiators (a McDonald's property) to Cool Spot (7-Up's mascot) to Aladdin (yes, the Disney one). He quickly moved into a production and managerial role, and in 1993 formed Shiny Entertainment in Laguna Beach, CA. Shiny's first game, Earthworm Jim, was ported to multiple systems, was turned into a cartoon, spawned a line of toys and helped put the company on the map.

Subsequent licensing deals and collaborations -- most notably with the Wachowskis on Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo -- continued Perry's string of crossover partnerships. Shiny was scooped up by Atari in 2002, and Perry left four years later to begin extensive consultation work, including helping the new, rebooted, Korean-owned and MMO-focused Acclaim find its footing. He currently operates something of a games consulting empire, representing industry talent, fostering fledgling indie developers and serves as an advisor for the Game Developers Conference.

Perry has long been eager to self-promote, and has set up his own self-titled domain as something of a games development portal, linking those trying to break into the industry with existing development houses and tirelessly updating visitors on the status of his myriad consultation and advisory roles.

Keiji "Inafking" Inafune is regarded as the father of Mega Man. And while he has admitted that the actual design for Mega Man was more of his mentor's work, Inafune is still considered the mastermind. Largely in part because at the age of 22, Inafune created every other character in the game, did the design sheets and artwork for the booklets, and was the person responsible for converting all the artwork designs into sprite form (a sprite set that consisted mostly of blue tones, thus the main reason Mega Man is the blue bomber).

Luckily since Capcom decided to let the team continue the Mega Man franchise even after disappointing sales of the original, Inafune got to create hundreds of other characters, including Mega Man's many successors. In fact, most of Capcom's famous faces have come from the mind of Inafune, whether directly or in concept. Inafking has worked on most of the franchise's titles, and is the creator of both the Mega Man X and Mega Man Battle Network installments.

Inafune-san is also responsible for the popular samurai adventure series, Onimusha, and is even writing the movie based upon it. More recently, Inafune has been the producer for Dead Rising and Lost Planet, two new franchises for Capcom that have been met with critical and commercial success. And even with all the games and character under his belt, Inafune will of course always be remembered as the graphic designer for Duck Tales on the NES. Score!

A pioneer in the sports game genre, Scott Orr is just as responsible for the success of the Madden Football series as Richard Hilleman is. After all, it was Orr who was brought on to help redesign the disappointing Apple II football game and it was Orr, under Hilleman's guidance, who shaped how the game would look, play and feel -- creating what then became the iconic Madden game. This is back in the day when a two-man team could do most of the work and get away with it.

Hilleman and Orr went in different directions in the EA Sports universe, but their influences and contributions continued on in all the right places. Orr remained on Madden, improving the game every year with new graphical features, smarter AI, and updated stats. The franchise stayed excellent as it moved from two dimensions into three and the sheer number of critical awards and sales numbers that stack up every year attest to that.

Though Orr's team has grown from a handful of passionate fans to an army of more than 30 developers and a dozen designers, Madden NFL hasn't lost its step and remains the best-selling videogame series in North America for a reason: passion. But Orr's ambitions didn't stop at the gridiron. ike Hilleman, Orr went on to develop numerous other EA Sports titles, including the NASCAR games and the NCAA Football and Basketball titles. EA Sports is a huge brand now, offering gamers a diverse amount of quality sports titles, and Orr helped start and maintain that trend with his work on Madden and other franchises.

Orr left EA in 2001 and went on to form his own company to make mobile phone games.

What Yu Suzuki was to SEGA's arcade business, Yuji Naka was to its home consoles. Originally hired by SEGA in the early '80s as a programmer, Naka handled most of the leadership duties for early Master System games like Spy vs. Spy, F16 Fighting Falcon and the first two Phantasy Star games. But it was his collaboration in 1991 with Hirokazu Yasuhara and Naoto Oshima on Sonic the Hedgehog that would propel him to true superstardom.

The same year, SEGA's AM8 studio changed its name to Sonic Team, and began cranking out a number of high-profile releases, including future Sonic sequels throughout the Master System/ Genesis/ Saturn/ Dreamcast days. For years, Nintendo's designers were challenged by Naka's highly competitive interpretation of genres the Big N had previously dominated, and by a number of reinventions of the Sonic character that took him into worlds beyond the standard platformer.

It could (and has been) argued that without Naka's many contributions to the creation and continuation of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, that SEGA would be a much different company than it is today.

Further hits like Burning Rangers and NiGHTS Into Dreams for the Saturn and Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast continued Naka's legacy, but in early 2006, Yuji-san left to create his own studio dubbed Prope (pronounced "pro-peh" from the Latin term for "near" or "beside"). Naka's new studio is partly funded by SEGA, who has automatic first publishing rights which it has exercised with Prope's first projects -- the acclaimed Wii-exclusive rhythm title Let's Tap and the virtual "catch simulator" appropriately named Let's Catch.

Earlier this year, Naka told us in a one-on-one interview that "Being the father of Sonic and being involved with him for 15 years [leaves me] very attached and fond of him still."

The same could be said of how the games industry feels about Mr. Naka's contributions to our craft.

Regarded by some as the current mastermind of real-time graphics, and the counterpart to id Software's John Carmack, graphics guru Tim Sweeney has had a gargantuan impact on the gaming world. Beginning with the creation of Epic Games (then called Epic MegaGames) in 1991, Tim Sweeney changed the face of videogames forever.

Aside from designing and programming games such as ZZT and Jill of the Jungle in the early 90's, Sweeney wrote the original Unreal Engine for use in the first-person shooter Unreal. This landmark introduced breakthrough technologies that included dynamic colored lighting, volumetric fog, and real-time 3D level-building tools. Consequently it became the basis of games across the PC platform and multiple videogame consoles.

Sweeney has gone on to direct Epic's engine development through the current generation of gaming, where Unreal Engine 3 has garnered the support of many of the gaming industry's heavy-hitting companies (Atari, Capcom, Konami, and Square-Enix to name a few) and is now powering everything from the tactical shooters Gears of War 2 and Rainbow Six 6 Vegas to the turn-based RPG Lost Odyssey.

In a 2008 interview with Team Xbox, Sweeney discussed his plans for UE3 and UE4, saying, "Unreal Engine 3 will last throughout this whole console cycle. I expect that youll see games shipping with Unreal Engine 3 in 2011, 2012 and may be even a year after that... For games that begin shipping in 2012, well have Unreal Engine 4, whatever that is, with a major new architecture and major new feature set, and there youll see significant changes..."

Whatever those significant changes are, we can only imagine. However, thanks to Tim Sweeney's extraordinary contributions, we know that those changes will continue to revolutionize the look of games for years to come.

Known in several circles as the "John Williams of videogame music," Nobuo Uematsu is widely considered one of the best composers in gaming history. A self-taught musician, Uematsu-san began working for SquareSoft in 1985, when an acquaintance (and part-time Square employee) offered him a job creating music for the game known as Genesis. His work on the score was good enough to land him a full-time position as part of Square's composing team, where he scored several games for the NES and Famicom Disc Systems while working part-time at a music rental store. In 1987, he met Hironobu Sakaguchi and agreed to compose the music for a game that would either make or break the entire company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy; that game was Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy's soundtrack gained attention for its distinctive melodies and unique style. Following the game's success, Square hired Uematsu-san as the composer for the next installment in the franchise. He remained in that position for over a decade, writing the music for the IP's first ten titles. In addition to his many Final Fantasies, he also composed tracks in Chrono Trigger, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, and even Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Uematsu's music has had a massive impact on videogame soundtracks. His love ballad for Final Fantasy VIII, titled Eyes on Me and sung by Chinese pop star Faye Wong, became a hit outside of the gaming community, taking home the "Song of the Year (Western Music)" award at the 14th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards in 1999. In 2001, Uematsu-san was named as an innovator in Time Magazine's Time 100: The Next Wave - Music feature, and his composition "Theme of Love" from Final Fantasy IV was used in a Japanese piano music book intended for grade school students.

In 2004, Uematsu-san left Square-Enix and formed his own company, Smile Please. He continues to compose music for Square-Enix as a freelancer, as well as for Hironobu Sakaguchi's company, Mistwalker.

Long before World of Warcraft redefined the definition of "popular" among massively multiplayer online role-playing games, yet far enough removed from early efforts like Meridian 59 or The Realm or even Ultima Online, there was EverQuest. McQuaid and Smedley happened to be at the center of what would be a perfect storm for the then-budding MMO scene. When EverQuest essentially put the barely-formed (or at least named) Verant Interactive on the map, only to have the fairly new Sony Online Entertainment happily gobble them up, it was McQuaid who would guide things (at least for a time) as Chief Creative Officer with Smedley serving as head of the studio.

EverQuest's success at the hands of both men is undeniable, but in 2002 they parted ways with McQuaid forming Sigil Studios to work on Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, while Smedley stayed on with SOE where he continues to oversee Sony's MMO-based business to this day. Though Vanguard was to be originally published by Microsoft, eventually Sigil bought back the rights and re-negotiated a deal a bit closer to home by having SOE publish the game, effectively reuniting Smedley and McQuaid for a time. Neither Sony Online Entertainment nor Sigil Studios have managed to recapture the attention and success of the early days of the original EverQuest, though SOE under Smedley has shipped a number of massively multiplayer online games since.

Whatever modern-day results may come, the partnership between John Smedley and Brad McQuaid did, in a very real sense, pave the way for future MMOs, making them genuine figureheads of what is now a billion dollar business.

If you're going to put in the hard hours at a company, the list of prospects better than Blizzard Entertainment isn't terribly long. Some might even say the house that Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo built is at the top of that list, which probably explains why Bill Roper has spent so much of his career there building those aforementioned titles -- in particular the latter one as part of the Blizzard North team. Roper's extensive history, not surprisingly, shares a very common theme of role-playing games, but then that's always been Blizzard's bread and butter.

After handling a myriad of audio duties ranging from composition to voice work on some of Blizzard's earliest titles, Roper quickly began to wear quite a few hats, ranging from scriptwriting to manual design to, eventually, a production and oversight role with subsequent entries in Blizzard's flagship series. Fittingly, when he left the company to start his own, christening it Flagship Studios (which would only release Hellgate: London before closing its doors), most of the RPG experience would come to be something of an asset. Even after Flagship was shut down, Roper quickly found a home at Cryptic Studios working on Champions Online, and plying much of his considerable experience with the genre into future products.

Oft times serving as a figurehead and company spokesperson in addition to his normal development duties, Roper continues to be a public face for the products he works on. Given his humble beginnings at a (then) smallish dev house with a chilly name, that's not a bad way to make a living.

As the original creator of Grand Theft Auto (a game he'd originally dubbed Race-n-Chase before the Houser brothers opted to give it an arguably more fitting name), David Jones can be quite easily credited with providing one of the biggest franchises in videogame history with a core tenet.

After scooting through his first year of collegiate coursework in his native Scotland, Jones decided to use his free time to begin building games, channeling the lessons learned in school into what would eventually become Lemmings for then-independent publisher Psygnosis (which would later be gobbled back up by Sony). Whipping up Direct Mind Access Design as a development house in 1989, he began cranking out a number of titles for the publisher, but it wasn't until he pitched what would eventually become the first GTA that he struck gold.

Though he left DMA Design about 10 years after forming it and just before GTA2 shipped, selling it to Gremlin Interactive (which was in turn bought by Infogrames) in the process, Jones hasn't really been hurting for ideas. He joined Rage Software as Studio Manager until Rage folded, then created Realtime Worlds in 2002 and quickly went to work fleshing out his own ideas for an open world playground that eventually became Crackdown, earning it a rather prestigious Best Debut Award at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards. His next title, All Points Bulletin, looks to take many of those early sandbox concepts online, though the release of the game has slipped a few times and the only confirmed platform as of now is the PC.

Though he cut his teeth on Hardball II and Test Drive 2 for Accolade, it's safe to say that Chris Taylor already made a name for himself by the time he'd started work on his fourth game, Total Annihilation: a real-time strategy game that used undulating terrain more than sheer troop numbers to help determine strategy. It was the first game for the then-fledgling development house Cavedog and the only series it would release before eventually folding about five years after being founded.

Two years prior, Taylor left Cavedog and founded his own company, Gas Powered Games, setting to work on a slightly different kind of game (at least at first): a top-down dungeon crawler dubbed Dungeon Siege. It was quickly picked up by Microsoft, which would go on to publish the expansion and sequel. But it wasn't until 2007 that Taylor would return to the genre that helped him gain notoriety with Supreme Commander.

By the time a proper successor to Dungeon Siege had been released in the form of Space Siege for publisher SEGA, Taylor had moved into an overseeing position and continues to lead the direction of Gas Powered Games to this day. The Impact of Total Annihilation was significant, as it was not only in 3D -- still a foreign concept to other RTS games at the time -- but also approached the strategy of unit attacks and abilities with the 3D visuals taken into account as well.

For more than 10 years now, Eiji Aonuma has lived and breathed The Legend of Zelda. He joined Nintendo in the late '90s and quickly set to work on one of Nintendo's most loved franchises -- an unenviable task considering the series was one of Shigeru Miyamoto's earliest breakout hits and one that Miyamoto himself had been overseeing for three generations of hardware.

When The Legend of Zelda moved to the N64 and Miyamoto's role at Nintendo began to shift from core game development to more of a production and company-wide navigation, the task fell to Aonuma to keep the series afloat. To compound things, Link was finally moving from 2D to 3D, which brought with it a host of newfound difficulties. Aonuma soldiered on and delivered what many believe to be one of the best games ever with Ocarina of Time.

Majora's Mask followed, and the series eventually graduated to the GameCube with Wind Waker, but Aonuma actually got a chance to head back to the beginning when the Zelda Collector's Edition was rolled out to help cap off The Wind Waker's then-next-gen release. That return to the old-school 16-bit Zeldas would eventually feed into The Minish Cap on the GBA (and later, the lessons learned in The Wind Waker would fuel the DS continuation, Phantom Hourglass, even if the gameplay is both old-school and updated for the touch screen).

Aonuma's experience as producer and director on Four Swords Adventures and Twilight Princess only helped to reinforce the breadth of his experience with the franchise's different gameplay styles over the years.

Though it's not entirely fair to call Harvey Smith an understudy of Warren Spector, the two shared very similar paths for a good chunk of Smith's career, starting with a handful of games at Origin Systems like System Shock (where Smith started on documentation) continuing on through Cybermage (where he began to take on more of a storyteller's role) and culminating in his role as lead designer for the original Deus Ex at Ion Storm.

By the time Deus Ex's sequel was under way, Smith had built up a considerable amount of experience. With the blessing of Spector, Smith took the helm of the series, though the shift to include console versions at the same time as the PC served as the crux of the game's criticism, damaging Smith's pedigree as a purveyor of deeply immersive, imaginative adventures. Smith's role on the far more warmly-received Thief: Deadly Shadows helped patch this up, though he didn't have nearly as large a role as Invisible War despite the games sharing a mutual engine.

When Ion Storm finally went belly-up, Smith moved to Midway to helm a more story-driven version of the coin-op light gun shooter Area 51. Dubbed Blacksite, a none-too-thinly-veiled jab at some of the more clandestine actions our military was taking overseas at the time, the shooter failed to capture critics' adoration quite as universally as some of his earlier work. Smith eventually left shortly thereafter, and has yet to resurface publicly at another development house.

In the meantime, he's continued to update his own personal blog, Witchboy.net, where he continues to voice his opinions on and contribute to a wide variety of industry gatherings and discourse in addition to chiming in on various other bits of entertainment.

Brian Reynolds may not be as synonymous with development house Firaxis as fellow co-founder Sid Meier, but he's been every bit as instrumental in the success of their games, including franchises like Civilization and Alpha Centauri. Although Meier, Reynolds and Jeff Briggs all left MicroProse in the mid-90s for Firaxis, Reynolds and Briggs never quite achieved the same kind of name recognition as Meier, due in no small part to Meier's name being plastered over just about everything that comes out of the Maryland-based developer.

Given his degrees in European History and Philosophy, it makes more than a little sense that Reynolds would gravitate toward strategy games -- particularly the kind that Sid Meier was making a name for himself in. While at MicroProse (and then later at Firaxis), Reynolds studied under Meier and eventually began heading up full-blown sequels featuring key advancements in AI -- one of Reynolds' fortes -- though they still carried their eponymous creator's name.

Perhaps in part because of that, Reynolds eventually sold his stake in Firaxis and went on to found his own dev house, Big Huge Games, which struck gold with Rise of Nations and publishing deal with Microsoft. Subsequent expansions have followed, which Reynolds has helped craft in addition to providing coding duties on the 360 version of Catan and taking over for Ensemble Studios for their second Age of Empires III Expansion, The Asian Dynasties.

Reynolds' apparently tireless pursuit of building strategy games (he seems far more comfortable in a development environment than heading up the company itself) appears to be paying off, as THQ announced that it is scooping up the developer and publishing all future endeavors.

One of the founders and current CEO of Harmonix Music Systems, Rigopulos made the unlikely leap from MIT to game development as something of a lark. Harmonix's background, as the name would imply, was less about games and more about exploring the concept of music creation and making it easier for budding artists to craft music without knowledge of high-end software. As it happened, games ended up being the perfect vehicle for what Rigopulous and fellow founder Eran Egozy were trying to do, and their first game along with the rest of the Harmonix team was Frequency, a critically lauded but commercially lacking trip through music creation. Amplitude, the sequel, introduced more mainstream acts into the mix and shifted the interface from a tunnel to a flat plane, which was the critical advance that begat Guitar Hero, Harmonix's industry-changing music franchise.

Before that, however, Alex and the Harmonix team explored a few other aspects of the music genre, including grading pitch with the Karaoke Revolution series for Konami. Guitar Hero become a social phenomenon, but it wasn't until guitars were mixed with the company's experience in singing and the inclusion of drums that Rock Band, the first complete band game in a box, finally hit the public.

Through it all, Rigopulos has been a founder, a company figurehead, pitch man, and public mouthpiece. Though he, by his own admission, isn't terribly fond of speaking in public (or at least confesses he doesn't think he's very good at it), Harmonix would have little in the way of a tether or public face.

If you played PC games (and even a few console games) in the early-to-mid '90s, you likely touched something that Brian Fargo had a hand in. As founder of Interplay in 1983, he and his company would go on to shape some of the most revered role-playing games in PC history (by way of the Black Isle offshoot). Interplay started small, but through some rather ingenious bits of business acumen, Fargo was able to partner with Universal/MCA to give the company some financial footing and eventually took things public in 1998.

Though a series of back-and-forth partnerships throughout Interplay's roller coaster fiscal success would have the company's ownership shifting multiple times in the wake of it going public, Fargo stayed with the home of published franchises like Earthworm Jim, Baldur's Gate, MDK, Descent, Icewind Dale and Fallout until 2002 when he finally left after French publisher Titus scooped up the company. He quickly went to work founding a new company, inXile Entertainment, and tapped into his roots as a producer in the early days of Interplay to resuscitate The Bard's Tale, plus bought back the rights to Wasteland from EA, who had published it during Interplay's early days.

True to his companies' role-playing game roots, Fargo was a chair on Turbine Entertainment's (of Lord of the Rings Online and Asheron's Call fame) board of directors. Though he doesn't dabble in coding duties nearly as much as his early days, Fargo's keen business sense and willingness to speak at industry events has ensured that he'll be a recognizable name for years to come.

When the PlayStation first debuted, videogames were still largely seen as fancy children's toys. One of the console's key designers, Kazunori Yamauchi's, helped change that perception forever, injecting a sense of maturity and sophistication that few rarely match even today. And he did it with Gran Turismo.

The series has seen its share of imitators, even great ones, but none have yet captured the magic that Yamauchi's juggernaut has. Every entry in the racing simulator series has pushed graphical boundaries of the system that hosts it -- offering the most realistic driving experiences around. Kaz's love for everything automotive is apparent in everything he touches -- whether it’s the small details on the parts of a car you'll rarely see, or the subtle variations in handling from one version of a ride to the next.

Thanks to Yamauchi's fascination with cars that he's carried since childhood, he has built a simulation series with the true auto fan in mind. The amount of customization available in every Gran Turismo is staggering, and the cars range from mundane to exotic, making the game perfect for car junkies of all nationalities and tastes. Let's not forget that GT is also an exhilarating racer with just as much emphasis given to race tracks and gameplay options as the cars themselves.

How dedicated to Gran Turismo is he? In addition to owning a number of high-speed and incredibly expensive cars of his own, Yamauchi can often be seen racing around for real on the streets and tracks near his home. He's been named of the 50 most powerful people in the automotive industry by Motor Trend Magazine three years running and is an equally respected powerhouse in our industry as well. Not bad for someone that makes children's toys.

The fact that there was even a hardcore Mac games following in the early '90s owes an awful lot to Jason Jones -- or perhaps more accurately to him and Alex Seropian, who together co-founded the Bungie Software Products Corporation. Despite PC gaming absolutely exploding at the time, few developers were treating the Mac as a serious hardware platform (at least not to the degree that Bungie did), and games like Pathways into Darkness and especially the Marathon series are still held up as high-watermarks of Mac-exclusive gaming for good reason: they were fantastic. And Jason Jones was at the helm of the lot of 'em.

Even as Bungie began transitioning into including Windows releases like most of the industry, Jones continued to guide the development process in games like Myth: The Fallen Lords, which may well explain why so many of Bungie's games have to have both direct and indirect (even hidden) connections. When Halo went from a Mac project to an Xbox project (and eventually a Windows project too), Jones stayed at the helm, helping to link the series in small ways to the earlier days of Marathon.

In point of fact, Jones may well be the glue that keeps Bungie's myriad narrative threads woven together, helping to build the Halo series' spiraling mythology into a full-blown universe (one that has since spawned an RTS and, for a time, an MMO). Though his Bungie co-founding buddy, Alex Seropian, left a few years back to establish Wideload Games, Jones has stayed put, and will likely be the driving force behind whatever post-Halo project Bungie decides to take on next.

The Vice President of Game Design for Blizzard Entertainment, Rob Pardo, has given us all the things we love so much about the company. Sure, Pardo had a livelihood before he joined the team in 1997, where he produced the 3DO version of the iconic first-person shooter Wolfenstein 3D, and contributed to Descent, the definitive 3D space-mine blaster of yesteryear. But it was when he joined Blizzard to assist with the design of StarCraft -- widely considered the best real-time strategy game ever -- that Pardo's career really took off.

StarCraft was such a worldwide success that it is still played online and in tournaments internationally to this very day. In South Korea, people actually play StarCraft "professionally," and are considered honest to goodness celebrities on the same level as traditional athletes. StarCraft's influences and imitators are everywhere and continue to grow with every passing year, but that isn't even the beginning of what Pardo has brought to the team.

Besides handling the design duties for the RPG smash sequel, Diablo II, and the incredibly polished tactical actioner, WarCraft III, Pardo's biggest achievement is probably his shared design duties on the most successful online game of all time, World of Warcraft. With countless publishers and developers eager to recreate what Pardo and Blizzard have created with WoW and almost 12 million monthly subscribers, the pillage of Azeroth is one of the industry's biggest success stories. Even the boys of South Park, Mr. T and Ozzy Osborne have jumped on the Warcraft bandwagon. Without Rob Pardo, one has to wonder if any of these games or franchises would have been met with the same success.

Likely not.

While Rayman is a name now synonymous with mini-games and bunnies that have outstayed their welcome, there was a time when he was a mascot for great platformers. Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman not only made one of the only games worth playing on the Atari Jaguar, he created a unique and charming character that went on to be in other fantastic titles. Ask any genre fan and they'll tell you -- Rayman 2: The Great Escape is one of the best 3D platformers ever.

Ancel's success didn't stop with Rayman, though. He also created Beyond Good and Evil in 2003, the cult classic action/adventure title. Named one of the best games of that console generation, BG&E was critically acclaimed for its originality and immersive storyline but unfortunately bombed in sales. Even so, the game's original ideas, unique style and interesting characters can't (and shouldn't) be denied.

Of course, Ancel's work wasn't done. Beyond Good and Evil became a favorite of none other than film director Peter Jackson, who approached Ancel to produce the videogame adaptation for his 2005 King Kong remake. The Xbox 360 launch title showed off the graphical prowess of the system like few others did at the time and acted as a sneak preview of sorts for Ancel's future in game development -- the mainstream crowd.

Lately, Ancel has handled the character designs for the Wii offshoot of his old series, Rayman Raving Rabbids, but his main priorities are focused on the development of the long-awaited sequel to Beyond Good and Evil. Given Ancel's pedigree, our expectations are off the charts.

Ken and Roberta Williams were married at the tender age of 19, and a few short years later they co-founded Sierra On-Line, the company behind some of the best and most well known adventure games of the '80s and '90s. The husband and wife duo were pioneers in the graphical adventure field as Ken programmed the games and Roberta wrote them.

Together they created the King's Quest series, an extremely well received and revolutionary series for the time. By using pseudo-3D elements the game created a large expansive world that players could explore. This has since become a standard for graphical adventure games and the King's Quest influence is everywhere. Their stories were always entertaining, referencing fairy tales and fables, and spanning multiple worlds and generations.

With the advent of CD-ROM, Roberta dove into the macabre with Phantasmagoria, a realistic horror adventure that featured graphic depictions of violence, and even sexual intercourse in the intro movie! In fact, it’s Phantasmagoria that Roberta remembers as her favorite accomplishment -- making her pretty freaking hardcore in our book.

While Sierra is still around today as part of Activision Blizzard, the Williams have since retired. The adventure game genre fell out of favor with the general gaming public for a time, but companies like Telltale Games are helping bring it back. Maybe one day, we'll see the Williams again as well.

Alongside Ron Gilbert (with whom he shadowed early on and later collaborated with), Tim Schafer is one of the most well-known adventure game creators to come out of the golden days of the SCUMM engine. A computer science major from UC Berkeley in 1989 got him in the door at LucasArts, and while programming was certainly a role Schafer filled on multiple titles, it was his knack for writing and dialogue that eventually led to him co-designing Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle. Head Design roles soon followed, including Full Throttle in 1995 and the Dia De Los Muertos-tinged noir-heavy Grim Fandango in 1997. All of which are among the most celebrated and popular adventure games of all time.

In 2000, along with some of the staff of Grim Fandango, Schafer left LucasArts and formed Double Fine Productions. Double Fine's first game, Psychonauts, was a critical success but almost didn't happen because of a publisher switch from Microsoft to Majesco. Even so, its unique artistic style and creative use of psychic powers and the dream made it unlike anything else on the market. Next up, the EA/ Jack Black opus, Brutal Legend -- an action adventure game that utilizes a magic guitar to perform cool spells.

When asked about stories in videogames in 2003, Schafer once said "Besides being the part that interests me most creatively, stories also really motivational for the player, to pull you through the experience. Puzzles can be challenging, but I know I go through games a lot of times because I want to see the characters through, to solve their problems, find that character that was kidnapped and see them through to the end. So, it's about motivation."

We know how he feels. Tim's clever storytelling and interesting design ideas are what motivates us to play his games.

If we're talking videogame themes, nobody's work is more recognized and adored than Koji Kondo. The classically-trained musician began working for Nintendo in 1983, composing music for a myriad of NES titles. Since then, the man has composed nearly every memorable Nintendo theme song over the past 20 years. Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Star Fox were all composed by Kondo.

Despite being limited to four basic digital "instruments" Kondo managed to make catchy and memorable tunes for nearly all of Nintendo's early flagships. The Super Mario Bros. theme is one of the most instantly recognizable themes in the world, and also happens to be one of the most used cell phone ringtones around. Kondo's compositions are ambitious and cinematic, reminiscent of famous movie composers like John Williams. His work has become so iconic of Nintendo that his later pieces were somewhat limited by the demand for him to keep them as close to the original themes as possible -- leaving many of his later scores as adapted versions of older projects (like Super Mario Sunshine and countless others).

Still, Kondo has proved that he can keep writing original scores, as in the case of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which featured an abundance of orchestrated tracks that showed a complexity not seen in most videogames at the time. Today, Kondo is still composing music for Nintendo, helping to fully orchestrate his themes for the Super Smash Bros series, and co-composing the soundtrack for Super Mario Galaxy.

Peter Molyneux is the very definition of ambition. For the past 20 years he has been involved in some of the greatest and most unique videogames on the market. During his time at Bullfrog he produced the Populous titles, the "Theme" simulation series, and the Dungeon Keeper franchise. His games have defined their genres, and all three of the series mentioned above are still highly regarded today. Molyneux's work also has the benefit of being totally different from one another -- making his portfolio as diverse as it is original. Oh and did we mention they're all addictively fun and oftentimes hilariously quirky?

In 1997, Molyneux left Bullfrog and started the Lionhead development studio where he continues to create games today. Once independent, he created the Black and White and Fable franchises where expectations were both high and met. Not an easy accomplishment in our highly-critical post-Internet videogame culture.

It could be argued, though, that no one sets expectations of Molyneux game higher than Molyneux himself -- as his reputation for having to scale back his design docs to meet reasonable deadlines is now legendary. Even so, his fame comes from his accomplishments, not his rhetoric -- besides, you can't fault a guy who comes up with brilliant ideas, even if they are a bit ahead of the technology curve.

But that's what Peter Molyneux is all about -- pushing games to the limits of our imagination and then going a little bit further. And we thank him for it.

The brothers Houser are now intrinsically linked to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, but when they first entered the industry after working up the ranks of record label BMG, no one could have imagined they'd end up becoming two of the biggest names in the history of videogames. Instead, they merely concentrated on bringing the idea of a music culture to the games industry.

The approach didn't really hit its stride until they were allowed to ply their respective production and writing talents into creating a little minute and a half intro to the still top-down Grand Theft Auto 2, at which point they realized what they had on their hands. When the game finally made the jump to 3D, defining what an open world could mean, they piggybacked off their love for New York City and its mix of cultures and musical styles to help guide everything from the soundtrack (which was largely licensed, though many still believe it's all completely original to this day) to the writing and the storyline (with help from producer Lazlow Jones).

To say that their work on the games has been successful may well be the most understated collection of words on this entire list; Grand Theft Auto III and is sequels have become the litmus test for big budget, big profit videogames, and after recently signing a deal to stay at parent company Take-Two (though they'll be able to create a new company within it), it doesn't appear their streak is going to end any time soon.

The EA Sports brand is a force to be reckoned within the industry. It's consistently been the leader in videogame adaptations of nearly every professional sport. Back in 1990 Richard Hilleman helped make EA Sports what it is by updating a little football title called John Madden Football. In fact, Hilleman and Scott Orr are largely responsible for molding Madden into the form that is recognized today.

The duo focused on making a fun, two-player head-to-head experience with intuitive controls. The series followed suit on each new console, successfully making the leap to new technology, while staying fun and true to the sport. Eventually, Madden Football became the highest grossing game series in North America, largely thanks to the fact that a new one comes out every year, but also because the games are highly addictive sports simulators that offer great single and multiplayer options every time out.

But Madden isn't Hilleman's only accomplishment. He was Executive Producer or Producer for many other successful EA Sports titles in the 1990s as well, including NHL Hockey, NHLPA Hockey, PGA Tour Golf and Tiger Woods. His work on Madden ended during the mid-90s, but Hilleman has done a lot for the EA Sports franchise as a whole, and his work will always be remembered for making the sports game genre a huge success.

The story of these guys is every modder's ultimate dream. Two friends working out of dorm rooms, modded Half-Life and made a game that was so popular, so unique, and so much freaking fun that it became a retail title and they ended up working for the company whose game they worshiped.

Le and Cliffe are the brains behind one of the most popular first-person shooters of all time: Counter-Strike. They made most of the game themselves, even going so far as to record voices for it. That's Cliffe's voice saying "Stick together, team." Part of what made CS so popular was that every time it was patched it added new maps, weapons, and game modes. Counter-Strike was constantly changing and evolving, usually to counteract imbalances in the game (remember the "hall of death" and the in-game voice chat and text that let players act as ghost spies after they had been killed? Good times).

It's become a worldwide phenomenon and is still played today with over 20,000 servers still operating. It's been a favorite of tournament leagues since the game's inception, becoming one of the major titles in professional gaming tournaments. There have been a lot of Half-Life mods, and countless Half-Life 2 mods, but Counter-Strike still stands as the ultimate success story. More importantly, it set the benchmark for the online modes available to us in just about any game type today.

Le left Valve and went on to pursue other projects after Counter-Strike, while Cliffe stayed to work on several other projects including Portal, Half-Life 2, and Left 4 Dead.

Not a lot of people on our list can claim to have propped up a company all by their lonesome, but David Crane comes awfully close. One of the core founding members of Activision, Crane helped define some of the company's earlier efforts with games like Pitfall!, Decathlon, Ghostbusters (a particularly great effort considering most licensed games -- especially in the earlier days of the industry -- were terrible to the point of almost causing it to cave in on itself) and Little Computer People (arguably the first modern digital pet).

The wealth of creative juices that poured from Crane's brain was in many ways the basis of Activision's success as a software publisher in the early '80s. Even after leaving Activision (which Crane co-founded with Alan Miller, who he met while at Atari), Larry Kaplan, Jim Levy and Bob Whitehead, he continued to be a fount of innovative energy, eventually getting title billing on the brilliant A Boy and His Blob from Absolute Entertainment. The NES title would eventually become one of Absolute's most well-remembered titles, and helped solidify Crane's position as not only a co-founder of the development house (formed after he and Dan and Garry Kitchen left Activision), but a driving force in their development efforts.

In 1995, Crane and Garry Kitchen left to form yet another development house, Skyworks Technologies (which was later renamed Skyworks Interactive). Skyworks counts among its current projects a handful of iPhone apps and the advergame.com service, which powers a handful of sites carrying branded versions of casual games for sites like Lifesavers' Candystand.com and ESPN Arcade.

Richard "Lord British" Garriott has been to space, which is totally sweet. But that's not why he's on this list. Garriott is on this list because he's created immersive videogame universes that let players live out their fantasies. Among other titles, Garriott created the Ultima series, a long running and critically acclaimed franchise of role-playing games that essentially kick-started the genre.

Ultima was huge, with nine main titles, broken up into three game trilogies spanning nearly 20 years. But its epic scope wasn't its only merit -- it was because the series successfully adapted the character creation system, settings, and storytelling techniques that made pen and paper role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons so popular. In other words, it was a D&D fan's wet dream.

In addition to the main series, Garriott's Ultima saw plenty of spin-offs too. Worlds of Ultima and Ultima Underworld expanded the series further while innovating with new technologies (Underworld was the first 3D game that allowed players to look up and down). In 1997 Garriott helmed Ultima Online, one of the earliest and most important MMOs ever. Not only is Ultima Online is credited with helping make the genre popular, (you're welcome, World of Warcraft fans) but it's still running today!

Garriott's success with MMOs continued with City of Heroes and City of Villains in this decade, in addition to his most recent project, Tabula Rasa, a futuristic persistent online RPG that combines shooting game elements with more traditional role-playing design.

Do game designers get any more eccentric or brilliant than Richard Garriott? Not bloody likely.

Ralph Baer is the godfathers of videogames, or more accurately, videogame consoles (and let’s face it -- for a long while the games were the consoles). While certainly not the first person to create an electronic game, Baer developed the technology to bring them to the television. And this was back in 1966-67, years before anyone invented the first arcade machine.

Baer's invention, the Magnavox Odyssey was the first home console, predating Pong consoles by years. The system was in black and white, though it came with colored overlays people could put on the TV screens to give the illusion of color graphics. It also didn't have any sound, though later Odyssey systems incorporated that. The system came packaged with dice, poker chips, and score sheets to keep track with, essentially making the system a really high-tech board game.

In addition to creating the first console, Baer also invented the first light gun, the Shooting Gallery. It registered light from the TV screens, making it easy to cheat the system by shooting at light bulbs. The Odyssey wasn't a huge success, partly due to people thinking it had to be used on a Magnavox TV, but it opened the floodgates for home videogames. A few short years later there were over a half dozen home consoles on the market, and that number doubled in just a few more years. Home videogames were a huge hit and everyone wanted a piece of what Baer had invented. Baer is also the inventor of Simon, and although not a game itself, has been ripped off in hundreds of videogames since.

Hideo Kojima has been a part of gamers' lives for more than 20 years. Since his start at Konami in 1986, Kojima has produced and directed some of the game industry's most influential titles. His first foray, Metal Gear, is considered the first stealth-action game and it birthed a genre that's since spawned many of the industry's most popular titles. It even impacted other genres with stealth influences meaning games like Tenchu, Splinter Cell and countless other owe Metal Gear quite a lot.

Kojima's film-inspired style didn't evolve out of nowhere as he grew up fascinated by the movie business. At first, videogames were just a hobby (Kojima began college as an economics major), but his natural inclination towards telling a good story and the possibilities that videogame design presented him was enough for a push into game design near the end of his university career. The world of interactive entertainment hasn't been the same since.

His initial run on a series of MSX games as a designer was fraught with blame for low sales and a regular dismissal of his oft-times unusual game ideas. It wasn't until he was allowed to release the first Metal Gear in 1987 that the commercial success afforded him a little leeway. As the list of accomplishments grew, from Snatcher to Policenauts to subsequent Metal Gear games (culminating in the release of Metal Gear Solid), Kojima's role at Konami deepened until he eventually formed Kojima Productions in early 2005 in an effort to move away from the business side of things and concentrate on designing games.

Kojima's later projects, both in the Metal Gear series and otherwise, have also established benchmarks of production excellence, merging videogame fantasy with Hollywood-quality presentation -- an achievement many games have imitated though few (if any) have matched. His mech-inspired action series Zone of the Enders helped define what kind of graphical magnificence the PlayStation 2 was capable of, while older projects like Snatcher and Policenauts were among the earliest examples of how to properly craft a complex interactive storyline. And let's not forget the recent eye-popper, Metal Gear Solid 4 -- which has already taken its place as one of the top games of the current generation.

In his 20+ years of gaming, Hideo Kojima has established a rather inspirational legacy. Both in his games and in personal interviews, Kojima has waxed theoretical and set in place influences that will likely endure past his lifetime. These influences and inspirations, and the games that ignite them, are this philosopher's legacy.

Gunpei Yokoi holds one of the most infamous and tragic positions in Nintendo's history, which is a shame considering he was absolutely instrumental to The Big N's success in the handheld market -- a market that was all but uncontested until Sony entered the fray with the PSP. The iconic creator of the Game Boy effectively defined Nintendo's current line of thinking, which says that technology needn't be on the bleeding edge to be competitive or successful. It's a mantra that has absolutely held true, particularly in the way both the Wii and DS have become runaway successes despite being seen as "inferior" to the competition's hardware.

Though he made a name for himself developing much of Nintendo's portable hardware (including the Game & Watch, Game Boy, and the ill-fated, headache-inducing Virtual Boy), Yokoi had plenty to do with the software side of things. Most notably, he oversaw the Metroid and Kid Icarus series and served as mentor to a young Shigeru Miyamoto. It was hardware innovation that allowed the R&D man to help shape Nintendo's direction, including projects as ubiquitous as the modern d-pad (and yep, the connected plus-shaped version you see on Nintendo hardware is all Nintendo's) to those as largely useless as R.O.B..

The final years of Yokoi's life have been well documented, mainly because they're so tragic. After the dismal failure of the Virtual Boy and Nintendo giving him the boot, he went to work on a new handheld outside of Nintendo: Bandai's WonderSwan. Sadly, he never got to see it released, as he was killed in a traffic accident in 1997. Yokoi was 56.

Will Wright is one of the true pillars of modern game design. His work on SimCity, The Sims, and the recently-released Spore has rightfully earned him a spot among the most celebrated designers working in the games industry today. Wright is well known for his far-reaching and eccentric analysis of the videogame industry as well as his fixation with popular culture. He is one of the few people in the business that can mesmerize a room with his observations on just about any subject you can imagine.

He's the creator of a string of wildly successful games dating all the way back to Raid on Bungling Bay in 1984, the aforementioned SimCity series in the late '80s and early '90s -- which defined the modern simulation in just about every way -- and of course, the enormously popular life imitator, The Sims. Wright has been intrinsically linked with all Maxis properties (a company he helped start) for years. The success of his wildly ambitious and approachable games has allowed him the freedom to continue creating titles that were sandbox experiences more than linear experiences.

Wright has continued to develop "Sim" games, which are among the most successful and widely-played gaming titles of all time. The Sims' popularity inspired Wright to create the even more ambitious Spore -- a procedurally-generated simulation that tracks development from single-celled organisms into an entire galaxy. It The concept sounded impossible before it became a reality in 2008, enjoying commercial success and critical praise.

"When you give someone a toy of a system," Wright told Apple.com last year, "it gives them a new perspective on it. They see that system as a dynamic, organic thing. Living in it in the real world, they don't notice day-to-day changes in it, but when that system is sped up over 50 years or more, they see the changes clearly. And they gain a new perspective on it."

Indeed, it's a new perspective that Wright provides the entire industry with every new idea he brings to the table.

With almost 30 years of experience creating games, Sid Meier is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of American computer games. Meier and, then-US Air Force Major, Bill Stealey formed MicroProse in 1982 working on a string of strategy hits and launching more than a few famous names from the company's ranks. Spitfire Ace, F-15 Strike Eagle, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Silent Service, and Sid Meier's Pirates are just a handful of his acclaimed works.

Meier's list of gaming accomplishments doesn't end there. Meier became synonymous with series like Railroad Tycoon, Colonization and Civilization. Meier had already been bought out of MicroProse by Stealey before Civilization II was released, but his new company, Firaxis Games, has produced a steady stream of instant classics for more than decade. After all, no one does the 4X game like Sid Meier does -- just look to titles like Alpha Centauri, Civilization III, and Civilization IV to prove it. And let us not forget about Sid's other successes like his Pirates remake or the latest game to bear his name, Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution -- a title that brought an interesting console-specific spin to a game that was classically designed for PCs.

Currently the Director of Creative Development at Firaxis, Sid's genius and influence is still going strong. A member of the Computer Museum Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement Award winner from the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an all around nice guy with a fierce loyalty towards his friends and his company, Sid Meier is the ideal role model for any aspiring game designer.