Your favorite person in game development?

[aozgolo]

We often tend to refer to this company or that company when discussing game developers, but just like other forms of media, there are big names we all can recognize from within those companies. It's name dropping time, what name(s) keep popping in your head when you think of the most influential person (to you) in video game development? This can be a developer, producer, writer, or really anyone involved in the MAKING of games from Indies to AAA.

Go!

 

[stroopwafel]

I think Shinji Mikami is probably my favorite game developer of all time. Followed closely by Hideo Kojima and Hidetaka Miyazaki. Ofcourse going further back Shigeru Miyamoto would be a good candidate for popularizing videogames, steering them towards mainstream and establishing genres like platformers and action adventures that gave games depth and fun factor they didn't have before.

However Mikami and Kojima created some of my personal favorite games and really established genres like survival horror or added cinematic structures to games or re-designed third person shooters. And Miyazaki is awesome for really returning videogames to their roots while still adhering to modern philosophies. In terms of story, atmosphere and gameplay these guys really pushed the medium forward.

There are no doubt a lot of western developers really awesome as well(considering the large amount of fantastic games developed here espescially in recent years) but unfortunately they are not as prolific in the gaming media.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Hideki Kamiya of course.

Nearly every game this guy makes ends up being something I love.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Has to be Hideki Kamiya for me. I don't think there's a game that this guy has been involved in that I haven't loved.

There would be a few other candidates like Hideo Kojima, Satoshi Tajiri and Shinji Mikami, but Kamiya gets my pick.

 

[TehCookie]

I'm liking all the Kamiya love. His games are all awesome and he's hilarious when he trolls people on twitter. It's nice to see a dev keep in touch with the fans and not be afraid to insult the bad ones. Platinum games as a whole is a really great dev.

My next nomination would be xseeddude/hatsu from xseed for again, customer relations. I like open companies that tell you what's going on and listen to their consumers.

 

[Strain42]

Kazuma Kaneko. Not only is he very talented artist, doing the artwork for almost every single demon in the MegaTen franchise, but he's also a really good director as well.

And I'm so in love with his artwork it's not even funny.

 

[Sp3ratus]

Chris Avellone. He's one of the most interesting story/dialog/NPC writers in the games industry nowadays, with Planescape: Torment being my second favourite game of all time and on top of that, he's a very nice guy(met him in the summer at Obsidian). I've played most of the major games he's been involved with and very much enjoyed pretty much all of them.

Can't wait to see what he and all the other guys have got in store for Wasteland 2, Eternity and Torment.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Of all time? It would be Miyamoto, even if he doesn't do as much developing as he used to unfortunately.

I really like the current head honcho of the Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma. He takes a lot of flack, but he's done so many incredible things with the series.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Ummmm, I guess Chris Avalon because he is basically the only game developer I know and he is part of Obsidian which is tied with Blizzard for being my favorite game developer. Can't wait for Project Eternity(think that was the name of it).

 

[James Rednok]

I'm going to go with Cliffy B just because I can't really think at the moment. I've met him in person and he was SUPER nice. Not only did he let me speak and answer my questions, he actually had a full conversation with me! =D

 

[infohippie]

Chris Roberts. Made Wing Commander, Privateer, and Freelancer, and is currently making the "Best Damn Space Sim Ever", Star Citizen. It's happening purely on crowd funding, and showing the EAs of the world that AAA game development can be done on a much smaller budget without having to bow to publisher whims.

 

[Liv's Runaway Snail]

Ragnar Tornquist. But then again he is a game writer.
I happen to love all the games he has written for, The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey are the only games that ever made me cry. Haha, so much emotion.

 

[daveNYC]

Richard Garriott.
The Ultima series went way off the rails starting with 8, but 4 and 7 are freaking masterpieces.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Hideo Kojima, the man that made the Metal Gear series and became my favourite franchise for the past decade and I'm very much looking forward to Ground Zeroes and MGSV.

 

[Exhuminator]

I have a lot of gaming heroes, but in the past few years one lady is my number one...

Rika Suzuki [http://www.giantbomb.com/rika-suzuki/3040-73263/]

Nice recent interview with her:
http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/55751/features/cing-the-final-chapter/?page=1

She was one of the top masterminds at CiNG [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cing]. She now works at Bellwood [http://www.bellwood-inc.jp/index.html].

Rika Suzuki primarily designed/wrote the Hotel Dusk and Another Code series of games. The writing in those games especially I found to be evolutionary, very strong efforts to push this medium forward in a mature and thought provoking manner. She wrote and designed games that were unabashedly made for adults (see Again [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Again_%28video_game%29]), but did so via context rather than exposition. No other series of adventure games have captured my attention and enveloped me in their worlds the way her works have. Her attention to detail, character development, and mastery of NPC small talk are unparalleled in the realm of gaming. The plots of her games are rather great as well. If we had more writer/designers like her working in this field, well it'd go a long way towards shifting some long standing paradigms.

Rika Suzuki, I salute you.

 

[Poppy JR.]

Eric Chahi- the creator of my favorite game, Another World.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

It's stuck between Ken Levine and Hideo Kojima. Both men make amazing story driven games, both of them being my favrote series in gamings.
It's too difficult to choose *^*