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8 of Hearts: Makoto
Iwai, Namco Bandai Games America
The Japanese-headquartered Namco Bandai is reinventing
itself in the U.S.,
with internal studios, externally developed Western-produced titles, and the
whole nine yards.
Issues with the crumbling Hellgate:
London notwithstanding, the company has been making some interesting moves
recently, and much of it has to do with EVP and COO Makoto Iwai (previously
development director), and his so-called "samurai mentality." Iwai
has been shaking up development teams, and reforming the company from the
inside-an impressive thing to see.
7 of Hearts: Brad
Wardell, Stardock
Is the hardcore PC game scene the new face of independent
games? Some would say so, and Stardock's Wardell is one of the up-and-comers,
thanks to a rich history with the Galactic Civilizations series, and the
Stardock-backed Sins of A Solar Empire reaching a super-impressive 500,000
units.
Add to that the Gamer's Bill of Rights and his firm's Impulse digital
distribution system, and the rise of the independents continues, even beyond
the obvious.
6 of Hearts: Satoshi
Tajiri, Game Freak
Pokémon is a
financial powerhouse. A new proper title in the series is guaranteed to sell at
least a million within a few weeks, and the game has essentially refined, if
not started, a complete game genre -- one that has brought success to even its
imitators, in lesser degrees.
Game Freak's Satoshi Tajiri makes the list
because his company has managed to deliver time and time again what the
customers are looking for, expanding the dynasty to astronomical heights -- this
year is no exception, with Pokémon
Platinum a Japanese smash, and Pokémon
Diamond/Pearl having sold around 15 million units. Pokémon is the giant hit that no one ever thinks about -- and that
makes it all the more powerful.
5 of Hearts: John
Baez, The Behemoth
John Baez has guided tiny San Diego-based indie and Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers creator The Behemoth as a company through thick and
thin, using distinctly unconventional business tactics. How so? By making
original action figures, selling T-shirts, going to expos, and basically
hustling all day long to promote the company.
It is through strength of will
that the company battled to release Castle
Crashers to huge success -- over 350,000 units on Xbox Live Arcade in a
tremendously short period of time -- and deliver a massive lesson on what it
takes for independent developers to be heard in today's market.
 4 of Hearts: Reggie
Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America
While Satoru Iwata appears elsewhere in the Top Deck,
Nintendo of America head Fils-Aime appears in the Entrepreneur section for one
simple reason -- he's helped make the very Japanese company successful in the
West through smart marketing and intelligent use of the amazing concepts
created out of Nintendo HQ.
Using Nicole Kidman to advertise the Nintendo DS in
gossip magazines is hardly a conventional tactic for your average game hardware
firm, but it's been all-encompassing moves like this that have helped Reggie
convert the masses to Nintendo.
3 of Hearts: Shinichi
Suzuki, Atlus
As the game market expands, we're seeing increasing amounts
of smart entrepreneurship within those niches -- and import gaming is one of
the more beloved of those. Atlus, a relatively small Japanese firm, has been
rapidly expanding its Western translation of Eastern titles, with some
significant success.
Quite apart from its own Persona series, which is increasingly critically acclaimed in the
West, Suzuki and the Atlus U.S. team are licensing from small Japanese
developers, bringing valid forms such as the strategy RPG and the surgery
simulator to wider audiences, and uniting the world along the way.
2 of Hearts: Chris
Satchell, Microsoft XNA
One of the signs of entrepreneurship is opening up new
avenues of creativity and revenue creation, and Satchell's endgame -- using the
Microsoft XNA Studio tools to have "bedroom programmers" create XNA
Community Games across Xbox 360, PC, and even Zune -- is a massive step forward
for user-created content on consoles.
The fact you can make money off your
Community Games releases, too, makes it even closer to some of the more dynamic
game ecosystems out there right now -- such as Apple's App Store. Also, with
XNA's professional development on the Xbox incredibly robustly supported -- that's
down to Satchell and team, too.
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but that's year away! but one day!
@Tom: You just said it though, "no third party has understood Nintendo's [...] target demographic". Nintendo's target demographic is casual gamers, not core gamers.
Ubisoft makes ridiculously good games for the Wii, but nothing can please everyone (and in this case, a fairly large chunk of the "core" Nintendo gamer).
Shigeru Miyamoto - Please, he is the lead designer on Nintendo. If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have so fun memories running trough world splattering turtles and looking for princesess on wrong castles!!!!
Hironobu Sakagushi - He is the sole savior of SquareEnix. He is the creator of Final Fantasy. Most recent Las Oddysey
Jhon Romero - Ever heard of Doom. He is the mind behind the game. Shame that he only shinned once, but still, shinned pretty hard!!!!
I *did* find it a little surprising that the Trailblazers portion of the deck didn't include Cryptic Studios in some fashion-- when you look back over the last year(plus a little) for them, it's been a fascinating jump into new ground. Announcing Marvel, then selling their single(and very successful) title, then losing Marvel, announcing Champions, attempting to self-publish, announcing STO... it's a lot of unknown to forge that most companies would avoid. The largest impact to be had has, I think, gotten the least notice in the general shuffle, though it's what makes me most surprised to not see them-- the engine and development tools pipeline and their goal to bring the development time on a AAA MMO down from the notorious and costly timeframe we've come to expect down to a mere 1.5-2 years. I realize the jury's still out on whether it's something they'll be able to do, since the upcoming titles are just that-- upcoming, but even the *suggestion* that an MMO could be built on that kind of timeframe is a lot of food for thought.
@Carlos:
True, but I would argue that all of those people lacked anything really worthy of the list in 2008-- most of what you're citing is based on past conquest more than what they've spent their time doing in the last year. As I understand it, this list is intended to be a snapshot of the last year's events.
One omission that's perhaps understandable this year, but which I expect will be rectified in a year or two (assuming this list becomes an annual feature as I hope it will), is that of David Whatley at Simutronics for the HeroEngine. With licensees from BioWare to Bethesda sister-company Zenimax Online, and all of them saying very positive things about it, the HeroEngine could potentially do for MMORPGs what the Unreal Engine did for shooters. Once games start shipping, I won't be surprised to see Whatley's name somewhere on a future edition of this list.
On a mostly (though not entirely) unrelated note, I'm still waiting for someone to submit to Gamasutra a feature article -- or better yet, an entire book -- on the astonishing story of Looking Glass and what its "graduates," from Warren Spector and Harvey Smith (Deus Ex) to Ken Levine (BioShock) to Greg LoPiccolo, Dan Schmidt and Eric Brosius (Guitar Hero) to Emil Pagliarulo (Fallout 3), have accomplished and continue to achieve in the computer game industry. (And that doesn't even include folks like Allen Varney, Marc LeBlanc and others whose impact on game design is still strong.)
I'm obviously a bit of a fan where the Looking Glass style of game is concerned. But I think there's an objectively interesting industry story deserving to be told here, and Gamasutra would be a great place to start doing so.
but hopefully these key people don't become superstars......the game industry doesn't need to become a "Hollywood"
Every single person on this list has achieved great work and are all skilled at what they do. Passing this knowledge or skills through the industry is what now needs to be looked at.
Agreed....thanks