Portal:Video games
Portal maintenance status: (April 2019)
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The Video Games Portal
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, most commonly shown in a video format on a television set, computer monitor, flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices, or a virtual reality headset. Most modern video games are audiovisual, with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones, and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming.
Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform, which traditionally includes arcade video games, console games, and computer (PC) games; the latter also encompasses LAN games, online games, and browser games. More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming. Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience. (Full article...)
Featured articles – load new batch
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Image 1Final Fantasy Type-0 is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). Released in Japan on October 27, 2011, Type-0 is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries, a set of games sharing a common mythos which includes Final Fantasy XIII and XV. The gameplay, similar to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, has the player taking control of characters in real-time combat during missions across Orience. The player also engages in large-scale strategy-based battles on the world map, and has access to a multiplayer option during story missions and side quests.
The story focuses on Class Zero, a group of fourteen students from the Vermillion Peristylium, a magical academy in the Dominion of Rubrum. When the Militesi Empire launches an assault on the other Crystal States of Orience, seeking to control their respective crystals, Class Zero is mobilized for the defense of Rubrum. Eventually, the group becomes entangled in the secrets behind both the war and the reason for their existence. The setting and presentation were inspired by historical documentaries, and the story itself was written to be darker than other Final Fantasy titles.
The game was originally announced as a title for mobile phones and the PSP called Final Fantasy Agito XIII. It was directed by Hajime Tabata, who took up the project after completing Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. Initially designed to provide players with easy access to the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe, the mobile version was eventually cancelled and the game's title was changed to distance it from the subseries' flagship title Final Fantasy XIII. Releasing to strong sales, it received praise for its story and gameplay, but was criticized for its camera control and artificial intelligence. Further games related to Type-0 have also been developed, including a high definition remaster that was released internationally in March 2015. (Full article...) -
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Fez is a 2012 indie puzzle-platform game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides of a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve puzzles. The objective is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.
The game was called an "underdog darling of the indie game scene" during its high-profile and protracted five-year development cycle. Fez designer and Polytron founder Phil Fish gained celebrity status for his outspoken public persona and his prominence in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which detailed Fez's final stages of development and Polytron's related legal issues. Fez met critical acclaim upon its April 2012 release for Xbox Live Arcade. The game was ported to other platforms following the expiration of a yearlong exclusivity agreement.
Reviewers commended the game's emphasis on discovery and freedom, but criticized its technical issues, in-game navigation, and endgame backtracking. They likened the game's rotation mechanic to the 2D–3D shifts of Echochrome, Nebulus, Super Paper Mario, and Crush. Fez won awards including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Eurogamer's 2012 Game of the Year. It had sold one million copies by the end of 2013, and it influenced games such as Monument Valley, Crossy Road, and Secrets of Rætikon. A planned sequel was canceled when Fish abruptly left game development. (Full article...) -
Image 3Final Fantasy VIII is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation console. It is the eighth main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Set on an unnamed fantasy world with science fiction elements, the game follows a group of young mercenaries, led by Squall Leonhart, as they are drawn into a conflict sparked by a sorceress named Edea Kramer who seized control of a powerful military state. During the quest to defeat the sorceress and the forces manipulating her, Squall struggles with his role as leader and develops a romance with one of his comrades, Rinoa Heartilly.
Development began in 1997, during the English localization of Final Fantasy VII. The game builds on the visual changes brought to the series by VII, including the use of 3D graphics and pre-rendered backgrounds, while also departing from many Final Fantasy traditions. It is the first Final Fantasy to use realistically proportioned characters consistently, feature a vocal piece as its theme music and forgo the use of magic points for spellcasting.
Final Fantasy VIII was well received by critics. The game was a commercial success, grossing $151 million in its first day of release in Japan, and more than $50 million during its first 13 weeks in North America, making it the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title until Final Fantasy XIII, a multi-platform release. A Windows port followed in 2000, with the addition of the Chocobo World minigame. Final Fantasy VIII was re-released worldwide as a PSOne Classic on the PlayStation Store in 2009, for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, with support for PlayStation Vita in 2012. It was re-released via Steam in 2013. By August 2019, it had sold more than 9.6 million copies worldwide. A remastered version was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in September 2019, and Android and iOS in March 2021. (Full article...) -
Image 4Flow (stylized as flOw) is an independent video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally released as a free Flash game in 2006 to accompany Chen's master's thesis, it was reworked into a 2007 PlayStation 3 game by his development studio, Thatgamecompany, with assistance from Santa Monica Studio. SuperVillain Studios developed a PlayStation Portable version of the game in 2008, and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions in 2013. In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional (2D) planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow.
The Flash version of Flow received 100,000 downloads within its first two weeks of release, and had been played over 3.5 million times by 2008. Its PlayStation 3 re-release was the most downloaded game on the PlayStation Network in 2007 and won the Best Downloadable Game award at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards. It was nominated for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Reviewers praised Flow's visual and audio appeal, but noted the simplicity of its gameplay; several considered it to be more of an art piece than a game. (Full article...) -
Image 5Grim Fandango is a 1998 adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with characters and examine, collect, and use objects to solve puzzles.
Grim Fandango is set in the Land of the Dead and the retro-futuristic version of the 1950s, through which recently departed souls, represented as calaca-like figures, travel before they reach their final destination. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to save new arrival Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a virtuous soul, on her journey. The game combines elements of the Aztec afterlife with film noir style, with influences including The Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront and Casablanca.
Grim Fandango received praise for its art design and direction. It was selected for several awards and is often listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. However, it was a commercial failure and contributed towards LucasArts' decision to end adventure game development and the decline of the adventure game genre. (Full article...) -
Image 6Fallout 4: Far Harbor is an expansion pack for the 2015 video game Fallout 4, developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Far Harbor was released on May 19, 2016 for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One as downloadable content (DLC). The game is set in the year 2287, in the aftermath of a nuclear war that destroys most of the United States. In the expansion, the player character is hired as a private investigator to search for a missing girl in the isolated seaside community of Far Harbor.
The game can be played in first-person or third-person perspective; in either case, the player controls the protagonist throughout their investigation on The Island, a landmass off the coast of Maine. Far Harbor's main gameplay consists of quests and puzzle sections. Upon completing the quests in the game, the player is rewarded with bottle caps from Nuka-Cola bottles (the franchise's main fictional currency), and experience points. The puzzles feature a variety of different game mechanics; some require the player to hit targets with lasers, and others allow building using blocks.
Announced in February 2016, the expansion was influenced by player feedback regarding the base game's dialogue system, which was not considered to be as successful as the other game mechanics. The development team also noticed the players' interest in releases that added large amounts of explorable territory. The price of Fallout 4's season pass was increased because of the expansion's size. (Full article...) -
Image 7Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF) is a 2014 point-and-click survival horror game developed and published by Scott Cawthon. The player takes on the role of Mike Schmidt, a night security guard at a family pizzeria. Schmidt must complete his shifts without being confronted by the homicidal animatronic characters that wander the restaurant at night. The player has access to security cameras to monitor the animatronics throughout the shift, and a set of steel doors that can lock out the characters. Using the cameras and doors consumes the player's limited electricity, and draining all of the power causes these tools to become inoperable.
Cawthon conceived the idea for Five Nights at Freddy's based on criticism of his previous game, Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. Reviewers complained of its unintentionally frightening characters that had animatronic-like movement, inspiring Cawthon to create an intentionally scarier experience. Developed in six months using the Clickteam Fusion 2.5 game engine, Five Nights at Freddy's was released for Windows through Desura on August 8, 2014, and through Steam on August 18. It was made available for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone later in 2014. Versions for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One were released in 2019.
Five Nights at Freddy's received generally positive reviews from critics, many considering it a frightening and distinct horror game. Reviewers praised the atmosphere, sound design, and gameplay mechanics, although some found the jumpscares repetitive and the game to have little replay value. It became the subject of Let's Play videos on YouTube and gained a large fan following. The game's success led to the launch of a media franchise, including many sequels and books, and its popularity led to several imitations and fangames. Its successor and chronological prequel, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, was released on November 10 of the same year. A film adaptation by Blumhouse Productions was released in 2023. (Full article...) -
Image 8Dungeon Siege is an action role-playing game developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Microsoft in April 2002, for Microsoft Windows, and the following year by Destineer for Mac OS X. Set in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Ehb, the high fantasy game follows a young farmer and her companions as they journey to defeat an invading force. Initially only seeking to warn the nearby town of the invasion of a race of creatures named the Krug, the farmer and the companions that join her along the way are soon swept up in finding a way to defeat another race called the Seck, resurgent after being trapped for 300 years. Unlike other role-playing video games of the time, the world of Dungeon Siege does not have levels but is a single, continuous area without loading screens that the player journeys through, fighting hordes of enemies. Also, rather than setting character classes and manually controlling all of the characters in the group, the player controls their overall tactics and weapons and magic usage, which direct their character growth.
Dungeon Siege was the first title by Gas Powered Games, which was founded in May 1998 by Chris Taylor, then known for the 1997 real-time strategy game Total Annihilation. Joined by several of his coworkers from Cavedog Entertainment, Taylor wanted to create a different type of game, and after trying several concepts they decided to make an action role-playing game as their first title. Taylor also served as one of the designers for the game, joined by Jacob McMahon as the other lead designer and producer and Neal Hallford as the lead story and dialogue writer. The music was composed by Jeremy Soule, who had also worked on Total Annihilation. Gas Powered Games concentrated on making a role-playing game that was stripped of the typical genre elements they found slow or frustrating, to keep the player focused on the action. Development took over four years, though it was initially planned to take only two; completing the game within even four years required the team to work 12- to 14-hour days and weekends for most of the time.
The game was highly rated by critics upon release; it is listed by review aggregator Metacritic as the third-highest rated computer role-playing game of 2002. Critics praised the graphics and seamless world, as well as the fun and accessible gameplay, but were dismissive of the plot. Dungeon Siege sold over 1.7 million copies, and was nominated for the Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year award by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Gas Powered Games emphasized creating and releasing tools for players to use in making mods for the game during development, which resulted in an active modding community after release. An expansion pack, Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna, was released in 2003, and a further series of games was developed in the franchise, consisting of Dungeon Siege II (2005) and its own expansion Dungeon Siege II: Broken World (2006), a spinoff PlayStation Portable game titled Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony (2006), and a third main title, Dungeon Siege III (2011). A trilogy of movies, with the first loosely inspired by the plot of Dungeon Siege, were released as In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007, theaters), In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds (2011, home video), and In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission (2014, home video). (Full article...) -
Image 9South Park: The Stick of Truth is a 2014 role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment in collaboration with South Park Digital Studios and published by Ubisoft. Based on the American animated television series South Park, the game follows the New Kid, who has moved to the eponymous town and becomes involved in an epic role-play fantasy war involving humans, wizards, and elves, who are fighting for control of the all-powerful Stick of Truth. Their game quickly escalates out of control, bringing them into conflict with aliens, Nazi zombies, and gnomes, threatening the entire town with destruction.
The game is played from a 2.5D, third-person perspective replicating the aesthetic of the television series. The New Kid is able to freely explore the town of South Park, interacting with characters and undertaking quests, and accessing new areas by progressing through the main story. By selecting one of four character archetypes, Fighter, Thief, Mage, or Jew, each offering specific abilities, the New Kid and a supporting party of characters use a variety of melee, ranged, and magical fart attacks to combat with their enemies.
Development began in 2009 after South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone approached Obsidian about making a role-playing game designed to look exactly like the television series. Parker and Stone were involved throughout the game's production: they wrote its script, consulted on the design, and as in the television program, they voiced many of the characters. The Stick of Truth's production was turbulent; following the bankruptcy of the original publisher, THQ, the rights to the game were acquired by Ubisoft in early 2013, and its release date was postponed several times from its initial date in March 2013 to its eventual release in March 2014, for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360. (Full article...) -
Image 10Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. It is the first Super Mario game to feature 3D gameplay, combining traditional Super Mario gameplay, visual style, and characters in a large open world. In the game, Bowser, the primary antagonist of the Super Mario franchise, invades Princess Peach's castle and hides the castle's sources of protection, the Power Stars, in many different worlds inside magical paintings. As Mario, the player collects Power Stars to unlock enough of Princess Peach's castle to get to Bowser and rescue Princess Peach.
Director Shigeru Miyamoto conceived a 3D Super Mario game during the production of Star Fox (1993). Development lasted nearly three years: about one year on design and twenty months on production, starting with designing the virtual camera system. The team continued with illustrating the 3D character models—at the time a relatively unattempted task—and refining sprite movements. The sound effects were recorded by Yoji Inagaki and the score was composed by Koji Kondo.
Super Mario 64 was highly anticipated by video game journalists and audiences, boosted by advertising campaigns and showings at the 1996 E3 trade show. It received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its ambition, visuals, level design, and gameplay, though some criticized its virtual camera system. It is the best-selling Nintendo 64 game, with nearly twelve million copies sold by 2015. (Full article...)
Did you know... - show different entries
- ... that Tetris Holding won an injunction in 2012 to stop sales of a video game clone of their famed Tetris game?
- ... that MicroProse was formed to publish Hellcat Ace after Sid Meier boasted that he could design a better video game than Red Baron in a week?
- ... that classified documents of the United States were partially leaked onto a Discord server for the video game Minecraft?
- ... that a cheat code in the video game Spyro: Year of the Dragon grants access to a near-complete copy of Crash Bash?
- ... that the developers of the video game Golf Club: Wasteland jokingly announced that they would only sell one copy at a price of $500 million?
- ... that Through the Darkest of Times was the first video game published in Germany to use swastikas?
- ... that a reviewer thought that the video game Robbery Bob contained cringeworthy dialogue?
- ... that the Chicago Sun-Times credits JumpStart Toddlers as the first video game targeted towards babies?
- ... that the video game Fursan al-Aqsa received an update that allows players to reenact the October 7 attacks on Israel?
- ... that development on the video game Expeditions: Rome was not affected by lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic because the developer was already split between Copenhagen and Istanbul?
- ... that Kainé from the video game series Nier was created in response to a female staff member's vague wish for a "male heroine"?
- ... that the success of Kingdom Rush prompted plans to grow the video game industry of Uruguay?
Selected biography – load new batch
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Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov (born April 16, 1955) is a Russian-born computer engineer and video game designer who is best known for creating, designing, and developing Tetris in 1985 while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre under the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (now the Russian Academy of Sciences). After Tetris was released internationally in 1987, he released a sequel in 1989, entitled Welltris.
In 1991, he moved to the United States and later became a U.S. citizen. In 1996, Pajitnov founded The Tetris Company alongside Dutch video game designer Henk Rogers. Pajitnov did not receive royalties from Tetris prior to this time, despite the game's high popularity. (Full article...) -
Image 2Yoko Kanno (菅野 よう子, Kanno Yōko, born 18 March 1963) is a Japanese composer, arranger and music producer of soundtracks for anime series, video games, television dramas and movies. She has written scores for Cowboy Bebop, Terror in Resonance, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, Turn A Gundam and Darker than Black. Kanno is a keyboardist and the frontwoman for Seatbelts, who perform many of her compositions. (Full article...)
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Raphael "Raph" Koster (born September 7, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies. From 2006 until 2013 he worked as the founder and president of Metaplace (previously operating as Areae and acquired by social gaming company Playdom in 2010, which was in turn acquired by Disney) producing a Facebook game platform. (Full article...) -
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Nolan North (born October 31, 1970) is an American actor best known for his voice acting roles.
After his breakthrough role as Dr. Chris Ramsey on the ABC soap opera Port Charles in 1997, North moved into voice acting when the show ended in 2003 and has since become best known for his video game roles as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, Desmond Miles in the Assassin's Creed series, Merasmus in Team Fortress 2, the Prince in Prince of Persia, Dr. Edward Richtofen in the Call of Duty franchise, Deadpool in various Marvel Comics media, the Penguin in the Batman: Arkham franchise, Captain Martin Walker in Spec Ops: The Line, David in The Last of Us, himself as one of the voices for the player character in Saints Row IV, Tony Stark in Marvel's Avengers, and Ghost in the Destiny video game series. (Full article...) -
Image 5Ken Kutaragi (久夛良木 健, Kutaragi Ken, born 2 August 1950) is a Japanese engineering technologist and businessman. He is the former chairman and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), the video game division of Sony Group Corporation, and current president and CEO of Cyber AI Entertainment. He is known as "The Father of the PlayStation", as he oversaw the development of the original console and its successors and spinoffs, including the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and the PlayStation 3. He departed Sony in 2007, a year after the PlayStation 3 was released.
He had also designed the sound processor for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. With Sony, he designed the VLSI chip which works in conjunction with the PS1's RISC CPU to handle the graphics rendering. (Full article...) -
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William Murray "Trip" Hawkins III (born December 28, 1953) is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate. (Full article...) -
Image 7Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫, Uematsu Nobuo, born March 21, 1959) is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as one of his biggest influences.
Uematsu joined Square in 1986, where he first met Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The two later worked together on many games at the company, most notably in the Final Fantasy series. After nearly two decades with Square, Uematsu left in 2004 to create his own production company and music label, Dog Ear Records. He has since composed music as a freelancer for other games, including ones developed by Square Enix and Sakaguchi's studio Mistwalker. (Full article...) -
Image 8Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡, Hepburn: Iwata Satoru, December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. He was a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.
Born in Sapporo, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. At HAL, he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Games to which he contributed include EarthBound and many games in the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability. In the following years, he worked in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate planning division in 2000. (Full article...) -
Image 9Akira Toriyama (Japanese: 鳥山明, Hepburn: Toriyama Akira, April 5, 1955 – March 1, 2024) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball (his most famous work) and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. (Full article...) -
Image 10Tōru Iwatani (岩谷 徹, Iwatani Tōru, born January 25, 1955) is a Japanese video game designer who spent much of his career working for Namco. He is best known as the creator of the arcade game Pac-Man (1980). In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. (Full article...)
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Jennifer Hale is a Canadian-born American voice actress. She is best known for her work in video game franchises such as Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, BioShock Infinite, Metroid Prime, Overwatch, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In 2013, she was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most prolific video game voice actor.
Hale is featured in animation such as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, The Powerpuff Girls, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Totally Spies!, Avatar: The Last Airbender and its continuation The Legend of Korra, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? She also voices Thorn of the Hex Girls in various Scooby-Doo movies and TV episodes, as well as Cinderella and Princess Aurora in various Disney Princess media of the 2000s and 2010s. She is also known for voicing Jean Grey in a variety of Marvel media. (Full article...) -
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Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, graphic novelist, author, screenwriter, filmmaker, and former video game programmer. A major figure in the development of cinematic video games and a pioneer in video game animation, he began his career designing and programming the 1984 martial arts game Karateka for the Apple II while a student at Yale University. The game was a bestseller. He followed it with the platform game Prince of Persia five years later; it was widely ported and became a hit. Both games used rotoscoping, where actors shot on film by Mechner were drawn over to create in-game animation. Prince of Persia has become the basis for a long-running franchise, including a 2010 live-action film released by Walt Disney Pictures and an ongoing series of video games, published by Ubisoft.
Mechner is the recipient of many accolades, including the 2017 GDC Pioneer Award. His works are often included in all-time lists of the game industry's best and most influential titles. (Full article...) -
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Timothy John Schafer (born July 26, 1967) is an American video game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts. Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brütal Legend and Broken Age, co-designer of Day of the Tentacle, and assistant designer on The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. He is well known in the video game industry for his storytelling and comedic writing style, and has been given both a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards, and a BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the industry. (Full article...) -
Image 14Shinji Mikami (三上 真司, Mikami Shinji, born August 11, 1965) is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer. Starting his career at Capcom in 1990, he has worked on many of the company's most successful games. He directed the first installment of the Resident Evil series in 1996 and the first installment of the Dino Crisis series in 1999, both survival horror games. He returned to Resident Evil to direct the remake of the first game in 2002 and the third-person shooter Resident Evil 4 in 2005. In 2006, he directed his final Capcom game God Hand, a beat 'em up action game. Mikami founded PlatinumGames and directed the third-person shooter Vanquish in 2010. The same year, he founded his own studio Tango Gameworks which has since been acquired by the American company ZeniMax Media. Under his studio, he directed the third-person horror game The Evil Within in 2014. He has also served the roles of producer and executive producer for many games.
In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. (Full article...) -
Image 15Koji Kondo (Japanese: 近藤 浩治, Hepburn: Kondō Kōji, August 13, 1961) is a Japanese music composer, pianist, and sound director for the video game company Nintendo. He is best known for his many contributions to the Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series of video games, among others produced by the company. Kondo was hired by Nintendo in 1984, becoming the first person hired by them to specialize in video game music. His work in the Mario and Zelda series have been cited as the most memorable in video games, such as the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme. (Full article...)
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Image 16Hironobu Sakaguchi (坂口 博信, Sakaguchi Hironobu, born November 25, 1962) is a Japanese game designer, director, producer, and writer. Originally working for Square (later Square Enix) from 1983 to 2003, he departed the company and founded independent studio Mistwalker in 2004. He is known as the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise, in addition to other titles during his time at Square. At Mistwalker, he is known for creating the Blue Dragon and Terra Battle series among several standalone titles, moving away from home consoles and creating titles for mobile platforms.
Originally intending to become a musician, he briefly studied electronics and programming, joining Square as a part-time employee, then later a full-time employee when Square became an independent company in 1986. He led the development of several titles before helping to create the original Final Fantasy, which proved highly successful and cemented his status within the company. Following the financial failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, his debut as a film director, Sakaguchi withdrew from Square's management and eventually resigned in 2003. He continued his game career through Mistwalker, first co-developing projects through external partners and then smaller in-studio mobile projects. (Full article...) -
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Roberta Lynn Williams (née Heuer; born February 16, 1953) is an American video game designer and writer, who co-founded Sierra On-Line with her husband, game developer Ken Williams. In 1980, her first game, Mystery House, became a modest commercial success; it is credited as the first graphic adventure game. She is also known for creating and maintaining the King's Quest series, as well as designing the full motion video game Phantasmagoria in 1995.
Sierra was acquired by CUC International in 1996, leading to layoffs and management changes. Williams took a brief sabbatical, and returned to the company in a game design role, but grew increasingly frustrated with CUC's creative and business decisions. After the release of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in 1998, she left the game industry in 1999 and focused her retirement on traveling and writing historical fiction. In 2021 she released her historical novel, Farewell to Tara. Soon after, she returned to game development with the 3D remake of the classic adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure, released in January 2023 as Colossal Cave. (Full article...) -
Image 18Yuji Naka (中 裕司, Naka Yūji, born September 17, 1965), credited in some games as YU2, is a former Japanese video game programmer, designer and producer. He is the co-creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and was the president of Sonic Team at Sega until his departure in 2006.
Naka joined Sega in 1984 and worked on games including Girl's Garden (1985) and Phantasy Star II (1989). He was the lead programmer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Mega Drive in the early 1990s, which greatly increased Sega's market share. Naka developed Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) and Sonic & Knuckles (1994) in California with Sega Technical Institute. (Full article...) -
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William James Mitchell Jr. (born July 16, 1965) is an American video game player. He achieved fame throughout the 1980s and 1990s through claiming numerous records on classic video games, including a perfect score on Pac-Man. Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records recognized Mitchell as the holder of several records on classic games, and he has appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming. However, in 2017, the legitimacy of a number of his records was called into question, leading to Twin Galaxies stripping Mitchell of his records.
Mitchell rose to national prominence in the 1980s when Life included him in a photo spread of game champions during the height of the golden age of arcade video games. In 1999, Mitchell was the first person to claim a perfect score of 3,333,360 points on the arcade game Pac-Man. A 2007 documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, follows his attempts to maintain the highest score on Donkey Kong after being challenged by newcomer Steve Wiebe. (Full article...) -
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Sidney K. Meier (/ˈmaɪər/ MIRE; born February 24, 1954) is an American businessman and computer programmer. A programmer, designer, and producer of several strategy video games and simulation video games, including the Civilization series, Meier co-founded MicroProse in 1982 with Bill Stealey and is the Director of Creative Development of Firaxis Games, which he co-founded with Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds in 1996. For his contributions to the video game industry, Meier was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. (Full article...) -
Image 21Yuji Naka (中 裕司, Naka Yūji, born September 17, 1965), credited in some games as YU2, is a former Japanese video game programmer, designer and producer. He is the co-creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and was the president of Sonic Team at Sega until his departure in 2006.
Naka joined Sega in 1984 and worked on games including Girl's Garden (1985) and Phantasy Star II (1989). He was the lead programmer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Mega Drive in the early 1990s, which greatly increased Sega's market share. Naka developed Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) and Sonic & Knuckles (1994) in California with Sega Technical Institute. (Full article...) -
Image 22Tomohiro Nishikado (西角 友宏, Nishikado Tomohiro, born March 31, 1944) is a Japanese video game developer and engineer. He is the creator of the arcade shoot 'em up game Space Invaders, released to the public in 1978 by the Taito Corporation of Japan, often credited as the first shoot 'em up and for beginning the golden age of arcade video games. Prior to Space Invaders, he also designed other earlier Taito arcade games, including the shooting electro-mechanical games Sky Fighter (1971) and Sky Fighter II, the sports video game TV Basketball in 1974, the vertical scrolling racing video game Speed Race (also known as Wheels) in 1974, the multi-directional shooter Western Gun (also known as Gun Fight) in 1975, and the first-person combat flight simulator Interceptor (1975). (Full article...)
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Mark Edward Fischbach (/ˈfɪʃˌbɑːk/ FISH-bahk; born June 28, 1989), known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, actor and filmmaker. He mainly uploads Let's Plays and is known for his videos of indie horror games. After joining YouTube in 2012, Fischbach became popular on the platform with Let's Plays of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and the Five Nights at Freddy's series. , his channel has over 36 million subscribers.
Fischbach is one of the most popular gaming YouTubers on the platform. He was listed by Forbes as the third highest-paid content creator on the platform in 2022, and has won four Streamy Awards and a Golden Joystick Award for "Best Streamer/Broadcaster". (Full article...) -
Image 24Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内溥, Yamauchi Hiroshi, 7 November 1927 – 19 September 2013) was a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, joining the company on 25 April 1949 until stepping down on 24 May 2002, being subsequently succeeded by Satoru Iwata. During his 53-year tenure, Yamauchi transformed Nintendo from a hanafuda card-making company that had been active solely in Japan into a multibillion-dollar video game publisher and global conglomerate. He was the great-grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi, Nintendo's first president and founder. Hiroshi Yamauchi owned the Seattle Mariners baseball team from 1992 until his death.
In April 2013, Forbes estimated Yamauchi's net worth at $2.1 billion; he was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491st richest in the world. In 2008, Yamauchi was Japan's wealthiest person with a fortune at that time estimated at $7.8 billion. At the time of his death, Yamauchi was the largest shareholder at Nintendo. (Full article...) -
Image 25Tokuro Fujiwara (藤原 得郎, Fujiwara Tokurō, born April 7, 1961), sometimes credited as Professor F or Arthur King, is a Japanese video game designer, involved in the development of many classic Capcom video games. He directed early Capcom titles such as the run-and-gun shooter Commando (1985), the platformers Ghosts 'n Goblins (1985) and Bionic Commando (1987), and the survival horror game Sweet Home (1989). He was also a main producer for the Mega Man series and worked on the CP System arcade game Strider (1989). He also conceived of Resident Evil as a remake of his earlier game Sweet Home, and worked on the game as general producer., which introduced the Super Famicom platform in 1993. He worked as the general manager of the Capcom Console Games Division from 1988 to 1996.
After working at Capcom for thirteen years, he left the company to form his own studio, Whoopee Camp. His last game was Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection for former employer Capcom. He is notorious for making his titles difficult for the average video game player and strict personality among peers. IGN listed Fujiwara at number 13 in its "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list. (Full article...)
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Recent video game-related events
- May 24, 2024 – Uvalde school shooting
- Families in Uvalde, Texas, U.S., file a lawsuit against Daniel Defense and Activision Blizzard for creating the DDM4 V7 gun and promoting the weapon through the game Call of Duty, respectively. They also sue Meta Platforms for owning Instagram, which was used by the gunman. (AP)
- April 16, 2024 – 2023–2024 video game industry layoffs
- American video game company Take-Two Interactive lays off 5% of its workforce. (Reuters)
- April 10, 2024 – 2023–2024 video game industry layoffs
- American video game company Epic Games announces that it will lay-off around 870 employees, roughly one-sixth of its workforce, due to slower growth than expected. (CBC via Yahoo! News)
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