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Truly visionary people in gaming

Ken Levine
Fumito Ueda
Hideki Kamiya
Suda51
Éric Chahi
Tetsuya Mizoguchi
Lorne Lanning
Tim Schaffer
Cyan (developers of Myst and Riven)
Justaddwater (developers of Flow, Journey, Flower)
Hideo Kojima
Sam & Dan Houser
Chad Moldenhauer
Miyamoto
Will Wright
Warren Spector
Shinji Mikami
Hideo Kojima
 
Sakaguchi. Before he left Square he said that Online games and mobile games were the future. He was also the one who spearheaded FFXI.

People gave shit to FFXI at the beginning, but time has proven that it was the right decision. Now mobile games and Onlines games are two pillers of Square Enix.
 
GearFourth said:
Fumito Ueda for sure

Fumito_Ueda.jpg


And From Softwares one and only Hidetaka Miyazaki

Hidetaka_miyazaki.jpg
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My exact 2 picks. They made my favourite games ever.
 
Yoshiaki Koizumi. A godly track record, and a true visionary because he has as designer and director historically seeked and found this excellent balance where story and gameplay don't need to compromise each other. Majora's Mask has incredible and complex narratives, but the overall design and structures also serves a core purpose for the strong and interesting gameplay. Same with Super Mario Galaxy that, while mostly about gameplay at heart, also uses the space theme to pursue a new kind of Mario story and does so subtly and very effectively.
 
For their directorial/design work:

Yu Suzuki
Shinji Mikami
Hifumi Kono
Hideo Kojima
Hidetaka Miyazaki
Goichi Suda
Yasumi Matsuno
Chris Avellone
Makoto Shibata
Shu Takumi
Keiichiro Toyama
Amy Hennig
Katsura Hashino
Yoko Taro

Legends one and all. Like to play whatever these people make.
 
petran79 said:
Tomohiro Nishikado

http://shmuplations.com/spaceinvaders/

It all started for me with an interest in hardware and technology. Back then, you see, “games” weren’t software you programmed—it was all controlled by the hardware. Each time you wanted to make a game, you had to physically create the specific circuits for it. That was one of the funnest things about it, to me, but it also meant that planning a game took an inordinate amount of time and was a bottleneck in production. Around that time the microprocessor was invented in America, and I remember thinking, “now, the era of software begins.”

America’s technology was ahead of Japan, but when it came to using the microprocessor for games, the path ahead was not clear. At first the microprocessors were just used in things like pinball machines. I believe it was Space Invaders that first hit upon the idea of using them for video games.

—And there was no such job as “game programmer” then either.

Nishikado: I don’t think anyone called themselves that. In those days a “programmer” would be someone who used the large, room-sized computers for making scientific or work-related calculations.

—Did you begin the development of Space Invaders totally from zero, then?

Nishikado: I had several books and bits of documentation from America, and using my crude English, I translated what I needed from them as I went. Professional development tools back then cost 10 million yen (roughly $100,000). The microprocessor was something we acquired when we got the memory and other hardware parts, but a development workstation was too expensive, so we did not get one. We had to create all our development tools by ourselves.

—Did you do it all alone?

Nishikado: Yes, by myself. In those days that was standard, for games to be made by one person. You saved on personnel costs that way, and with the tools being made by hand, it cost next to nothing.
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Oh okay... so he's not just a living legend, he's a savant as well.

No big deal or anything...
WOW
 
Yu Suzuki. That man ( And Sega AM2 in general ) is ridiculously underrated here.

He stands alongside Miyamoto for his contributions especially to the Arcade games and 3D gaming in the early 90s. Hang On,OutRun, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, , Virtua Racing all truly pioneering games. And as much as people dont really like Shenmue here it was a groundbreaking title for its time.

Many People might not be big fans of his games, but he has influenced so many genres and some of the most revolutionary titles like GoldenEye,GTA..etc.
Virtua Fighter is ultimately what influenced Sony to go with a 3D push for the Playstation 1.
 
Though not right right now, 10-15 years from now I believe Bruce Straley and Neil Druckman will be considered true visionaries. They are continually pushing the cinematic gameplay genre forward.
 
Already mentioned but, I must also say, Yu Suzuki. Nothing came close to those mid-to-late 80s super-scalar arcade games like Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run and After Burner II.
 
MikeE21286 said:
Ken Kutaragi

He missed with the PS3 but he is almost single-handedly the reason why Sony makes video game consoles.
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He didn't mess up anything. The PS3 is a beast of a machine considering it's known weaknesses.

Anyway, I'd agree. This man's PS4 would most likely be a true generational leap. Sorry Cerny, but this current PS4 with PC parts seems pretty weak and feeble compared to the lavishly designed hardware Ken created for many years. Way ahead of everyone and it showed.

I'm afraid the PS4 just doesn't seem all that special.

So yeah, Ken Kutaragi is the man.
 
AmyS said:
Already mentioned but, I must also say, Yu Suzuki. Nothing came close to those mid-to-late 80s super-scalar arcade games like Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run and After Burner II.
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Yea his arcade games from late 80s and early 90s were incomparable to anything else on the market.
 
Kodaman said:
what? is this some alternate reality?
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Seriously. He's pretty much the driving force behind Nintendo's current direction and philosophy, which as we all know is anything but playing it safe. He's the guy who pioneered motion controls and drove the success of the wii, which was anything but safe. Pretty much every project Miyamoto is directly in charge of has some unique gimmick that, while they might sometimes not work out as well as hoped or be divisive, are certainly not playing it safe
 
Ken Kutaragi for the Emotion Engine.
I never thought it would be possible to experience life-like emotions in a video game until I got a PS2. It was magical.
 
CertifiedFP said:
Eh, I wouldn't put Carmack next to Iwata and Miyamoto. Tom Hall or Warren Spector would be far better fits.

Carmack hasn't been particularly relevant since the 90's. Id Tech 4 and 5 were complete trash weighed down by technological gimmicks that haven't aged well or simply didn't work at all to begin with, and to boot they LITERALLY lost all their market-share to Unreal, he let Activision commandeer all of their IPs into the ground (Doom 3, Doom movie, Quake 4, Quake Wars, Wolf2009, etc), and from an outside observer's perspective didn't do much to recover Id's value during the disaster that was the 2000's for Id until Bethesda picked up the pieces.

Also, "Id Tech 6 will be voxel based"

RFiJNyN.gif
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Carmack made people give VR a chance this decade. Besides, the whole argument that he can only be a visionary by continuously reinventing the medium rather than doing it once (and that success and profits are the way to weight this), is in par with the very bias mentality used to cater to successful businessmen ala Steve Jobs rather than to the Wozniaks.
 
Already mentioned, but Miyamoto and Yu Suzuki are, to me, the greatest. I focus on Japanese games though.

Hideki Kamiya in the lower level.

I'll also honor Tetsuya Takahashi, Xeno series creator, for his storylines.

Shoeless said:
I think Richard Garriot, aka Lord British needs a mention. Without him and the pioneer work he did on the Ultima series in the 80s, the landscape of the RPG genre would be very different.
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Oh yeah, this guy. He deserves it.
 
I would have said John Romero if Daikatana didn't exist. That doesn't negate his works on Doom and Quake though.
 
Vulcano's assistant said:
Carmack made people give VR a chance this decade. Besides, the whole argument that he can only be a visionary by continuously reinventing the medium rather than doing it once (and that success and profits are the way to weight this), is in par with the very bias mentality used to cater to successful businessmen ala Steve Jobs rather than to the Wozniaks.
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I didn't say he needed to continuously reinvent the medium.

In fact, I'd say Carmack's biggest problem weighing him down was that he was reinventing wheels that didn't need to be reinvented, and creating worse wheels in the end. Things that lead to the industry completely ignoring Id Tech 4 in favor of Unreal Engine 2, combined with outlandish ideas rivaled only by Euclideon's "Unlimited Detail Engine".
 
Yoshiaki Koizumi

I gave the guy a lot of shit in the past, but he's an incredibly multi-talented guy. Storyteller, system designer, level designer, animator, director. He's done nearly everything, and has been behind some of Nintendo's best games ever (SMG and OoT).

Takashi Tezuka deserves more love too.
 
I was going to say Richard Garriott. Glad to see others have already mentioned him.

It's a shame his current project, Shroud of the Avatar, is a huge mess of a cash grab that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
 
There's a lot of people who could be named.

I think a lot of people currently understate Miyamoto as a visionary due to current feelings towards his recent work. One must remember video games as they are today simply wouldn't exist without Miyamoto, he took the flawed pieces of early games that created a failing market and was able to craft a vision and execute several games games that changed the landscape of gaming forever, which introduced the idea of intricate non-cryptic design & pacing to video games, along with a linear structure and introduce us to boss battles proper.

Without him, there would be no groundwork for all other games to build themselves off of, and I think that gets underappreciated and over-looked in this day and age.
 
Molyneux will always be for all the wrong reasons...


Sandy White
Jon Ritman
Jon Hare
Stoo Cambridge
Archer McClean
Stavros Fasoulas
Bitmap Brothers
David Perry
David Jones
 
I think Cliff deserves a mention for his work on Unreal Tournament, Gears of War and Infinity Blade. Those games pushed genres forward.

He's been designing games since he was a kid and has had a bigger impact on games than some would give him credit for.

He's a bit of a maverick and rubs some people up the wrong way, but I've always liked him.
 
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