Portal:Video games
(Redirected from Portal:Video games/Projects)
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 games (which includes 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 –
Featured articles represent some of the best content on the English Wikipedia.-
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a 1998 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. The game was the first in the Legend of Zelda series with 3D graphics. It was released in Japan and North America in November 1998 and in PAL regions the following month.
Ocarina of Time was developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development division. It was led by five directors, including Eiji Aonuma and Yoshiaki Koizumi, produced by series co-creator Shigeru Miyamoto, and written by Kensuke Tanabe. Series composer Koji Kondo wrote its soundtrack. The player controls Link in the realm of Hyrule on a quest to stop the evil king Ganondorf by traveling through time and navigating dungeons and an overworld. The game introduced features such as a target-lock system and context-sensitive buttons, which have since become common in 3D adventure games. The player must play songs on an ocarina to progress.
Ocarina of Time was acclaimed by critics and consumers, who praised its visuals, sound, gameplay, soundtrack, and writing. It has been ranked by numerous publications as the greatest video game of all time and is the highest-rated game on the review aggregator Metacritic. It was commercially successful, with more than seven million copies sold worldwide. In the United States, it received more than three times more pre-orders than any other game at the time. A sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, was released in 2000. Ocarina of Time has been re-released on every one of Nintendo's home consoles and on the iQue Player in China. An enhanced version of the game for the Nintendo 3DS, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, was released in 2011. Master Quest, an alternative version of the game including new puzzles and increased difficulty, is included in one of the GameCube releases and the 3D version. (Full article...) -
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a 2015 top-down shooter video game developed by Dennaton Games and published by Devolver Digital. The game takes place before, during, and after the events of Hotline Miami (2012), focusing on the background and aftermath of the massacres committed against the Russian mafia in Miami by Jacket, the protagonist of the previous game. The player takes on the role of several different characters during the game, witnessing the events from different perspectives across the United States. In each level of the game, the player is tasked with defeating every enemy through any means possible. In the version of the game released on Steam, the player has access to a level editor, allowing them to create and share custom levels with other players.
The game was initially conceived as downloadable content for the previous game, but became a standalone sequel after its length surpassed that of the original. The game was announced in December 2012 via Jonatan Söderström's Twitter. Developed as the final installment in the series, Dennaton incorporated all unused concepts from the first game's development into the sequel. The game's console versions were developed by Abstraction Games. Announced at E3 2013, the game was delayed several times. It released worldwide on 10 March 2015 for Linux, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the soundtrack, but had diverse opinions on the gameplay, level design and ending. A scene depicting sexual assault triggered a mostly negative response from media outlets and caused the game to be refused classification in Australia. A localised version was released in Japan on 25 June 2015 as part of Hotline Miami: Collected Edition. The game was ported onto Nintendo Switch alongside the first game in the Hotline Miami Collection in 2019, which was later ported onto the Xbox One and Stadia in 2020 and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2023. (Full article...) -
League of Legends (LoL), commonly referred to as League, is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by Defense of the Ancients, a custom map for Warcraft III, Riot's founders sought to develop a stand-alone game in the same genre. Since its release in October 2009, League has been free-to-play and is monetized through purchasable character customization. The game is available for Microsoft Windows and macOS.
In the game, two teams of five players battle in player-versus-player combat, each team occupying and defending their half of the map. Each of the ten players controls a character, known as a "champion", with unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match, champions become more powerful by collecting experience points, earning gold, and purchasing items to defeat the opposing team. In League's main mode, Summoner's Rift, a team wins by pushing through to the enemy base and destroying their "Nexus", a large structure located within.
League of Legends has received generally positive reviews, which have highlighted its accessibility, character designs, and production value. The game's long lifespan has resulted in a critical reappraisal, with reviews trending positively; it is widely considered one of the greatest video games ever made. However, negative and abusive in-game player behavior, criticized since the game's early days, persists despite Riot's attempts to fix the problem. In 2019, League regularly peaked at eight million concurrent players, and its popularity has led to tie-ins such as music, comic books, short stories, and the animated series Arcane. Its success has spawned several spin-off video games, including a mobile version, a digital collectible card game, and a turn-based role-playing game, among others. A massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the property is in development. (Full article...) -
Halo: Reach is a 2010 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, originally for the Xbox 360. The sixth installment in the Halo series and a direct prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, Reach was released worldwide in September 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with an alien theocracy known as the Covenant, which seeks to exterminate humanity. Players play as Noble Six, a member of an elite squad of supersoldiers, known as Noble Team, attempting to stage a defense of the human world known as Reach, which falls under Covenant attack.
After releasing Halo 3 in 2007, Bungie split into teams to develop two different games—what would become Halo 3: ODST and Reach. The developers decided to create a prequel to the original Halo game trilogy, freeing themselves from the obligation of addressing old story threads. As the game would take place on a human world doomed to be destroyed, they focused on making the environment a character unto itself. Longtime Halo composers Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori returned to compose Reach's music, aiming for a more somber sound to match the story.
Reach was announced at E3 2009 in Los Angeles, and the first in-engine trailer was shown at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. Players who purchased ODST were eligible to participate in a Reach multiplayer beta in May 2010; the beta allowed Bungie to gain player feedback for fixing bugs and making gameplay tweaks before shipping the final version. Microsoft gave Reach its biggest game marketing budget yet and created award-winning live-action commercials, action figures, and interactive media to promote the game. (Full article...) -
Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy is a series of games within the Final Fantasy video game franchise. It was primarily developed by series creator and developer Square Enix, which also acted as publisher for all titles. While featuring various worlds and different characters, each Fabula Nova Crystallis game is ultimately based on and expands upon a common mythos focusing on important crystals tied to deities. The level of connection to the mythos varies between each title, with each development team given the freedom to adapt the mythos to fit the context of a game's story.
The series, originally announced in 2006 as Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII, consists of seven games across multiple platforms. Final Fantasy XIII, designed as the series' flagship title, was released in 2009. The creative forces behind the series include many developers from previous Final Fantasy titles, including Shinji Hashimoto and Motomu Toriyama. The mythos was conceived and written by Kazushige Nojima. The first games announced for the series were Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XV (as Versus XIII), and Final Fantasy Type-0 (as Agito XIII). All three games went through delays. After Final Fantasy XIII and Type-0's releases, their respective teams used ideas and concepts from development to create additional games. For later games, other studios have been brought in to help with aspects of development. Final Fantasy XV was distanced from the series brand for marketing purposes, though it retains thematic connections.
Seven titles, the original three projects and four additional titles, have been released as of 2016. The series is complemented by works in related media, including companion books, novelizations, and manga. Final Fantasy XV notably expanded into a multimedia project, spawning a feature film and an original animated webseries. Individual games have generally received a positive reception, although opinions have been more mixed over various aspects of the three Final Fantasy XIII games. Reception of the mythos' use in the released games has also been mixed: while some critics called it confusing or too similar to the lore of the main series, others were impressed by its scope and use. Retrospective opinions on the series have also been mixed. (Full article...) -
Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Sandy Pantz from a mad scientist, whose mind has been enslaved by a sentient meteor. The player uses a point-and-click interface to guide Dave and two of his six playable friends through the scientist's mansion while solving puzzles and avoiding dangers. Gameplay is non-linear, and the game must be completed in different ways based on the player's choice of characters. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product.
The game was conceived in 1985 by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, who sought to tell a comedic story based on horror film and B-movie clichés. They mapped out the project as a paper-and-pencil game before coding commenced. While earlier adventure titles had relied on command lines, Gilbert disliked such systems, and he developed Maniac Mansion's simpler point-and-click interface as a replacement. To speed up production, he created a game engine called SCUMM, which was used in many later LucasArts titles. After its release, Maniac Mansion was ported to several platforms. A port for the Nintendo Entertainment System had to be reworked heavily, in response to Nintendo of America's concerns that the game was inappropriate for children.
Maniac Mansion was critically acclaimed: reviewers lauded its graphics, cutscenes, animation, and humor. Writer Orson Scott Card praised it as a step toward "computer games [becoming] a valid storytelling art". It influenced numerous graphic adventure titles, and its point-and-click interface became a standard feature in the genre. The game's success solidified Lucasfilm as a serious rival to adventure game studios such as Sierra On-Line. In 1990, Maniac Mansion was adapted into a three-season television series of the same name, written by Eugene Levy and starring Joe Flaherty. A sequel to the game, Day of the Tentacle, was released in 1993. (Full article...) -
Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption is a 2000 role-playing video game developed by Nihilistic Software and published by Activision. The game is based on White Wolf Publishing's tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, a part of the larger World of Darkness series. It follows Christof Romuald, a 12th-century French crusader who is killed and revived as a vampire. The game depicts Christof's centuries-long journey from the Golden Ages of 12th century Prague and Vienna to late-20th century London and New York City in search of his humanity and his kidnapped love, the nun Anezka.
Redemption is presented in the first- and third-person perspectives. The player controls Christof and up to three allies through a linear structure, providing the player with missions to progress through a set narrative. Certain actions committed by Christof throughout the game can raise or lower his humanity, affecting which of the game's three endings the player receives. As a vampire, Christof is imbued with a variety of abilities and powers that can be used to combat or avoid enemies and obstacles. Use of these abilities drains Christof's supply of blood which can be replenished by drinking from enemies or innocents. It includes multiplayer gameplay called "Storyteller", which allows one player to create a narrative for a group of players with the ability to modify the game dynamically in reaction to the players' actions.
Founded in March 1998, Nihilistic's twelve-man team began development of Redemption the following month as their first game. It took the team two years to complete on a budget of US$1.8 million. The team relied on eight outside contractors to provide elements that the team could not supply, such as music and artwork. The game's development was difficult: late changes to software forced the developers to abandon completed code and assets; a focus on high-quality graphics and sound meant that the game ran poorly on some computer systems; and the original scope of the game exceeded the game's schedule and budget, forcing the team to cancel planned features. (Full article...) -
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is a 2000 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was the second The Legend of Zelda game to use 3D graphics, following Ocarina of Time (1998). Designed by a creative team led by Eiji Aonuma, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Shigeru Miyamoto, Majora's Mask was completed in less than two years. It features enhanced graphics and several gameplay changes, but reuses elements and character models from Ocarina of Time, which the game's creators called a creative decision made necessary by time constraints.
The story takes place months after Ocarina of Time. Link arrives in a parallel world, Termina, and becomes embroiled in a quest to prevent the moon from crashing in three days' time. The game introduces gameplay concepts revolving around a perpetually repeating three-day cycle and the use of various masks that transform Link into different forms. As the player progresses through the game, Link learns to play numerous melodies on his ocarina, which allow him to control the flow of time, open hidden passages, or manipulate the environment. Characteristic of the Zelda series, completion of the game involves successfully navigating through several dungeons that contain complex puzzles and enemies. Majora's Mask requires the Expansion Pak add-on for the Nintendo 64, which provides additional memory for more refined graphics and greater capacity in generating on-screen characters.
Majora's Mask earned universal acclaim from critics and is widely considered one of the best video games ever made. It received praise for its level design, story, and surrealist art direction, and has been noted for its darker tone and themes compared to other Nintendo titles. While the game only sold about half as many copies as its predecessor, it generated a substantial cult following. The game was rereleased as part of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition for the GameCube in 2003, via the Virtual Console service for the Wii and Wii U, and the Nintendo Classics service for Nintendo Switch. An enhanced remake for the Nintendo 3DS, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D, was released in 2015. (Full article...) -
Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. The first game was Age of Empires, released in 1997. Nine total games within the series have been released so far as of October 28, 2021.
The first title in the series, Age of Empires, focused on events in Europe, Africa and Asia, spanning from the Stone Age to the Iron Age; the expansion game explored the formation and expansion of the Roman Empire. The sequel, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, was set in the Middle Ages, while its expansion focused partially on the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The subsequent three games of Age of Empires III explored the early modern period, when Europe was colonizing the Americas and several Asian nations were on the decline. Another installment, Age of Empires Online, takes a different approach as a free-to-play online game utilizing Games for Windows Live. A spin-off game, Age of Mythology, was set in the same period as the original Age of Empires, but focused on mythological elements of Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology. The fourth main installment in the series, Age of Empires IV, was released on October 28, 2021, also focusing on the Middle Ages.
The Age of Empires series has been a commercial success, selling over 25 million copies. Critics have credited part of the success of the series to its historical theme and fair play; the artificial intelligence (AI) players have fewer advantages than in many of the series' competitors. (Full article...) -
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, colloquially known as Master Chief, is the protagonist of the Halo video game series and its spin-off media. The character first appeared in the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved, a science fiction first-person shooter that became a long-running franchise. The character also appears in spin-off Halo media such as the 2012 film Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, the 2022–2024 Halo television series, and several graphic novels and books.
The Master Chief is a towering supersoldier known as a "Spartan", trained from childhood for combat. The designers intended for players to be able to project their own intentions into the character and thus reduced his voiced lines and concealed his appearance under his armor. In the video games, the character is voiced by former disc jockey Steve Downes, who based his performance on Bungie's description calling for a man of few words, similar to Clint Eastwood. In spin-off media, he is portrayed by different voice and physical actors, most notably Pablo Schreiber on the 2022 live-action TV series.
A pop culture icon, Master Chief is widely regarded as one of the greatest video game characters of all time, with the character being seen as a mascot for Halo and the Xbox brand. His 2001 debut received a generally positive reception for his character design, with publications praising how the narrative allows players to inhabit the character, while others have criticized him as under-characterized. In later Halo games developed by 343 Industries, the characterization of Master Chief earned praise for exploring his humanity and his relationship with Cortana. (Full article...)
Did you know... -
- ... that the video game Manor Lords was wishlisted more than three million times on Steam after its developer had estimated it would receive around 14,000?
- ... 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 the name of the video game mod series Bomba Patch was inspired by éclairs?
- ... that the 2014 chariot racing video game Qvadriga was inspired by a 1979 board game?
- ... that the video game Serious Sam: Tormental was originally inspired by Geometry Wars?
- ... that before Sarah Elmaleh voiced the player character in the video game Anthem, developed by BioWare, she voiced characters in a mod of an earlier BioWare game?
- ... that for at least 90 minutes, Mori Calliope livestreamed herself begging video game developer Atlus to allow her to stream their game Persona 3?
- ... that the 1987 video game Oriental Hero was panned as "so incredibly bad it's almost worth a look"?
- ... that after becoming paralyzed from the neck down, Rocky "RockyNoHands" Stoutenburgh broke two Guinness World Records in the video game Fortnite?
- ... that the world's largest video game studio is headquartered in a former textile factory?
- ... that when Kaz Ayabe pitched his video game Boku no Natsuyasumi to Sony, he said that illustrator Mineko Ueda was interested in the project even though they had never actually met?
- ... that the urban legend Herobrine was ranked on a Guinness World Records poll of the best video game villains, despite never existing?
Selected biography –
Biographies included here are taken from the list of essential video game articles.
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Richard Allan Bartle (born 10 January 1960) is a British writer, professor and game researcher in the massively multiplayer online game industry. He co-created MUD1 (the first MUD) in 1978, and is the author of the 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds. (Full article...) -
John Bruce "Jack" Thompson (born July 25, 1951) is an American activist and disbarred attorney. As an attorney, Thompson focused his legal efforts against what he perceives as obscenity in modern culture. Thompson gained recognition as an anti-video game activist, criticizing the content of video games and their alleged effects on children. He also targeted rap music and radio personality Howard Stern.
Thompson's legal career was further recognized for his actions against the Florida Bar, including challenging its constitutionality in 1993. In 2008, he was permanently disbarred by the Supreme Court of Florida for inappropriate conduct, including making false statements to tribunals and disparaging and humiliating litigants. (Full article...) -
Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American video game developer and businessman. He is the president and co-founder of the video game company Valve Corporation.
Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system. In 1996, he and Mike Harrington left Microsoft to found Valve and fund the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998). Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell and left in 2000. Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, which launched in 2003 and controlled most of the market for downloaded PC games by 2011. (Full article...) -
Mark Edward Fischbach (/ˈfɪʃˌbɑːk/ FISH-bahk; born June 28, 1989), known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. One of the most popular YouTubers on the platform, he is known for his "Let's Play" videos of indie horror games. 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. He has spun off his YouTube fame into a media career, venturing into acting and filmmaking.
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; as of 2024, his channel had over 37 million subscribers. He signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor in 2016. While with the agency, he released a clothing line, wrote and directed the YouTube Original series A Heist with Markiplier (2019) and In Space with Markiplier (2022), and hosted or co-hosted two podcasts which reached No. 1 on Spotify. (Full article...) -
Satoshi Tajiri (Japanese: 田尻 智, Hepburn: Tajiri Satoshi, born August 28, 1965) is a Japanese video game designer and director who is the creator of the Pokémon franchise and the co-founder and president of video game developer Game Freak.
A fan of arcade games in his youth, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzine Game Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day. (Full article...) -
Tomohiro 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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Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov (born April 16, 1955) is a Russian and American computer engineer and video game designer. He 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. Despite the game's high popularity, Pajitnov did not receive royalties from Tetris prior to this time; the Soviet Union had disintegrated by 1991. (Full article...) -
Todd Andrew Howard (born 1970) is an American video game designer, director, and producer. He serves as director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the development of the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series. He was also the game director for Starfield. (Full article...) -
Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂, Hepburn: Miyamoto Shigeru, born November 16, 1952) is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.
Born in Sonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as a manga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing the president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, with his toys. He helped create art for the arcade game Sheriff, and was later tasked with designing a new arcade game, leading to the 1981 game Donkey Kong. (Full article...) -
Yu Suzuki (鈴木 裕, Suzuki Yū, born June 10, 1958) is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. Considered one of the first auteurs of video games, he has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimensional sprite-scaling games that used "taikan" motion simulator arcade cabinets, such as Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run and After Burner, and pioneering polygonal 3D games such as Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, which are some of the games besides others from rival companies during that era credited with popularizing 3D graphics in video games; as well as the critically acclaimed Shenmue series. As a hardware engineer, he led the development of various arcade system boards, including the Sega Space Harrier, Model 1, Model 2 and Model 3, and was involved in the technical development of the Dreamcast console and its corresponding NAOMI arcade hardware.
In 2003, Suzuki became the sixth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. IGN listed him at #9 in their Top 100 Game Creators of All Time list. In 2011, he received the Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards. (Full article...) -
Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, 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 bestselling 1984 martial arts game Karateka for the Apple II while a student at Yale University. 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...) -
Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, which is the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009.
Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over ten million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced on his personal website that he had concluded he "[didn't have the connection to his fans he thought he had]", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. He left Mojang in November of that year, selling his company to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire. (Full article...) -
Nobuo 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 in pursuing a musical career.
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...) -
Hiroshi 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 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...) -
Lim Yo-hwan (Korean: 임요환; Hanja: 林遙煥, born September 4, 1980), known online as SlayerS_'BoxeR' (usually shortened to BoxeR), is a former professional player of the real-time strategy computer game StarCraft. He is often referred to as "The Terran Emperor", or simply "The Emperor", and is widely considered to be one of the most successful players of the genre as well as a pop culture icon.
Lim won his first StarCraft: Brood War tournament in 1999. From 2001 to 2002, he won multiple major championships, including two OnGameNet Starleague titles and two World Cyber Games gold medals. In 2002, he also created the team Team Orion, which later became SK Telecom T1 (SKT T1) in 2004. He began his compulsory military service in 2006, where he played on South Korea's newly formed Air Force esports team Airforce Challenge E-sports. In late 2010, he retired from StarCraft: Brood War and founded the StarCraft II team SlayerS. He then briefly returned to SKT T1 as a coach in 2012 before retiring due to health related issues. Lim finished his playing career with a record of 603 wins and 430 losses (58.4%). (Full article...) -
Yoko 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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Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (/ˈʃɛlbɜːrɡ/ SHEL-burg, Swedish: [ˈfěːlɪks ˈǎrːvɪd ɵlf ˈɕɛ̂lːbærj] ⓘ; born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie (/ˈpjuːdiːpaɪ/ PEW-dee-py), is a Swedish YouTuber, best known for his gaming videos. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage have made him one of the most noted online personalities and content creators. Media coverage of him has cited him as a figurehead for YouTube, especially in the gaming genre.
Born and raised in Gothenburg, Kjellberg registered his YouTube channel "PewDiePie" in 2010, primarily posting Let's Play videos of horror and action video games. His channel gained a substantial following and was one of the fastest growing channels in 2012 and 2013, before becoming the most-subscribed on YouTube on 15 August 2013. From 29 December 2014 to 14 February 2017, Kjellberg's channel was also the most-viewed on the platform. During this period, his content shifted focus from Let's Plays and diversified to include vlogs, comedy shorts, formatted shows, and music videos. (Full article...) -
John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and their sequels. Carmack made innovations in 3D computer graphics, such as his Carmack's Reverse algorithm for shadow volumes.
In 2013, he resigned from id Software to work full-time at Oculus VR as their CTO. In 2019, he reduced his role to Consulting CTO so he could allocate more time toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). In 2022, he left Oculus to work on his AGI startup, Keen Technologies. (Full article...) -
Satoru 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. Iwata 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...) -
Gunpei Yokoi (横井 軍平, Yokoi Gunpei, 10 September 1941 – 4 October 1997), sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the Game Boy, and producer of a few long-running and critically acclaimed video game franchises such as Metroid and Kid Icarus. (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...) -
Sidney K. Meier (/ˈmaɪər/ MIRE; born February 24, 1954) is an American businessman and computer programmer. A programmer, designer, and producer of many 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...) -
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...) -
Geoff Keighley (/ˈkiːli/ KEE-lee; born June 24, 1978) is a Canadian video game journalist and television presenter, best known for his role as the host of several video game industry conferences and presentations. He is the executive producer and host of the Game Awards since its inception in 2014, having previously served as the executive producer of the Spike Video Game Awards. He also hosts and produces Summer Game Fest, and has hosted live events for trades fairs Gamescom and the now-defunct E3.
He previously hosted the video game show GameTrailers TV, and G4tv.com. Keighley is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Kotaku among other publications. His multi-media series The Final Hours, originally an article series published by GameSpot, features in-depth interviews and behind-the-scenes with developers of popular franchises like Portal, Mass Effect and Tomb Raider. (Full article...) -
Michael Morhaime (born November 3, 1967) is an American video game developer and entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Dreamhaven, located in Irvine, California. Morhaime is best known as the co-founder and the former president of Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., that was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse. He served on the Vivendi Games executive committee from January 1999, when Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. became a subsidiary of Vivendi Games, until July 2008. (Full article...)
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Will Wright at the 2007 South by Southwest.
Recent video game-related events
- April 4, 2025 – Tariffs in the second Trump administration
- Multiple companies, including Klarna, StubHub, Nintendo, and Professional Sports Authenticator, pause price-sensitive business actions in the U.S. to evaluate the impact of the recent tariff announcements. (The Wall Street Journal) (IGN) (The Verge)
- January 16, 2025 –
- Nintendo officially reveals the Nintendo Switch 2 video game console, the successor to the Nintendo Switch. (Nintendo)
- September 12, 2024 – 2023–2024 video game industry layoffs
- Microsoft announces that it will lay off 650 Microsoft Gaming employees as part of cuts to its workforce. (Variety)
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