Eminent Game Designers

As far as I can tell that's a great list. Only one name came to mind as a possible addition: David Crane. He was one of the co-founders of Activision, also designer of Pitfall! and Little Computer People, as well as apparently working on Night Trap. I don't know if that's "notable enough", but I figured I'd mention him just in case.

What about Wolfgang Kramer. Many good boardgames, but most notably El Grande, for being the grand daddy of area majority games.

I know most of these are individuals but the Eon team, Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge and Peter Olotka broke a lot of new ground.
And I'd concur with the other poster, if you're going to list Knizia and Teuber, Kramer should be on the list.

Another one to add, Tim Cain. Fallout, Arcanum and Bloodlines were all pretty notable.

By no means exhaustive...

David Braben, who along with Ian Bell he created Elite. Dave Jones, Lemmings and GTA amongst others. the Darling Brothers. Jez San. Andrew Gower. Peter Irvin and Jeremy Smith of Exile "fame". Martin Hollis; Golden Eye. Chris Delay, Mark Morris and Thomas Arundel, the Introversion guys. Jon Hare. And perhaps the enigmatic Mathew Smith.

Table top games wise, how about the UK Steve Jackson and other games workshop designers such as Jervis Johnson.

Also by Yuki Naja do you mean Yuji Naka?

Mike Singleton, Lords of Midnight and Carrier Command sucked up my summer holidays as a child.

Michel Ancel
Eric Chahi
"Croc"
Bruno Faidutti
Frédérick Raynal

Not from France:

Greg Costikyan ;)
Nigel Findley
Wolfgang Kramer
Sandy Petersen
Mark Rein-Hagen
Greg Stafford

Brenda Brathwaite

Tim Schafer would be a good inclusion, I think. Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Ron Gilbert, perhaps? I'd root for Fumito Ueda, too, but just because I'm in love with his work -- he might not be suitable for "eminent" status in most people's eyes.

That's a very good list already - and the more I think about it, the better it gets.

I second the nomination of British Steve Jackson - if, at worst, possibly only as half of a pair with Ian Livingstone.

You don't really have many names associated with relatively early 20th Century table game classics there, though I the note the presence of the inventors of Diplomacy, Monopoly and Scrabble. (Oh, and Sid Sackson.) How about Ely Culbertson for Contract Bridge or Mordecai Meirowitz for Mastermind? Maureen Hiron for the multi-million selling Continuo family?

Tomohiro Nishikado for Space Invaders? Consider the rest of the AIAS Hall of Fame, though you've got most of them already. Seems sad that there are no pinball names, though no individuals stand out.

Are sufficiently game-like puzzles within the purview of this list - if so, how about Brad Schaefer for the MIT Mystery Hunt? Widening still further, how about Erno Rubik?

What would you feel about TV game shows where the obvious candidate would probably be Mark Goodson and his staff? How about George Carter III for Photon and hence the laser tag industry? Peter Suber for Nomic?

The only pinball name on the list is Montague Redgrave, who is thought to have invented the first such machine. I don't know much about him, but of course, doing research would be half the fun.

And thanks for the suggestions -- great comments.

More sabre-rattling: I think it's worth inclusion of the play-by-mail genre as an influential predecessor of online games - start with a mention of postal Diplomacy under Allan Calhammer, though he didn't invent the postal application, and possibly consider Flying Buffalo as a unit for not only Tunnels and Trolls but also their early computer-moderated PBM games.

I also think there probably ought to be some representation of the sports management sub-genre, probably starting from Kevin Toms for Football Manager - but, you could be cheeky and combine the two to include Alan (United) Parr.

This could seriously be a book, like Harold Bloom for videogames.

I'd like to nominate me and my friends.

The only names missing that I can think of off the top of my head are Shinji Mikami, who popularized survival horror, and Gunpei Yokoi, who created Metroid, for video games, and Dr. James Naismith, who created Basketball, for RL games.

Also, I'll register a second vote for Fumito Ueda.

Yeah to back up the previous poster--Gunpei Yokoi is pretty important. Game & Watch, and more importantly, Game Boy were his brainchildren (and Metroid!). Plus he created some really slick, clever map-packs like The Lost Levels.

Some might argue that Suda 51 deserves a slot on the list. Or Kenta Cho--though, true, the more contemporary we get the more likely we are to submit a name that might not be quite as eminent as we think.

You should still include Daniel James of Three Rings Design.

Ooh, I've got more candidates: how about Puggy Pearson? The invention of poker is lost to the mists of time, but Wikipedia suggests - and I know that you would properly research this, unlike me just blindly accepting what Wikipedia suggests - that Puggy Pearson invented the freeze-out tournament. It's not so wild a claim to believe that poker wouldn't be nearly the game it is today if there weren't tournaments; to me, a poker tournament is a game, whereas cash game poker is semi-organised consensual mutual robbery. You probably should have some poker representation in the list somewhere and I reckon this is good grounds for a candidacy.

The Poker Hall of Fame recognises Edmond Hoyle as the supposed codifier of rules, but quite possibly not of poker as such. There's a good argument for Edmond Hoyle to be included in your list by virtue of being the first famous codifier of rules for any game. (Or you could go back further to Charles Cotton and The Compleat Gamester...)

I'd like to nominate Monte Cook, Ralph "Skip" Williams & Jonathan Tweet for Dungeons & Dragons 3.0. Ruleswise it was almost a complete make-over and the difference shows in the play-experience between 3.0 and the previous edition.

D&D 3.0 changes a lot of stuff in P&P RPG'ing and deserves to be acknowledged for that.

Cool that you "remembered" Steve Jackson and Jordan Weissman.

Regards,
Anders

I'd have to suggest Paul Czege, the guy behind My Life With Master.

I'm sure he's not up to Sid or Garriot in terms of prominence, but ZZT was, I believe, one of the first games to come with it's own built in level editor. This tapped a massive pool of content developers who essentially worked for free. This model is practically taken for granted now a days, but I think it's worth giving him mention for it. If he was first to it, that is.

And yeah, he, Epic, and Unreal was the competing force for Quake. You could say something about the competition "leading the way" as they both strived for one-up-manship. Or a comment on a working capitalist structure.

Jeff Vogel? Although he might be "too new", says the 24 year old...

Ed T Toton III and Tom Proudfoot are two of my childhood heroes, but I doubt they'll make the cut.

I would definatly be interested in articles on these guys.

Seconded.

I'm far less knowledgeable than pretty much every other commentor, so forgive me if my suggestions have already been made, or the ppl I try and name aren't considered major designers.

Whoever designed:
Starcraft (one of the tightly balanced games around)
Scorched Earth
The first turret defense (i think it was a custom map in Starcraft?)
Whoever made the first Quake Fortress.
The guy who made Action Quake.
The guys behind Nabucular Drop.
The designer behind Pappa Rappa (is this the first rhythm game?)
Falcon 3.0 (the big turning point in simulation air combat?)

And These Guys:
Frozen Toad (the fellow who made Defense of the Ancients, a gametype that is... I guess team play non-persistent RPG. An amalgam of different genres)

Goose (Counter-strike)

Flayra (Charlie?) the fellow who made Natural Selection, still the RTS/FPS that gained the largest following. Used assymetrical teams.

...but I think at least the creators of the original Rogue (Toy and Wichman) are a natural inclusion. Rogue is in some sense an ancestor to every modern RPG, and perhaps to other genres also. If you want more non-Americans, creators of two of the "big" roguelikes, Linley Henzell and Tomas Biskup, are from Australia and Germany respectively. Also, in the realm of IF, Graham Nelson is pretty important because by creating inform and releasing it for free, he pretty nearly single-handedly kicked off the current revival of high-quality free IF. (He also created some pretty great, albeit difficult, games with it.)

Toru Iwatani (Pac-man)
Eugene Jarvis (Defender)
Ed Logg (Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Gauntlet)

Someone who hasn't yet discovered Wikipedia said:
"The designer behind Pappa Rappa (is this the first rhythm game?)"

I think you can trace that genre further back to the electronic game Simon, designed by Ralph Baer (who is curiously absent from the list, in spite of his essentially creating the console industry).

Ernest Adams, for the sheer amount of writing on game design that he's done if not for the games he's designed? (Certainly if Chris Crawford is on the list...)

I'd also nominate:
Tim Sweeney (Epic, Unreal)
Tim Schafer (for creating some of the best characters in games, ever)
Louis Castle and Brett Sperry (Westwood Studios)
Mark LeBlanc (tons of stuff at Looking Glass; Oasis; and writing the MDA Framework with Robin Hunicke)
Bob Bates (Infocom, Legend)

Oh, right, you said you wanted more women on the list. Would Carol Shaw (River Raid) and Dona Bailey (Centipede... so, add Ed Logg too) count? How about Brenda Laurel (Purple Moon)? Sheri Graner Ray (tons of stuff)? Kim Swift (Portal, Portal and Portal)?

Incidentally, Brenda Brathwaite (also worth of mention) was doing something akin to this on her blog. She's already mentioned Dani Berry, Shigeru Miyamoto, Gunpei Yokoi and Richard Bartle:
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/category/designers/

Ralph Baer -- doh. Obvious, now that you mention it.

Ernest Adams, possibly, albeit if we put him near the Crawford entry, the pages between may turn into confetti.

Tim Schafer, absolutely. Mark LeBlanc -- I had him on my list at one point (and I'm a big fan of Oasis), but between Warren Spector and Doug Church, we already have a lot of Looking Glass people.. maybe, nonetheless. Harvey Smith, similarly.

Bob Bates -- of course. Sheri Graner Ray--very likely. Brenda Brathwaite -- yes, of course, and probably the only reason I didn't include her initially is wondering whether I'm being unduly kind to friends rather than trying to be absolutely imprartial. (On the other side of things, if I'm including Dunnigan and Simonsen, both friends, I probably should also include Tom Shaw, another very important figure in board wargaming.)

Eugene Jarvis -- yes. Ed Logg -- probably. Toru Iwatani--I'd have to research. Toy and Wichman -- don't know much about them, but it would tickle me to include the creators of Rogue. Starcraft--my impression is that Blizzard works pretty collaboratively, so it's hard to ascribe authorship. Paul Czege -- no one is second in his admiration of My Life With Master, but this is a pretty obscure game. (And I've got Ron Edwards in there to represent indie RPGs.)

Jonathan Tweet should probably be in there, and not just for D&D 3rd edition.

I like Daniel James, but.. not sure he quite qualifies.

Gunpei Yokoi is another "doh".

For PBMs, maybe Rick Loomis.

Steve Jackson & Ian Livingston, yes, should be on the list, whether individually or together.

Ely Culbertson I didn't know about, but sounds plausible.

Not at all sure I want to include game shows and sports.

Ron Gilbert--very possibly.

David Braben -- absolutely. Elite is huge. Wolfgang Kramer and David Crane, maybe.

Of course, add these, and we're close to 100 people....The prospect is exhausting.

Larry Bond for Harpoon. No other game publicly marries the world to a gameworld to the degree that Harpoon does. Well, not strictly true...I think it's now a given to expect flight sims to include real-world real-time weather, and they've also spawned networks of flight sim air traffic controllers.

But, certainly in the field of wargames, and modern wargames in particular, the title clearly belongs to Harpoon.

And, for better or for worse, Harpoon spawned Tom Clancy, who is a significant name in the video/pc gaming industry today.

I second "Greg Costikyan" since it was some of your very early games that got me into paper RPGs in the first place (D&D beat you to the punch, but once I got into Paranoia, D&D collected dust).

On Wizardry, you need to add Andrew Greenberg and David Bradley who also were foundational in the series formation.

Consider Andrew Greenberg (a different one) for Vampire and Fading Suns.

Other female possibilities - Laralyn McWilliams (Full Spectrum Warrior), Linda Currie (Zoo Tycoon, Jagged Alliance and Wizardry)

Update the list, and I'll be glad to assign it regularly as an assignment until it gets finished. Something like this very much needs to be created. I'm sure you could wrangle Ian S into the plan, too. Granted, it still requires editing, but primary content creation is jettisoned.

The stray comment - thank you for including digital and paper game designers. I tend to view games in a broad continuum from the purely cerebral to the digital, and I know that there's value to be had from studying the whole spectrum. At present, I'm studying Reiner Knizia, and though I am (or have been) exclusively a digital game designer, every interview and article I read and every game that I play opens my eyes wide.

Joe Dever for how he used the gamebook formula for creating an epic, continuous story. I don't know if the Lone Wolf series was the first to have the same protagonist/player character who carried on from volume to volume (20 of the 32 Lonewolf + World of Lonewolf gamebooks has the same hero with an ever increasing set of skills and items), but I don't believe anyone did this as thoroughly. Some aspects of Marc Smith's and Jamie Thompson's The Way of the Tigers series seems to have been modeled after Devers works.

I'll second the Eon Games crowd. Without Cosmic Encounter, there's probably not a M:tG.

As far as RPG designers go, I've felt for a while that one must include Jonathan Tweet on any such list. He designed Ars Magica, which both formalized the multiple-GM model and removed requirements for balanced PCs. He designed Over the Edge, which was at the least one of the first systems with no trait/characteristic list; it's also been a big influence on the indie RPG scene. Everway was Everway; interesting but maybe not so revolutionary; and of course he was a significant voice in the redesign of D&D.

I've setup a (quick n dirty) wiki where i would be happy to fill out a basic structure for this info (basically taking the existing list and creating pages for each designer). It seems that people have a lot of suggestions and info... If there is interest, please drop by:
http://thirdplacegames.com/wiki/designers/doku.php?id=start

and register for an account (its automatic). You can also drop me a line: jos@theorganization.net

I did a quick search of the other Game/Design Wiki's, and none of them seem to have a space for this kind of information.

If there is an already existing place where we could work on this, that would be great too!

jos

I was planning on doing something similar here... not so much 'community driven' as 'recruiting some good people, but open to others.' I'm not sure I want a wiki model, but something with more of an editorial influence -- with the idea of keeping it up on the Internet for free, but also turning it into a book...

Ya, as soon as i had it up, i realized that the whole thing is that we want to know what you think about these people.

I'd still be interested in a repository of musings about the games, about how the games made people feel, the excitement and experiences they had with these games. How the designers influenced, changed and, hopefully, enriched peoples lives via their games.

And, just for the record, i'd buy that book.

This would be a great project and I'd be in line to buy the book. Many folks on the list who's games I've played but would like to know a lot more about.

Here's a few contemporary designers that I think we will still be thinking and talking about 5-10 years from now. Future Eminent Game Designers, if you will.

Nifflas: Knytt, Knytt Stories, Within a Deep Forest
Emily Short: Galatea
On of Eyezmaze: Grow series
Pixel: Cave Story
Jason Rohrer: Passage

Some damn great games right here.