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 1Bastion is an action role-playing video game developed by independent developer Supergiant Games and originally published in 2011 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In the game, the player controls "the Kid" as he moves through floating, fantasy-themed environments and fights enemies of various types. It features a dynamic voiceover from a narrator (Logan Cunningham), and is presented as a two-dimensional game with an isometric camera and a hand-painted, colorful art style. Bastion's story follows the Kid as he collects special shards of rock to power a structure, the Bastion, in the wake of an apocalyptic Calamity.
The game was built over the course of two years by a team of seven people split between San Jose and New York City. They debuted the game at the September 2010 Penny Arcade Expo, and it went on to be nominated for awards at the 2011 Independent Games Festival and win awards at the Electronic Entertainment Expo prior to release. Bastion was published in July 2011 for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade, and in August 2011 through digital distribution for Microsoft Windows on Steam. Supergiant Games made it available as a browser game for Google Chrome in December 2011. It was released for Mac OS X and iOS in 2012, for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2015, for Xbox One in 2016, and Nintendo Switch in 2018. Bastion's soundtrack was produced and composed by Darren Korb, and a soundtrack album was made available for sale in August 2011.
During 2011, the game sold more than 500,000 copies, 200,000 of which were for the Xbox Live Arcade. It sold over three million copies across all platforms by January 2015. The game was widely praised by reviewers, primarily for its story, art direction, narration, and music. Opinions were mixed on the depth of the gameplay, though the variety of options in the combat system was praised. Bastion has won many nominations and awards since its release, including several for best downloadable game and best music, from review outlets such as IGN and Game Informer as well as from the Spike Video Game Awards, the Game Developers Conference, and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. (Full article...) -
Image 2Panzer Dragoon Saga, known in Japan as Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG, is a 1998 role-playing video game (RPG) developed and published by Sega for the Sega Saturn. The third entry in the Panzer Dragoon series, it replaced the rail shooter gameplay of the previous games with RPG elements such as random encounters, semi-turn-based battles and free-roaming exploration. The player controls Edge, a young mercenary who rides a dragon and encounters a mysterious girl from a vanished civilization.
Sega felt an RPG was critical to compete against the PlayStation and Final Fantasy. Development began in early 1995 alongside Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (1996). The project was arduous and repeatedly delayed; incorporating the Panzer Dragoon shooting elements with full 3D computer graphics and voice acting, both unusual features in RPGs at the time, pushed the Saturn to its technical limits and strained team relations. Two staff members died during development, which the director, Yukio Futatsugi, attributed to stressful working conditions.
Panzer Dragoon Saga is one of the most acclaimed Saturn games and is often listed among the greatest video games, earning praise for its story, graphics, and combat. Sales were low, and only a few thousand copies were published in the west, where Sega had shifted focus to its Dreamcast console. (Full article...) -
Image 3is a Japanese anime television series based on Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. Produced by TMS Entertainment under partnership with Sega and Sonic Team, and directed by Hajime Kamegaki, Sonic X initially ran for 52 episodes, broadcasting on TV Tokyo from April 2003 to March 2004. A further 26 episodes aired in North America, Europe, and the Middle East from 2005 to 2006. The American localization and broadcasting were handled by 4Kids Entertainment, which edited it and created new music.
The series follows a group of anthropomorphic animals that accidentally teleport from their home planet to Earth after attempting to save one of their friends from their enemy Doctor Eggman. Separated, Sonic the Hedgehog is saved by a human boy named Chris Thorndyke, who helps him find his friends while repeatedly scuffling with Doctor Eggman and his robots over control of the powerful Chaos Emeralds, and becoming celebrities. The final story arc sees Sonic and his friends return with Chris to their world, where they enter outer space with a newfound plant-like creature named Cosmo and fight an army of aliens called the Metarex. (Full article...) -
Image 4Anachronox is a 2001 role-playing video game produced by Tom Hall and the Dallas Ion Storm games studio. The game is centered on Sylvester "Sly Boots" Bucelli, a down-and-out private investigator who looks for work in the slums of Anachronox, a once-abandoned planet near the galaxy's jumpgate hub. He travels to other planets, amasses an unlikely group of friends, and unravels a mystery that threatens the fate of the universe. The game's science fiction story was influenced by cyberpunk, film noir, and unconventional humor. The story features a theme of working through the troubles of one's past.
Gameplay in Anachronox is a mix of real-time exploration and turn-based combat; the player controls a party of up to three characters as they explore a 3D environment of futuristic cities, space vessels, and outdoor areas. Inspirations for the game include older role-playing video games such as Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series, animator Chuck Jones and the novel Ender's Game. The game was built with a heavily modified version of id Software's Quake II engine, rewritten chiefly to allow a wider color palette, emotive animations and facial expressions, better lighting, particle effects, and camera effects.
The development of Anachronox was long and difficult. Originally planned for a third-quarter 1998 release, it was released worldwide in June 2001 for Microsoft Windows. Tom Hall planned to create a sequel with the copious content removed during production. Critics enjoyed the game and awarded it high marks for its design and story. Ion Storm's Dallas offices were closed mere days after the game's release. In 2002, Anachronox cinematic director Jake Hughes spliced together gameplay footage and cutscenes to create a feature-length, award-winning machinima film. (Full article...) -
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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.
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.
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...) -
Image 6Star Control 3 is a 1996 action-adventure game developed by Legend Entertainment and published by Accolade. The third installment in the Star Control trilogy, the game was released for MS-DOS in 1996 and Mac OS in 1998. The story takes place after Star Control II, beginning with a disaster that disrupts superluminal travel through hyperspace. This leads the player to investigate a new quadrant of space, joined by allied aliens from the previous games.
The game features a single-player campaign that is similar to the previous installment, combining space exploration, alien dialogue, and ship-to-ship combat. As a mainstay of the series, the player engages in top-down battles between starships with unique abilities. In contrast to Star Control II, hyperspace flight is replaced with instantaneous fast travel. Planetary exploration is replaced with a colony management system, inspired by the original Star Control. Combat offers more detailed steering and aiming, as well as additional player-versus-player multiplayer options.
Accolade hired Legend Entertainment to create this sequel after the series creators Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford decided to pursue other projects. Legend was selected due to their passion for the previous Star Control games, as well as their experience as veteran game writers from the acclaimed adventure game studio Infocom. They designed the game in consultation with fans, replacing features from Star Control II that received negative feedback. Star Control 3 was considered a critical and commercial success upon release, with praise for its story and varied gameplay. However, the game later suffered from comparisons to the award-winning Star Control II, with a mixed legacy among both fans and critics. (Full article...) -
Image 7Thatgamecompany, Inc. (stylized as thatgamecompany) is an American independent video game development company founded by University of Southern California students Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago in 2006. The company was a developer for Sony Computer Entertainment, contracted to create three downloadable games for the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network service, and has since secured independent funding. The first of their games is a remake of Chen's award-winning Flash title Flow, with enhanced visuals and sound, added multiplayer modes and compatibility with the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller. The title was released on the PlayStation Store in 2007. The company's second PlayStation 3 game, Flower, was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009, and their third game, Journey, was released in March 2012 on the PlayStation Store. Their fourth game, Sky: Children of the Light, was released in July 2019 on iOS and in April 2020 on Android. Later, it released on the Nintendo Switch in June 2021 and on PlayStation 4 in December 2022.
According to Chen, the company focuses on creating video games that provoke emotional responses from players. He has stated that, while the company is not opposed to making action-oriented games, he believes that enough such titles are released by the established video game industry. When designing a game, Chen and Thatgamecompany's process is to start by mapping out what the game should make the player feel, rather than by establishing game mechanics. Chen has stated that the company does not plan to produce large, blockbuster titles, due to their belief that the pressure for high sales would stifle innovation. (Full article...) -
Image 8Plants vs. Zombies is a 2009 tower defense video game developed and published by PopCap Games. First released for Windows and Mac OS X, the game has since been ported to consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices. The player takes the role of a homeowner amid a zombie apocalypse. As a horde of zombies approaches along several parallel lanes, the player must defend their home by placing plants, which fire projectiles at the zombies or otherwise detrimentally affect them. The player collects a currency called sun to buy plants. If a zombie happens to make it to the house on any lane, the player loses the level.
Plants vs. Zombies was designed by George Fan, who conceptualized it as a more defense-oriented sequel to his fish simulator game Insaniquarium (2001), then developed it into a tower defense game featuring plants fighting against zombies. The game took inspiration from the games Magic: The Gathering and Warcraft III; along with the movie Swiss Family Robinson. It took three and a half years to make Plants vs. Zombies. Rich Werner was the main artist, Tod Semple programmed the game, and Laura Shigihara composed the game's music. In order to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers, the tutorial was designed to be simple and spread throughout Plants vs. Zombies.
Plants vs. Zombies was positively received by critics and was nominated for multiple awards, including "Download Game of the Year" and "Strategy Game of the Year" as part of the Golden Joystick Awards 2010. Reviewers praised the game's humorous art style, simplistic but engaging gameplay, and soundtrack. Upon release in May 2009, it was the fastest-selling video game developed by PopCap Games and quickly became their best-selling game, surpassing Bejeweled and Peggle. By 2010, it had sold over a million copies worldwide and has since been considered one of the greatest video games of all time. In 2011, PopCap was bought by Electronic Arts (EA). The company laid off Fan and 49 other employees, marking a change of focus to mobile and social gaming. After the buyout, Plants vs. Zombies was followed by a multimedia franchise including two sequels, three third-person shooters, two comic book series, and several spin-off games, most of which have received positive reviews. (Full article...) -
Image 9Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a 2011 first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries, Saber Interactive, and Certain Affinity. It is a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), developed by Bungie. Publisher Microsoft announced Anniversary alongside Halo 4 at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo. It was released in November 2011, the 10th anniversary of the original Halo, for the Xbox 360 console, and re-released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One in November 2014. A Windows version was released in March 2020.
343 Industries, overseers of the Halo franchise, approached Saber Interactive to develop a remake of Halo for the anniversary. Saber used its proprietary game engine to reproduce the graphics and the original Halo engine for gameplay. A development tool for toggling between the old and new visuals became a game feature. Anniversary's enhancements include a complete high-definition visual overhaul, support for cooperative and multiplayer gameplay via the Xbox Live online service, new and remastered sound effects and music, and extras such as achievements and in-game collectibles. It is the first Halo game to include Kinect support.
Critical reception to Anniversary was generally positive. The updated graphics, sounds, and ability to toggle between the remastered and original visuals were praised. Complaints included technical glitches, faults with the original game's level design, and the multiplayer implementation. (Full article...) -
Image 10Untitled Goose Game is a 2019 indie puzzle stealth game developed by House House and published by Panic Inc. Players control a goose who bothers the inhabitants of an English village. Players must use the goose's abilities to manipulate objects and non-player characters to complete objectives. It was released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
The idea for Untitled Goose Game originated from a stock photograph of a goose that a House House employee posted in the company's internal communications. Inspired by Super Mario 64 and the Hitman series, House House worked on combining stealth mechanics with a lack of violence to create humorous in-game scenarios. The game's unusual name came from a last-minute decision in preparing the title as an entry for a games festival. The music, curated by composer Dan Golding, uses short clips from six of Claude Debussy's Préludes. It has been described as "reactive music" because the clips are played after certain actions. The game was released on macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows on 20 September 2019, and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 17 December 2019.
Untitled Goose Game received positive reviews, with critics praising its gameplay and humour. The game received the D.I.C.E. Award for Game of the Year and the Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year, among other accolades. Dan Golding was nominated for an ARIA award for the music. By the end of 2019, Untitled Goose Game had sold more than a million copies. (Full article...)
Did you know... - show different entries
- ... that the graffiti artists hired for the video game Skitchin' were interviewed at a train station because they were too young to drive?
- ... that the web-based video game Moderator Mayhem was based on a card game meant to demonstrate the difficulties of content moderation?
- ... that the contrabass trombone has experienced a revival in film music and video game soundtracks?
- ... that the 2005 video game Bokura no Kazoku was inspired in part by the birth of its creator's first child?
- ... that Elena from the video game series Street Fighter uses a capoeira fighting style, for which the development team used travel videos as reference material as they had no experience with the style?
- ... that a reviewer thought that the video game Robbery Bob contained cringeworthy dialogue?
- ... that a version of the video game Rhino Rumble was not released due to the creators not wanting to add licensed characters?
- ... that Justin Yu, the current Classic Tetris World Champion, is also a cellist in MIT's video game orchestra?
- ... that fighting video game Panza Kick Boxing was endorsed by a French kickboxing champion who also supplied technical advice?
- ... that the video game Pyongyang Racer was developed in North Korea for Koryo Tours, which organises tours to the country?
- ... that a pink skin for Mercy in the video game Overwatch helped raise more than $12 million for breast cancer research?
- ... that the name of the video game mod series Bomba Patch was inspired by éclairs?
Selected biography – load new batch
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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...) -
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Anita Sarkeesian (/sɑːrˈkiːziən/ sar-KEE-zee-ən; born 1983) is a Canadian-American feminist media critic. She is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a website that hosts videos and commentary analyzing portrayals of women in popular culture. Her video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, examines tropes in the depiction of female video game characters.
Media scholar Soraya Murray calls Sarkeesian emblematic of "a burgeoning organized feminist critique" of stereotyped and objectified portrayals of women in video games.
In 2012, Sarkeesian was targeted by an online harassment campaign following her launch of a Kickstarter project to fund the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series. The threats and harassment generated widespread media attention, and resulted in the project far exceeding its funding goal. The media coverage placed Sarkeesian at the center of discussions about misogyny in video game culture and online harassment. She has spoken to TEDxWomen, XOXO Festival, and the United Nations' Broadband Working Group on Gender, and appeared on The Colbert Report discussing her experiences of harassment and the challenge of attempting to improve gender inclusivity in gaming culture and the media. (Full article...) -
Image 3Yuji 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 4Koji 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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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 known for his comedic videos. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage has made him one of the most noted online personalities and content creators. He has been portrayed in media as a figurehead for YouTube, especially in the genre of gaming.
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...) -
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Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is an American director, designer, programmer and developer in the video game industry. He is a co-founder of id Software and designed their early games, including Wolfenstein 3D (1992), Doom (1993), Doom II (1994), Hexen (1995) and Quake (1996). His designs and development tools, along with programming techniques developed by id Software's lead programmer, John Carmack, popularized the first-person shooter (FPS) genre. Romero is also credited with coining the multiplayer term "deathmatch".
Following disputes with Carmack, Romero was fired from id in 1996. He co-founded a new studio, Ion Storm, and directed the FPS Daikatana (2000), which was a critical and commercial failure. Romero departed Ion Storm in 2001. In July 2001, Romero and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. (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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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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James D. Rolfe (born July 10, 1980) is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. He is best known for creating and starring in the comedic retrogaming web series The Angry Video Game Nerd (2004–present). His spin-off projects include reviews of retro films, television series, and board games. He is considered a pioneer of internet gaming videos, and is noted for his widespread influence on YouTube content after the series premiered on the site in 2006.
Rolfe began creating homemade video productions in the late 1980s, having created more than 270 videos and short films by 2004. Among these were the first Angry Video Game Nerd (originally known as Bad NES Games, and later Angry Nintendo Nerd) episodes, which were subsequently released on his Cinemassacre website that same year. Two years later, he gained mainstream attention after the series went viral upon being published to YouTube. Following its success, Rolfe released a feature-length film based on the series in 2014, which was met with generally mixed reception. (Full article...) -
Image 10Yu 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...) -
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Charles Andre Martinet (born September 17, 1955) is an American voice actor. Martinet created the voices of both Mario and Luigi in the Super Mario video game series, portraying them from 1994 to 2023. He also voiced other characters in the series such as Wario, Waluigi, and the baby equivalents of Mario and Luigi, prior to stepping down as voice actor to become an official brand ambassador for the series.
Martinet is also known for his portrayal of Paarthurnax in 2011's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as well as Magenta in 2022's Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. (Full article...) -
Image 12Ken 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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Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American businessman who 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. He and another employee, Mike Harrington, left Microsoft in 1996 to found Valve, and funded the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998). Harrington left in 2000. (Full article...) -
Image 14Yoko 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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Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov (born April 16, 1955) is a Russian-born American 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...) -
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Markus Alexej Persson (/ˈmɑːrkəs ˈpɪərsən/ ⓘ, Swedish: [ˈmǎrkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ⓘ; born 1 June 1979), also known as "Notch", is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is best known for creating the sandbox video game Minecraft, which has since become the best-selling video game in history; and for founding the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson is currently working on new games under the banner of Bitshift Entertainment.
Persson began developing video games at an early age, making games both professionally and for pleasure for much of his life. He achieved critical success upon the publishing of 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 lead designer and transferred creative authority to Jens Bergensten. (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...) -
Image 18Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫, Kojima Hideo, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer. He is regarded as an auteur of video games. He developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence. In 1986, he was hired by Konami, for which he designed and wrote Metal Gear (1987) for the MSX2, a game that laid the foundations for stealth games and the Metal Gear series, his best known and most appreciated works. At Konami, he also produced the Zone of the Enders series, as well as wrote and designed Snatcher (1988) and Policenauts (1994), graphic adventure games regarded for their cinematic presentation.
Kojima founded Kojima Productions within Konami in 2005, and he was appointed vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment in 2011. Following his departure from Konami in 2015, he refounded Kojima Productions as an independent studio; his first game outside Konami, Death Stranding, was released in 2019. (Full article...) -
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Richard Allen Garriott (born 4 July 1961) is a British-born American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut.
Garriott, who is the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, was originally a game designer and programmer, and is now involved in a number of aspects of computer-game development. On October 12, 2008, Garriott flew aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 mission to the International Space Station as a private astronaut, returning 12 days later aboard Soyuz TMA-12. He became the second space traveler, and first from the United States, to have a parent who was also a space traveler. During his ISS flight, he filmed a science fiction movie Apogee of Fear. (Full article...) -
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Steven Scott Ritchie (born February 13, 1950) is an American pinball and video game designer. His career began in the 1970s, Ritchie holds the record for best-selling pinball designer in history. He has been called "The Master of Flow" due to the emphasis in his designs on ball speed, loops, and long smooth shots. Ritchie was also the original voice of Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, serving as the announcer of Mortal Kombat II (1993), Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), and the updates to Mortal Kombat 3. He is the older brother of fellow pinball designer Mark Ritchie. (Full article...) -
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Lim Yo-hwan (Korean: 임요환, 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...) -
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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 23Nobuo 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...) -
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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 25Gunpei Yokoi (横井 軍平, Yokoi Gunpei, September 10, 1941 – October 4, 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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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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