Video Game Idols

[Foo228]

I'm curious to see who people admire the most when it comes to certain games (time to name drop 8-)), be it their favorite or their most hated.

As for me (and probably 90% of others) I'm a big fan of Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo's main man..he's behind DK, Mario, Zelda, etc) and somewhat a fan of David Jaffe (maker of God of Wars, not too fond of his PS3 dev-game though). I've heard good things about Tim Schaefer but I've only gotten through one of his games, Psychonauts...and that was genius to say the least. That's all I can recall right now, but yea...I'm sure that's plenty of talented people out there.

And as far as in-game, video game idols go...mine would have to be Mario, Ratchet, and Sub-Zero (Spyro let me down :cry:)

[metaly]

I'm a big fan of Yasumi Matsuno (director of Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, the Ogre series, etc.) and his whole crew. VS and FFT are two of my all-time favorite games, and it's a shame they kicked him off FF12 because that game still had some work left on it. I was really hoping for a Vagrant Story 2 at some point, but that seems less likely to happen now that his relationship with Square sounds pretty strained.

I'm also a fan of Hitoshi Sakimoto, who's composed the soundtracks for Matsuno's games and a bunch of others (Radiant Silvergun, Gradius V, Odin Sphere). Looking forward to trying out Opoona and Valkyria Chronicle mainly for the soundtracks.

Finally, a nod to Hideo Kojima for being a great game designer and bringing his sense of humor into his projects.

Overrated: David Jaffe and Will Wright.

[Hybrid5006]

Well... I can't remember all those Japanese names, so I'm going to stick with in-game idols.

I think Kratos, Snake, Cloud, Mario, and Ryu are some good ones.

[Strell]

I'll have to write more on this later, but quickly:

Development end:
Shigeru Miyamoto
Keita Takahashi (Katamari)
Tim Shaefer
Dave Grossman
Ron Gilbert
Steve Purcell
Mike Levine (all five of whom are from the Lucasarts era, and are somewhat continuing such proud heritages)
Al Lowe (Leisure Suit Larry)

PR/Management end:
Reggie Fils-Aime (even though he hasn't really said anything interesting in a long while)

Artist end:
Yoshitaka Amano (FF1-6, Vampire Hunter D artist, a huge, HUGE inspiration for me)
Yoji Shinkawa (MGS artist)
Yasushi Suzuki (Purgatory Kabuki, Ikaruga artist)

There's probably some I'm forgetting.

[pete5883]

Design wise:
Tetsuya Takahashi (Xenogears/saga)
David Cage (Indigo Prophecy)
Hideo Kojima (though he has some terrible game ideas (http://kotaku.com/gaming/kojima/kojima-wants-to-make-crazy+assed-zombie-game-237192.php) that hopefully will never get made)
Goichi Suda (though more for being a Smiths fan than anything else)
Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez, Lumines)
Keiji Inafune (Mega Man)

Char Design:
Kunihiko Tanaka (http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~r4kmt/) (Xenosaga/gears)
Kosuke Fujishima (the good Tales of games)
Tetsuya Nomura (Mr. zippers)
Shigenori Soejima (Persona 3/4, Stella Deus)
Kazuma Kaneko (SMT, DDS)

Overrated/Annoying/Terrible:
Shigeru "why would you want guns in your game?" Miyamoto
Charles Martinet (killed Mario)
Hiroshi "no one wants to play games online" Yamauchi

[VanillaGorilla]

I don't think of game designers as Idols, sorry.

[bardockkun]

Hideo Koijima, simply because it seems so rare when designers can have a sense of humor about their own franchise and admit faults with them. That and always admiring other people's work as well, even if his inspired them.

Suda51, so laid back and off the wall.

I know I can think of more...

[dwhelan]

I don't know about idol worship, but gentlemen who's footsteps I want to follow in are

Steve Wozniak -- helped develop the personal computer, worked with Jobs to reduce the number of chips on a Pong board, and developed Breakout.

John Carmack -- In my opinion, Carmack is still the master of game engines. Founding member of ID and engineer on Doom/Quake/Wolfenstein.

After reading Dungeons and Dreamers, Masters of Doom, Iwoz, Pirates of Silicon Valley, etc. These books have inspired me to follow my excitement in technology. Now I have experienced opportunities working on games, in network security, and traveling around the world.

“The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.” -- Washington Irving

[insertcleverthing]

John Romero.




Ok, I'm kidding. (suck it down!)

[olde_english]

Peter Molyneux. Hype be damned, Syndicate and Populous were amazing.

[Dead of Knight]

Hiroshi Yamauchi. Didn't actually make any games, but I lurve him.

[insertcleverthing]

You damn Jap lovers. There's still no mention of Will friggin' Wright in here, so I'll do it myself. At least someone said Carmack.

What about Warren Spector?

[pete5883]

Hiroshi Yamauchi. Didn't actually make any games, but I lurve him.
It's just because of the moogle picture, isn't it?

[eswat]

CliffyB. If you would have told me 9 years ago that this hack of a level designer would end up being a game designer, I would have slapped you. But look at him now...

John Carmack. Dude designs great game engines and releases them as open source. But still finds the time to create mobile games and spaceship rockets.

Chris Metzen & Samwise Didier: One writes lore, the other draws pandas. Both print money.

Warren Spector: He... wait, he fucked up Invisible War and acted like a sheep. Screw that.

[lunatic_pandora]

Goomba