Shane Robinett posted this item on Jun 20, 2007
Who are the Top 10 Most Influential People in Gaming History? Who gets to pick? (I do)
>> Return to the Top 10 Most Influential People in Gaming History <<
#1 Nolan Bushnell - Notables: Pong+Atari+Chuck E. Cheese
1942 - Still Alive
Nolan is an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain.
Only one guy could be named into the Video Game Hall of Fame, the Consumer Electronics Assosciation Hall of Fame, and "Innovator of the Year" by a Restaurant assosciation… Nolan Bushnell! He was one of many computer science students of the 1960s who played the historic Spacewar! game on DEC mainframe computers. This led to the founding of Syzygy with the intention of producing a Spacewar clone known as Computer Space. The company "Syzygy" was later renamed ATARI after finding out Syzygy was already in use!
In 1974, PONG was released to the home consumer market.
Weird Facts: In order to keep his first company alive while the machines were being prototyped, they also took on a route servicing broken pinball machines.
An evil French company now owns ‘ATARI’.
He created the franchise ‘Chuck E. Cheese’ that we all hate as parents.
#2 Shigeru Miyamoto - Notables: Nintendo+Mario+Zelda
1952 - Still Alive. Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese game designer. He is the main man behind some household names like Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda. Shigeru is considered the father of gaming in Japan. He was initially hired by Nintendo as an artist in 1980 and was responsible for the design of the main hero in Donkey Kong, ‘Jump Man’. This character directly led to our hero Mario! Shigeru is presently the Director and General Manager of Nintendo Entertainment’s Analysis and Development division.
Quote from Shigeru Miyamoto: ""A delayed game is eventually good; a bad game is bad forever"
Weird facts: Pokemon has a character named after him ("Shigeru")
His "shrine" is found at http://www.miyamotoshrine.com/
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