Portal:Video games
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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 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 World Ends with You is an action role-playing game co-developed by Square Enix and Jupiter for the Nintendo DS. Set in the modern-day Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo, The World Ends with You features a distinctive art style and urban fantasy elements inspired by Shibuya and its youth culture. Development was inspired by elements of Jupiter's previous handheld game, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. It was released in Japan in July 2007, and in PAL regions and North America in April 2008. Later, an enhanced port by h.a.n.d. for mobile devices was released in 2012 under the title The World Ends with You: Solo Remix, while another enhanced port for the Nintendo Switch was released worldwide in 2018 under the title The World Ends with You: Final Remix.
In the story, protagonist Neku Sakuraba and his allies are forced to participate in a game that will determine their fate. The battle system uses many of the unique features of the Nintendo DS, including combat that takes place on both screens, and attacks performed by certain motions on the touchscreen or by shouting into the microphone. Elements of Japanese youth culture, such as fashion, food, and cell phones, are key aspects of the missions and character progression.
The World Ends with You received critical acclaim upon release, with critics praising the graphics, soundtrack, and integration of gameplay into the Shibuya setting, with minor criticism directed at its learning curve and occasionally imprecise touch-screen controls. It is regarded as one of the best Nintendo DS games, and one of the greatest video games ever made. In the first week of its release, the game was the second best-selling DS title in Japan, and the top-selling DS title in North America. Shiro Amano, writer and artist of the Kingdom Hearts manga, later created a manga based on the video game. An anime adaptation by Square Enix, DOMERICA, and Shin-Ei Animation aired from April 10 to June 26, 2021. (Full article...) -
The Simpsons: Hit & Run is a 2003 action-adventure game developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games. It is based on the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and is the twenty-second instalment in The Simpsons series of video games.
It follows the Simpson family and their friend Apu Nahasapeemapetilon as they witness many strange incidents that occur in Springfield; security cameras, mysterious vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavour of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola that causes insanity. Taking matters into their own hands, they discover numerous shocking secrets, and soon realise these incidents are part of a larger alien conspiracy, caused by Kang and Kodos. The gameplay largely focuses on exploration and missions; players often race enemies and interact with supporting characters on timed quests. It also features many elements found in role-playing games, such as explorable worlds and side tasks.
Development of The Simpsons: Hit & Run began in late 2001 as a spiritual successor to Radical Entertainment's previous game The Simpsons: Road Rage. Production was extensive, as the team sought to differentiate it from Road Rage, deeming that their new entry in the franchise required a different direction. It was heavily inspired by the Grand Theft Auto series, and the development team re-purposed the open-world design and nuanced character development for the game. This encouraged collaboration with the show's writers and its cast, who helped to craft the story and dialogue. It was released in North America in September 2003 and in Europe the following month for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It was ported to Microsoft Windows in November 2003. (Full article...) -
Fez is a 2012 indie puzzle-platform game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides of a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve puzzles. The objective is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.
The game was called an "underdog darling of the indie game scene" during its high-profile and protracted five-year development cycle. Fez designer and Polytron founder Phil Fish gained celebrity status for his outspoken public persona and his prominence in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which detailed Fez's final stages of development and Polytron's related legal issues. Fez met critical acclaim upon its April 2012 release for Xbox Live Arcade. The game was ported to other platforms following the expiration of a yearlong exclusivity agreement.
Reviewers commended the game's emphasis on discovery and freedom, but criticized its technical issues, in-game navigation, and endgame backtracking. They likened the game's rotation mechanic to the 2D–3D shifts of Echochrome, Nebulus, Super Paper Mario, and Crush. Fez won awards including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Eurogamer's 2012 Game of the Year. It had sold one million copies by the end of 2013, and it influenced games such as Monument Valley, Crossy Road, and Secrets of Rætikon. A planned sequel was canceled when Fish abruptly left game development. (Full article...) -
The Beatles: Rock Band is a 2009 rhythm game developed by Harmonix, published by MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts. It is the fourth installment in the Rock Band series and the first band-centric game. Centered on the English rock group the Beatles, the game features virtual portrayals of the four band members performing the songs throughout the band's history, including depictions of some of their famous live performances, as well as a number of "dreamscape" sequences for songs from the Abbey Road Studios recording sessions during the group's studio years. The game's soundtrack consists of 45 Beatles songs; additional songs and albums by the Beatles were made available for the game as downloadable content.
The game was released internationally on September 9, 2009, coinciding with the release of new, remastered compact disc versions of the Beatles' albums. It incorporates many of the gameplay features of the Rock Band series; however, it is not an expansion pack for the Rock Band series and content for it and other Rock Band titles is not cross-compatible. Gameplay mechanics differ slightly from previous Rock Band games, including the addition of a three-part vocal harmony system. Subsequent games in the Rock Band series would reuse these new elements, including vocal harmonies.
The game was developed with the blessing and critical input of Apple Corps, including former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who both made public appearances promoting the game. George Harrison's son Dhani helped to bridge discussion between Harmonix and Apple Corps, while Giles Martin, son of the Beatles' music producer George Martin, ensured high-fidelity versions of the Beatles' songs would be available. (Full article...) -
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a 1999 action-adventure video game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation and Windows. A port to the Dreamcast developed by Nixxes Software was released in 2000, serving as Nixxes' first project. The second game in the Legacy of Kain series, Soul Reaver is the sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Soul Reaver was followed by three games, one of which, Soul Reaver 2, is a direct sequel.
Taking place 1500 years after the events of Blood Omen, Soul Reaver chronicles the journey of the vampire-turned-wraith Raziel, lieutenant to the vampire lord Kain. Raziel is killed by Kain, but is revived by The Elder God to become his "soul reaver" and to exact revenge. Raziel shares this title with Kain's sword, the Soul Reaver, which he acquires during the game.
Crystal Dynamics began development of the game in 1997, but a deteriorating relationship with Silicon Knights, who had developed Blood Omen, created legal problems. This and other delays forced material originally planned for Soul Reaver to be instead released with later games of the series. Soul Reaver gained critical acclaim. Critics praised it for its intriguing gothic story and high-quality graphics. However, the game was criticized for its simple and repetitive gameplay and an unsatisfying climax. By 2001, the game sold 1.5 million copies worldwide. (Full article...) -
The Mana series, known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu (聖剣伝説; lit. The Legend of the Sacred Sword), is an action role-playing game series created by Koichi Ishii, with development formerly from Square, and is currently owned by Square Enix. The series began in 1991 as Final Fantasy Adventure, a Game Boy handheld side story to Square's flagship franchise Final Fantasy. The Final Fantasy elements were subsequently dropped starting with the second installment, Secret of Mana, in order to become its own series. It has grown to include games of various genres within the fictional world of Mana, with recurring stories involving a world tree, its associated holy sword, and the fight against forces that would steal their power. Several character designs, creatures, and musical themes reappear frequently.
Four games were released in the series between 1991 and 1999: the original Seiken Densetsu (1991)—Final Fantasy Adventure in North America and Mystic Quest in Europe—for the Game Boy, Secret of Mana (1993) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Trials of Mana (1995) for the Super Famicom, and Legend of Mana for the PlayStation. A remake of the original game, Sword of Mana (2003), was published for the Game Boy Advance. All of the original games were action role-playing games, though they included a wide variety of gameplay mechanics, and the stories of the games were connected only thematically.
In 2006 and 2007, four more games were released as part of the World of Mana subseries, an attempt by Square Enix to release games in a series over a variety of genres and consoles. These were Children of Mana (2006), an action-oriented dungeon crawler game for the Nintendo DS; Friends of Mana (2006), a Japan-only multiplayer role-playing game for mobile phones; Dawn of Mana (2006), a 3D action-adventure game for the PlayStation 2; and Heroes of Mana (2007), a real-time strategy game for the DS. Children was developed by Nex Entertainment and Heroes by Brownie Brown, founded by several developers of Legend, though Ishii oversaw development of all four games. Three more games have been released since the World of Mana subseries ended: Circle of Mana (2013), a Japan-only card battle game for the GREE mobile platform, Rise of Mana (2014), a Japan-only free-to-play action role-playing game for iOS, Android, and PlayStation Vita, and Adventures of Mana (2016), a 3D remake of Final Fantasy Adventure for the PlayStation Vita, iOS, and Android. In addition to the games, four manga series and one novelization have been released in the Mana franchise. (Full article...) -
Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit applied American intellectual property law to the reverse engineering of computer software. Stemming from the publishing of several Sega Genesis games by video game publisher Accolade, which had disassembled Genesis software in order to publish games without being licensed by Sega, the case involved several overlapping issues, including the scope of copyright, permissible uses for trademarks, and the scope of the fair use doctrine for computer code.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which ruled in favor of Sega and issued an injunction against Accolade preventing them from publishing any more games for the Genesis and requiring them to recall all the existing Genesis games they had for sale. Accolade appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit on the grounds that their reverse engineering of the Genesis was protected under fair use. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order and ruled that Accolade's use of reverse engineering to publish Genesis titles was protected under fair use, and that its alleged violation of Sega trademarks was the fault of Sega. The case is frequently cited in matters involving reverse engineering and fair use under copyright law. (Full article...) -
The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console. The hardware was designed by a small team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates, while Magnavox completed development and released it in the United States in September 1972 and overseas the following year. The Odyssey consists of a white, black, and brown box that connects to a television set, and two rectangular controllers attached by wires. It is capable of displaying three square dots and one line of varying height on the screen in monochrome black and white, with differing behavior for the dots depending on the game played. Players place plastic overlays on the screen to display additional visual elements for each game, and one or two players for each game control their dots with the knobs and buttons on the controller by the rules given for the game. The console cannot generate audio or track scores. The Odyssey came packaged with dice, paper money, and other board game paraphernalia to accompany the games, while a peripheral controller—the first video game light gun—was sold separately.
The idea for a video game console was conceived by Baer in August 1966. Over the next three years he, along with Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, created seven successive prototype consoles. The seventh, known as the Brown Box, was shown to several manufacturers before Magnavox agreed to produce it in January 1971. After releasing the console through their dealerships, Magnavox sold 69,000 units in its first calendar year and 350,000 by the time the console was discontinued in 1975.
The console spawned the Odyssey series of dedicated consoles as well as the 1978 Magnavox Odyssey 2. One of the 28 games made for the system, a ping-pong game, was an inspiration for Atari's successful 1972 Pong arcade game, in turn driving sales of the Odyssey. Patents by Baer and the other developers for the system and the games, including what was termed by a judge as "the pioneering patent of the video game art", formed the basis of a series of lawsuits spanning 20 years, earning Sanders and Magnavox over US$100 million. The release of the Odyssey marked the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles and was an early part of the rise of the commercial video game industry. (Full article...) -
Crackdown is a 2007 action-adventure game developed by Realtime Worlds and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Crackdown was conceived by Realtime Worlds' founder, David Jones, who also created Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings.
Set in the fictional Pacific City, the player controls a biologically enhanced Agent, tasked with defeating three crime lords and their organized crime syndicates. The Agent's abilities improve by defeating both crime lords and their top subordinates, as well as by completing optional activities, such as street races and scavenger hunts. The gameplay is nonlinear: instead of following a rigid mission sequence, players are free to select the approach to completing their missions and activities. The game features a two-player cooperative play mode via Xbox Live. It was released worldwide in February 2007.
Crackdown, initially planned for release on the original Xbox console, was envisioned as a vast world in which players could experiment and explore freely. Microsoft Game Studios bundled specifically marked copies of Crackdown with an access code to the multiplayer test version of the much-anticipated Halo 3 Beta. The game sold 1.5 million copies in its first six months of release. It received critical acclaim from reviewers and is widely considered to be the best entry in the series. It has garnered several awards for its innovative gameplay. A sequel, Crackdown 2, was released in July 2010 by Ruffian Games without Jones' input, and Crackdown 3 was released for the Xbox One and Microsoft Windows in February 2019, initially to be again directed by Jones before he left to join Epic Games. (Full article...) -
Sacrifice is a real-time strategy video game published by Interplay Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows platform. Developed by Shiny Entertainment, the game features elements of action and other genres. Players control wizards who fight each other with spells and summoned creatures. The game was ported to Mac OS 9.2 in 2001.
Unlike many of its contemporary real-time strategy games, Sacrifice places little emphasis on resource gathering and management. There is no system of workers; the players' wizards collect souls to summon creatures, and their mana—energy for casting spells—constantly regenerates. Players customize their attacks by choosing from spells and creatures aligned to five gods. To defeat an opponent, the player's wizard sacrifices a friendly unit at the opposing wizard's altar, thereby desecrating it and banishing the enemy wizard. Aside from a single-player campaign, Sacrifice offers a multiplayer mode, in which up to four players can play against each other over computer networks.
Sacrifice was created by a small team of developers; most of the work was done by four key personnel. The graphic engine of the game uses tesselation: thousands of polygons are used to display an object and as lesser details are needed, the number of polygons is reduced. By adjusting the required level of detail, Sacrifice can be run on various machines with the highest possible quality of graphics. Complementing the graphics of the game were the voice work of professional actors, such as Tim Curry, and the musical compositions of Kevin Manthei. Sacrifice was praised by reviewers for the novel designs of its creatures and for its humorous content. The high level of attention needed to manage its frenetic combat was mentioned as a flaw. Despite winning several awards, Sacrifice was not a commercial success. (Full article...)
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Did you know... -
- ... that the concept of adding strippers to the extreme sports video game BMX XXX was initially proposed in jest?
- ... that a video game consisting solely of a clickable image of a banana was briefly the second-most played game on Steam?
- ... that the game designer of the video game Hades said that the characters were attractive "because Jen Zee"?
- ... that the 1987 video game Oriental Hero was panned as "so incredibly bad it's almost worth a look"?
- ... that the character Psycho Mantis in the video game Metal Gear Solid breaks the fourth wall by identifying the player's other games?
- ... that fighting video game Panza Kick Boxing was endorsed by a French kickboxing champion who also supplied technical advice?
- ... that the success of Kingdom Rush prompted plans to grow the video game industry of Uruguay?
- ... that Kamibox's video game A Joke That's Worth $0.99 is permanently on special offer because Itch.io does not allow $0.99 as a regular price?
- ... that Rockstar Vienna was the largest video game developer in Austria when it closed in 2006?
- ... 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 Kim Kitsuragi was praised as one of the best video game characters of 2019?
- ... 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?
Selected biography –
Biographies included here are taken from the list of essential video game articles.
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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...) -
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...) -
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...) -
Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫, Kojima Hideo; born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer. Regarded as one of the pioneering auteurs of video games, he developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his games. In 1986, Kojima joined Konami, for which he directed, designed, and wrote Metal Gear (1987) for the MSX2, the game that laid the foundations for the stealth genre and the Metal Gear franchise, his best known and most acclaimed work. At Konami, he also produced the Zone of the Enders series, as well as designing and writing Snatcher (1988) and Policenauts (1994), graphic adventure games regarded for their cinematic presentation.
Kojima founded Kojima Productions within Konami in 2005, and 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, and was followed by a sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, in 2025. (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 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...) -
Ralph Henry Baer (born Rudolf Heinrich Baer; March 8, 1922 – December 6, 2014) was a German-born American inventor, game developer, and engineer.
Baer's Jewish family fled Germany just before World War II and Baer served the American war effort, gaining an interest in electronics shortly thereafter. Through several jobs in the electronics industry, he was working as an engineer at Sanders Associates (now BAE Systems) in Nashua, New Hampshire, when he conceived the idea of playing games on a television screen around 1966. With support of his employers, he worked through several prototypes until he arrived at a "Brown Box" that would later become the blueprint for the first home video game console, licensed by Magnavox as the Magnavox Odyssey. Baer continued to design several other consoles and computer game units, including contributing to design of the Simon electronic game. Baer continued to work in electronics until his death in 2014, with over 150 patents to his name. (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. Tajiri has also worked for other Game Freak projects. (Full article...) -
Nolan North (born October 31, 1970) is an American actor best known for his voice acting roles.
After his breakthrough role as Dr. Chris Ramsey on the ABC soap opera Port Charles in 1997, North moved into voice acting when the show ended in 2003 and has since become best known for his video game roles as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, Desmond Miles in the Assassin's Creed series, Merasmus in Team Fortress 2, the Prince in Prince of Persia, Dr. Edward Richtofen in the Call of Duty franchise, Deadpool in various Marvel Comics media, the Penguin in the Batman: Arkham franchise, Captain Martin Walker in Spec Ops: The Line, David in The Last of Us, himself as one of the voices for the player character in Saints Row IV, Iron Man in Marvel's Avengers, and Ghost in the Destiny video game series. (Full article...) -
William James Mitchell Jr. (born July 16, 1965) is an American video game player. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he was recognized for numerous records on classic video games before disputes arose over their legitimacy beginning in 2018. Mitchell has also appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming.
In 1982, Mitchell was featured in photo spread in Life along with other video game champions during the height of the golden age of arcade video games. In 1999, Mitchell has said he was the first person to attain 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...) -
Roberta Lynn Williams (née Heuer; born February 16, 1953) is an American video game designer and writer, who co-founded Sierra On-Line with her husband, game developer Ken Williams. In 1980, her first game, Mystery House, became a modest commercial success; it is credited as the first graphic adventure game. She is also known for creating and maintaining the King's Quest series, as well as designing the full motion video game Phantasmagoria in 1995.
Sierra was acquired by CUC International in 1996, leading to layoffs and management changes. Williams took a brief sabbatical, and returned to the company in a game design role, but grew increasingly frustrated with CUC's creative and business decisions. After the release of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in 1998, she left the game industry in 1999 and focused her retirement on traveling and writing historical fiction. In 2021 she released her historical novel, Farewell to Tara. Soon after, she returned to game development with the 3D remake of the classic adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure, released in January 2023 as Colossal Cave. (Full article...) -
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 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 filmed more than 270 video productions by 2004. Among these were the first Angry Video Game Nerd episodes (originally known as Bad NES Games, and later Angry Nintendo Nerd), which were released on his Cinemassacre website in 2004. Two years later, he gained mainstream attention when the series went viral after being published to YouTube. Following its success, Rolfe released a feature-length film based on the series in 2014, which received mixed critical reception. In 2022, Rolfe published his autobiography, A Movie Making Nerd. (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 July 2025, 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...) -
Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE (/ˈmɒlɪnjuː/; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the Fable series, god games Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Black & White, as well as Theme Park, Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?, and Godus. In 2012 he founded and currently runs 22cans, a video game development studio.
In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. (Full article...) -
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...) -
Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, graphic novelist, 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...) -
Daigo Umehara (Japanese: 梅原 大吾, Hepburn: Umehara Daigo; born 19 May 1981) is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at fighting video games. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and "Umehara" (ウメハラ; written in katakana instead of kanji) or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is one of the world's most famous Street Fighter players and is often considered its greatest. His longevity is seen as rare in the world of competitive video games. He currently holds a world record of "the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter" in the Guinness World Records and is a six time Evo Championship Series winner.
Before properly being called a pro gamer from signing a sponsorship deal with Mad Catz, Japanese media usually referred to Daigo as "the god of 2D fighting games" (2D格闘ゲームの神, 2D Kakutō Gēmu no Kami). (Full article...) -
Koji Kondo (Japanese: 近藤 浩治, Hepburn: Kondō Kōji; born August 13, 1961) is a Japanese composer and senior executive at the video game company Nintendo. He is best known for his contributions for the Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series, with his Super Mario Bros. theme being the first piece of music from a video game included in the American National Recording Registry. Kondo was hired by Nintendo in 1984 as its first dedicated composer and is currently a Senior Officer at its Entertainment Planning & Development division. (Full article...)
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Keiji Inafune (稲船 敬二, Inafune Keiji; born 8 May 1965) is a Japanese video game producer, character designer, game designer, and businessman. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
Starting his career at Capcom in the late 1980s, his job was as an artist and illustrator. The first two games he worked on were the original Street Fighter and Mega Man in 1987. He was then a character designer and planner of the Mega Man series during the NES and Super NES era. For Mega Man X, he created and designed the character Zero. (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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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...) -
Hironobu Sakaguchi (坂口 博信, Sakaguchi Hironobu; born November 25, 1962) is a Japanese game designer, director, producer, and writer. Originally working for Square (later Square Enix) from 1983 to 2003, he departed the company and founded independent studio Mistwalker in 2004. He is known as the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise, in addition to other titles during his time at Square. At Mistwalker, he is known for creating the Blue Dragon and Terra Battle series among several standalone titles, moving away from home consoles and creating titles for mobile platforms.
Originally intending to become a musician, he briefly studied electronics and programming, joining Square as a part-time employee, then later a full-time employee when Square became an independent company in 1986. He led the development of several titles before helping to create the original Final Fantasy, which proved highly successful and cemented his status within the company. Following the financial failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, his debut as a film director, Sakaguchi withdrew from Square's management and eventually resigned in 2003. He continued his game career through Mistwalker, first co-developing projects through external partners and then smaller in-studio mobile projects. (Full article...) -
Yuji Naka (中 裕司, Naka Yūji; born September 17, 1965), sometimes credited as YU2, is a Japanese video game designer and programmer. 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 games on the Mega Drive in the early 1990s, which greatly increased Sega's market share. After developing Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) in Japan, Naka moved to California to develop Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) and Sonic & Knuckles (1994) with Sega Technical Institute. (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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Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is an American video game developer. He co-founded 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 the id 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, he and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. (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...)
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Exterior of the Los Angeles Convention Center displaying the Atari logo at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Recent video game-related events
- June 5, 2025 –
- Nintendo's Switch 2 video game console is released in most regions. (BBC News) (The Verge)
- 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)
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