List of video game designers

This is a list of notable video game designers, past and present, in alphabetical order. The people in this list designed either computer games, console games, arcade games or some other type of video game.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

B

• Ralph Baer, the "Father of Video Games", created Chase (1967), the first game played in a television set.
• Clive Barker, creator of Undying and Jericho.
• Doug Barnett, designer/writer/artist Lords of the Rising Sun, Star Rank Boxing, Ghostbusters II and Return to Zork.
• Richard Bartle, co-author of MUD, the first multi-user dungeon.
• Chris Bateman, designer/writer of Discworld Noir and Ghost Master
• Chris Beatrice: Caesar and Lords of the Realm.
• Marc Blank: Co-designer of Zork, co-founder of Infocom
• Cliff Bleszinski: former member of Epic games lead designer of Gears of War and Gears of War 2 and level designer of Unreal series.
• Ed Boon: Co-Creator of the Mortal Kombat fighting game series.
• Brenda Brathwaite: designer, writer and level designer on Wizardry series, creator of Train and Siochan Leat.
• Bill Budge: Raster Blaster and Pinball Construction Set
• Danielle Bunten: M.U.L.E., The Seven Cities of Gold

C

• Tim Cain, main designer of Fallout and Arcanum, founder of Troika Games
• Rich Carlson, co-designer of Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, co-founder of Digital Eel
• Eric Chahi, Developer and Designer of Another World, and Heart of Darkness.
• Doug Church: Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2 and System Shock
• Lori and Corey Cole: Quest for Glory series, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, Castle of Dr. Brain and Shannara
• Michael Condrey: senior development director, Dead Space, co-founder, Sledgehammer Games
• Chris Crawford: Eastern Front (1941), Balance of Power, founder of the Computer Game Developers' Conference, pioneer of interactive storytelling

D

• Don Daglow: designer of Dungeon, Intellivision Utopia, Earl Weaver Baseball, Neverwinter Nights
• Dino Dini: designer of Kick Off, Kick Off 2, Player Manager, GOAL!, Dino Dini's Soccer
• Jakub Dvorsky: designer of Samorost and Machinarium.

F

• Brian Fargo: founder of Interplay Entertainment, InXile Entertainment and developer of Bard's Tale and Wasteland
• Steve Fawkner: founder of Infinite Interactive and designer of the Warlords (game series) and the Puzzle Quest series
• Steve Feak: developer of DotA Allstars and lead designer of League of Legends
• Kelton Flinn: designer of Air Warrior and many other pioneering online games, co-founder of Kesmai
• David Fox: designer of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
• František Fuka: developed games for Sinclair ZX Spectrum such as Tetris 2

G

• Toby Gard: designer in Tomb Raider, and creator of Lara Croft
• Richard Garfield: Designer of many great games including Magic: The Gathering
• Richard Garriott (a.k.a. Lord British): creator of the Ultima series and founder of Origin Systems
• Ron Gilbert: designer of Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games
• Julian Gollop, designer of Chaos, Laser Squad and X-COM: UFO Defense.
• Andrew Gower, designer of RuneScape
• Brian 'Psychochild' Green, designer of Meridian 59
• Stefano Gualeni: Creator and designer of the Tony Tough series, writer and designer for Dangerous Heaven

H

• Dean 'Rocket' Hall, creator of DayZ
• Jon Hare: designer/director of Sensible Soccer series, Cannon Fodder series and Wizball series, co-founder of Sensible Software
• Stieg Hedlund: Diablo, Diablo II, StarCraft
• William Higinbotham: Tennis for Two (1958)
• Yuji Horii: Square Enix - Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger
• Todd Howard: Bethesda Softworks - Elder Scrolls series, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas
• Casey Hudson: Bioware - Mass Effect series, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I

• IceFrog: developer of Defense of the Ancients and lead designer of Dota 2
• Koji Igarashi: Konami - current producer of the Castlevania series
• Tomonobu Itagaki: Tecmo Team Ninja - former designer of the Dead or Alive (DOA) games and Ninja Gaiden
• Shigesato Itoi: creator of the EarthBound/Mother series
• Tōru Iwatani: creator Pac-Man for Namco

J

• David Jaffe: creator of God of War and designer on the Twisted Metal series
• Jennell Jaquays: leader of game design for Coleco in the 1980s and, more recently, designer & level designer for Quake 2, Quake III Arena and Quake III: Team Arena
• Eugene Jarvis, creator of Defender, Robotron: 2084, Target: Terror and The Fast and The Furious
• Jane Jensen, creator of Gabriel Knight series, Gray Matter
• Soren Johnson: co-designer of Civilization III and lead designer for Civilization IV
• David Jones: creator of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto series, and founded DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North).

K

• Iikka Keränen, co-designer of Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, co-founder of Digital Eel
• Rieko Kodama: Sega - Phantasy Star series, Skies of Arcadia
• Hideo Kojima: Konami - Metal Gear series, Snatcher and Policenauts
• Jarek Kolář: designer of Vietcong.

L

• Marc Laidlaw, designer/writer at Valve on the Half-Life games
• Ken Levine, creator of Bioshock and Thief: The Dark Project Series
• Ken Lobb, creator of GoldenEye 007
• Ed Logg, creator of Asteroids, Centipede and Gauntlet
• Gilman Louie, creator of "Falcon (video game series)", Super Tetris, Battle Trek, Delta Squadron and Starship Simulator
• Al Lowe, creator of the Leisure Suit Larry series

M

• Gregg Mayles: designer for the Banjo-Kazooie series and Viva Piñata
• American McGee: American McGee's Alice, Doom, Quake, American McGee's Grimm
• Edmund McMillen: independent game artist and designer for Gish, Aether, and others
• Stephen Marley: designer/writer of Martian Gothic: Unification
• Colin McComb: designer for Planescape: Torment
• Brad McQuaid: Developer of EverQuest
• Jordan Mechner: Karateka and Prince of Persia series
• Sid Meier: Civilization series, Railroad Tycoon. Founded MicroProse and Firaxis.
• Steve Meretzky: designer/writer of numerous Infocom titles, including Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, A Mind Forever Voyaging and Leather Goddesses of Phobos
• Shinji Mikami: of Capcom - the Resident Evil series
• Robyn and Rand Miller: the brothers who designed Myst and some of its sequels.
• Jeff Minter: founder of Llamasoft.
• Shigeru Miyamoto: Nintendo EAD - Donkey Kong, Mario, Legend of Zelda & many others
• Tetsuya Mizuguchi: Q Entertainment (formally with Sega UGA) - Lumines, Rez, Space Channel 5 & others
• Peter Molyneux: Created Populous, Syndicate and Black and White, Fable, founded Bullfrog Software and Lionhead Studios
• Brian Moriarty: designer/writer of Trinity and Loom
• David Mullich: The Prisoner, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, director or producer of many others

N

• Yuji Naka: (Sega Sonic Team) - Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star Online, Nights into Dreams... & others
• Gabe Newell: Founded Valve Corporation
• Garry Newman: designer of Garry's Mod
• Toshihiro Nishikado: Space Invaders
• Tetsuya Nomura: Square Enix - Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts

O

• Yoshiki Okamoto: Game Republic, Capcom, Konami - Street Fighter (series) & others
• Henrique Olifiers: designer of media convergence games such as My Big Brother, Herois e vampiros and Conquista de Titã. Also co-founder of Finalboss.com, a Latin American gaming news portal.
• Scott Orr: Designer of original version of Madden NFL, many other design credits

P

• Alexey Pajitnov: Tetris
• David Perry: MDK, Earthworm Jim and more
• Markus Persson: Minecraft, 0x10c
• Sandy Petersen: Lightspeed, Doom, Rise of Rome and more
• Simon Phipps: Rick Dangerous, ShadowMan, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and others.
• Ted Price: Founder of Insomniac Games

R

• Rick Raymer: Clue, Scooby Doo: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom and others cod series
• Tommy Refenes: Super Meat Boy
• Brian Reynolds: Civilization II, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Rise of Nations and FrontierVille
• Ken Rolston: The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind and Oblivion)
• John Romero: Doom and Quake lead designer and level designer, Daikatana producer, co-founder of id Software, Ion Storm, Loot Drop, and Monkeystone Games
• Richard Rouse III: designer/writer of The Suffering games and author of the book Game Design: Theory and Practice

S

• Hironobu Sakaguchi: Mistwalker (formally with Square Co.) Final Fantasy series and Chrono Trigger
• Masahiro Sakurai: Creator of Kirby, designer of the Super Smash Bros. series, founder of Sora Ltd.
• Kevin Saunders, lead designer of Torment: Tides of Numenera and Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
• Chris Sawyer, creator of the Transport Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon series.
• Josh Sawyer: Neverwinter Nights 2, Icewind Dale series, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series
• Tim Schafer, designer of Grim Fandango and Psychonauts
• Jesse Schell, best known for Toontown Online and Pixie Hollow (video game); author of The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
• Glen Schofield, creator of Dead Space, co-founder of Sledgehammer Games
• Jeremiah Slaczka, Creative Director of 5TH Cell, designer of Scribblenauts and Drawn to Life
• Warren Spector: System Shock, Thief series, Deus Ex
• Goichi Suda: designer of Killer7
• Yu Suzuki, Sega-AM2 designer of many classics that became genres, such as Afterburner, Hang-On, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter series, Ferrari F355 Challenge and the Shenmue series.
• Kim Swift, project lead for Portal
• David Sirlin, lead designer for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

T

• Satoshi Tajiri: creator of Pokémon games
• Toshiro Tsuchida: Front Mission series
• John Tobias: Co-creator of the Mortal Kombat fighting game series.
• Chris Taylor, pioneered the use of both 3D units and terrain in the RTS game Total Annihilation.
• Deborah Todd: veteran game designer and writer for Humongous Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Houghton Mifflin, Disney Interactive and author of Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light
• Andy Tudor: Design Lead on the Need for Speed "SHIFT" franchise

U

• Fumito Ueda: creator of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus

V

• Jon Van Caneghem: Might and Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic series
• Daniel Vávra: designer of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.

W

• Jordan Weisman: Founder of FASA Corporation, co-creator of BattleTech and MechWarrior
• Richard Vander Wende: co-designer/director of Riven
• Christopher Weaver: Founder of Bethesda Softworks, co-designer of Gridiron!, engine designer of the original "John Madden Football" and "Wayne Gretzky Hockey" and producer of the early "The Elder Scrolls" series
• Roberta Williams: Designer of King's Quest and other series, pioneered graphic adventure game genre, co-founded Sierra Entertainment
• Tim Willits: Designer on id software titles The Ultimate Doom, Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Quake III: Team Arena and Doom 3
• Gary Winnick: designer of Maniac Mansion and Thimbleweed Park
• Will Wright: game designer of SimCity series, The Sims series and Spore, co-founder of Maxis
• Robin Walker: Creator of Team Fortress a popular Quake mod. Also responsible for design, code, and management on various Valve products and is lead developer of Team Fortress 2, alongside John Cook.

Y

• Kazunori Yamauchi: Polyphony Digital - Gran Turismo
• Gunpei Yokoi: creator and designer of the Game Boy, Metroid and Kid Icarus.

See also

• List of video game industry people

External links

• Giant List of Classic Game Programmers which concentrates on 8-bit era game programmers who were usually also the game's designer