The Top 20 Gaming Execs: 1989 to 2009
- May 07, 2009 11:06 AM PST
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Read on to see who we've named in our list of the top executives in gaming of the last twenty years!
Who are the people that built the game industry as we know it today? Here is GamePro's opinionated list of the twenty best executives to ever happen to the business.
20. Christine Burgess-Quemard
Executive Director, Worldwide Studios, Ubisoft
Yves Guillemot deserves kudos for founding Ubisoft in 1986, but in our eyes, Christine (who's the top lady responsible for all 22 production studios under the Ubi-umbrella) has done a lot more to engineer the company's meteoric rise from small-time French game distributor to the fourth-largest third-party publisher in the US.
19. David Roberts
CEO, PopCap Games
When Roberts joined PopCap in 2005, it was a company that made Bejeweled and not much else. Since then, it's reinvented itself as the spearhead of an entire casual-gaming revolution, evidenced by everything from Nintendo's Wii to your mom playing Peggle on the ancient PC in the living room.
18. John Smedley
CEO, Sony Online Entertainment
Here he is -- the man who's the indirect reason why you failed all your courses for that one college semester you couldn't stop playing WOW. If it wasn't for him founding an internal staff within Sony to develop the original EverQuest, the entire MMO genre wouldn't be what it is today.
17. Alex Rigopulos
CEO, Harmonix
Rigopulos and Eran Egozy founded Harmonix in 1995 with the aim of helping people who suck at music enjoy playing it anyway. Not only has he succeeded bigtime with Guitar Hero and its progeny, he's also made the music industry itself take notice. Remember back when game-music tie-ins meant yet another Rob Zombie track in a Tony Hawk game? Hah!
16. Seamus Blackley
Creative Artists Agency
The physics student and occasional game designer was one of the chief figures behind the design and creation of the original Xbox, convincing a business software company that going into the console marketplace would be a great idea. Anyone who enjoys the 360 and yelling at people on Live has him to thank for it.
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- May 08 2009 at 04:03:01:PM PST
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WTF??? No Peter Moore? But he was Sega of America's president, Xbox boss and now head of EA Sports division. He deserves lots of credit for doing lots of things. I want a recount.
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