These Are The 40 Most Powerful People In Video Games [Power 40]
The world of video games is full of mighty people—people whose mere whims control what video games we play, what we play games on, how we buy them or even what games are like.
We’ve often wondered who the most powerful person is in video games. And we’ve wondered who the second is, the third and the 38th.
Now, we bring you the results. Our results of the top 40. Our current results.
The Kotaku Power 40 is a monthly listing of the 40 most powerful people in video games.
Who picks the Power 40? We do.
What will change the rankings? The events of the next month (and just maybe any well-argued messages that explain how we totally got this wrong).
• 01. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
July 3, 2012 Update: Still holding strong at the top spot, despite recent Apple statements that they’re not interested in making a console. As long as iPads and iPhones keep flying off the shelves and attracting tons of gamers and game companies, it’s hard to argue that Apple doesn’t have a ton of power and momentum in gaming as well as an ability to move game-playing hardware that is surely the envy of the traditional video game hardware manufacturers.
Apple may not make many overt efforts to lead gaming, yet somehow they remain a gaming power-player. Note that in the wake of E3, we see Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo beginning to gain momentum. We consider the gap narrowing and Microsoft or Nintendo bigwigs poised for the top spot here. Facebook/Zynga people are stumbling and Sony, while they have great resurgent potential, still seems to have a longer road to the top.
May 30, 2012 Update: Apple is known as a powerhouse for mobile gaming, but Tim Cook went on record to say that the company is not interested in moving to the console platform.
March 27, 2012 Update: The new iPad officially launched, and already reached 3 million units sold after just one week from its release. The CEO of Apple firmly remains at number one.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Speculation of the iPad 3 being just around the corner further reinforces Apple’s stance in the gaming market, particularly if the new hardware narrows the gap even more between iPads and home consoles.
Why He’s Powerful
Tim Cook holds the future of gaming in his hands. But does he know it?
In just four short years, iOS devices—iPhone, iPad, and the iPod touch—have become arguably the world’s largest gaming platform. We’re talking a quarter of a billion devices sold, the lion’s share of which can run any of the tens of thousands of games on the iTunes App Store.
All without a concerted effort towards gaming by Apple, which seems content to let the app developers themselves duke it out.
With a possible iOS-based Apple television on the horizon, as well as baby steps being made to allow iOS devices interact seamlessly with existing televisions, Apple could begin to threaten dedicated set-top gaming consoles—almost accidentally.
Even more harrowing for the traditional game industry is the App Store’s lure to small- and medium-sized developers. There’s a finite amount of engineering and artistic talent on the planet. The traditional gaming work environment has been long hours for modest pay. Yet the App Store is minting millionaires working out of their bedrooms.
It’s the ‘80s all over again—good news for everyone except a gaming industry still in denial that the game they created has been changed by an adventitious kingmaker.
• 02. Don Mattrick, Microsoft’s Xbox Chief
July 3, 2012 Update: Microsoft announced a new tablet, Surface, that got people saying they were going to be able to take a bigger bite out of Apple. Mattrick and Xbox aren’t exactly a part of the Surface world, but the Xbox is clearly an increasingly integral part of all of Microsoft business. Combine that with positive buzz on Microsoft’s code-named Durango successor the Xbox 360 and a solid if non-revolutionary E3, and Mattrick can consider the gap between him and Cook narrowed.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Strong holiday sales of the Xbox 360 allowed Mattrick’s team to brag that the Xbox 360 ended 2011 as the hottest-selling home console of the year.
Why He’s Powerful
Don Mattrick is Mr. Xbox and the president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. That means he’s got the top gaming console in the United States right now, the one that used to primarily be a Halo and Call of Duty-playing device.
Now, the Xbox 360 is this thing that about 15 million people plug Kinect sensors into and that 40 million use for Xbox Live. It’s a Netflix streaming device, a UFC viewing portal, and, if you buy Microsoft’s marketing, it’s a voice-controlled futuristic machine for watching and participating in interactive versions of Sesame Street.
Mattrick’s Xbox portfolio is impressive, though it’s thin on in-house development studios. His crown jewel is the untested 343 Industries who are hoping to make this fall’s Halo 4 return Master Chief’s series to its former glory. Microsoft mostly depends on third-party developers to make Xbox hits and pays those people extra to put some of their content on Xbox first. Right now, who’d say no to Microsoft’s money?
Bonus power factor: Mattrick has an awesome house.
• 03. Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo
August 1, 2012 Update: Nintendo revealed the 3DS XL, which recently launched in Japan to an impressive roughly 200,000 sales in its first two days. New Super Mario Bros 2. launched in the country on the same day, selling over 430,000 copies in its first two days.
July 3, 2012 Update: The Wii U had an okay showing at E3. It didn’t generate the buzz that the Wii did when E3 attendees first got their hands on that console, but it didn’t flop either. Nintendo has gathered, at minimum, improved short-term third-party support for Wii U and has demonstrated, with MiiVerse, the first online Nintendo service that ever seemed comprehensive enough to succeed. Nintendo’s 3DS had a solid showing at E3, and, post-E3, the company revealed a 3DS upgrade, the 3DS XL, which is getting extremely positive early reviews. All in all, a good month for Nintendo, if not the kind of blockbuster that would vault Iwata over Mattrick.
April 27, 2012 Update: Those huge losses that were expected back in february hit an official report of Nintendo’s first ever annual loss.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Not good: Nintendo posting an annual loss. Good: 3DS reaching five million units in Japan faster than any other gaming machine, ever. Let’s call it a wash. Position holds.
Why He’s Powerful
The former head of HAL Laboratory and the most powerful man in gaming who ever actually made a video game, Satoru Iwata is the president of a Nintendo in transition.
Under his leadership Nintendo revived itself and thrived for most of the past decade with the Nintendo DS and the Wii. His company still boasts the most popular roster of characters in gaming, including Mario, Zelda and the Miis. It still publishes Pokémon. But its new 3DS has met doubters in this age of smart-phone gaming and its Wii U currently suffers as much skepticism prior to its late-2012 launch than the Wii before it.
The gaming industry knows it is unwise to doubt Nintendo, but whether to follow them in the months ahead is a question back up for debate.
Iwata can at least be confident that, since the fall, the 3DS has been hitting its stride.
• 04. Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard
July 3, 2012 Update: Activision teamed up with Tencent to bring China it’s own Call of Duty game. That’s big. But Kotick’s rise is also due to the drop by Blizzard chief Mike Morhaime, whose previously can’t-miss half of Activision Blizzard has had a strangely rocky time managing Diablo III since the always-online game launched.
May 30, 2012 Update: Activision maintains their grip on the Call of Duty franchise, announcing Black Ops II and giving press a sneak peek at what’s to come.
Why He’s Powerful
Even if you ignored all the other game franchises under Bobby Kotick’s control, simply being President and CEO of the company that owns Call of Duty—the world’s largest entertainment property—would put him and Activision Blizzard high on our list.
But the Activision part of Blizzard Activision is more threatened by the movement of casual and subscription games than Mike Morhaime’s Blizzard division. (Even if, technically, Kotick rules the entire roost.) It’s not entirely clear that Kotick has the leadership to steer the company through the upheaval that’s transforming the video game industry, especially as nascent subscription experiments like the company’s Call of Duty: ELITE have been half-baked.
↑ 05. Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard
August 1, 2012 Update: Blizzard finally announced a release date for the next expansion in World of Warcraft—Mists of Pandaria—introducing a new race and other features to the massively popular MMO.
Mike Morhaime also publicly admitted Diablo III‘s imperfections, explaining that the company is committed to maintaining loyal gamers rather than just breaking launch records.
July 3, 2012 Update: Maybe Diablo III sold well, but it’s rocky launch, buggy patches and continued antagonism of some fans with its online requirements makes Morhaime’s previously can’t miss studio seem a little less wonderful a role model for other development houses to follow. He drops a few spots.
May 30, 2012 Update: Even with the controversy over a shaky launch, Blizzard saw a great success in the long-awaited release of Diablo III, even if they don’t know exactly how much of a success it is.
Why He’s Powerful
When Blizzard Entertainment merged with mega-publisher Activision in 2008, some worried that the company would be fully subsumed, losing the spark that made Blizzard’s pathologically polished games—World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo—so addictive. No worries so far—Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime appears to have kept the reins firmly in his mailed gauntlet.
While the rushing torrent of subscription money that is World of Warcraft is slowing down ever so slightly, the upcoming release of Diablo III will almost certainly be a massive hit. And there’s a massively multiplayer follow up to World of Warcraft code-named “Titan” waiting in the wings. Unless unseen creative calamity strikes the company, the brands under Morhaime’s control are set to continue making billions of dollars in revenue for years to come.
↓ 06. Kaz Hirai, Sony President and CEO
August 2, 2012 Update: Sony posted an over $300 million loss for their first fiscal quarter of the year, resulting his Kaz’s move down one position.
July 3, 2012 Update: Kaz refocuses his efforts at Sony, but we know he’s a PlayStation guy and that PlayStation remains a bright spot for the company. We also see Sony’s purchase of cloud-gaming service Gaikai as a sign that Sony might be about to transform the way PlayStation gaming works—and how widely it spreads across various devices—as we know it. It’s been a while since Sony led the rest of the gaming industry; could they be on the verge of doing so?
Feb 20, 2012 Update: The PS Vita is off to a predictably-shaky start with hot sales in Japan cooling and a global launch so recent it’s hard to assess how the new handheld will do. But things are dandy for Hirai, who now runs Sony. Congrats on the promotion, Kaz. We promoted you, too.
Why He’s Powerful
When new PlayStation hardware is revealed to the world, it is revealed in the hands of Kaz Hirai.
The former head of Sony’s U.S. PlayStation division was promoted to oversee all PlayStation business in Japan a few years ago and, in early 2011, got a promotion from that. He’s now the man that runs all of Sony. That may remove him from most of the day-to-day operations of the PlayStation business, but he’s still the main man when it comes to showing what’s next for the console and handheld gaming giant. Under Hirai is one of the most successful brands in gaming history.
Some may see Sony as weak right now. They certainly don’t have the power they did in the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 eras, but even in third place this generation, their PlayStation 3 has sold millions. Their first-party development studios have strengthened year by year. They now rival Nintendo’s in terms of overall quality. The crown jewels in the studio system include Uncharted and The Last of Us studio Naughty Dog and the God of War crew at Sony Santa Monica. Sony’s Japan studios, including Gran Turismo house Polyphony Digital and the team behind the long-awaited Last Guardian may be struggling to keep up with the pace of modern big-game development, but a global network of studios that also includes Guerrilla, Media Molecule, innovative Sony London teams, Sucker Punch, Zipper Interactive and more prove that Hirai has the ability to see more exclusive games on his machines than his Nintendo and Microsoft rivals. And he’s guaranteed several hits from a team that rich in talent.
The new PlayStation Vita, now released in all of Sony’s major gaming markets, will show how well Sony can still compete in the handheld market. The PS3, meanwhile, has to withstand a surging Xbox 360.
• 07. Gabe Newell, Boss of Valve Software
August 1, 2012 Update: Gabe Newell went on record to say that Windows 8 is a “catastrophe,” and further expressed his opinion that he’d like to see an investment in Linux for video games instead.
July 3, 2012 Update: Valve releases an open source filmmaker so that fans can make their own videos.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Grew beard; would maybe make gaming hardware. Steam hack in 2011 may have compromised credit card info. No move up or down.
Why He’s Powerful
Five years ago, who would have guessed that Valve Software’s most important franchise wouldn’t be a video game?
Managing director Gabe Newell continues to experiment with pricing and sales schemes on the company’s PC/Mac game download service Steam, as well as fearlessly tinkering with pricing formula in the company’s home grown titles like Team Fortress and Portal. Under Newell’s leadership, Valve has remained both artistically innovative and fiscally unorthodox.
And if that weren’t enough, Newell is also sitting on the announcement of Half-Life 3, the conclusion to one of the most beloved PC game franchises in the world.
↑ 08. Eric Bright, Wal-Mart Game-Buyer
Why He’s Powerful
Eric Bright isn’t a familiar name to most gamers—nor should he be. As the Senior Buyer for all video game software at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, Bright is the single point of entry to a wide swatch of customers, especially in the parts of the country where Wal-Mart is the only electronics retailer.
Before Bright took over video game software, he was in charge of video game hardware and accessories buying for Wal-Mart. The number of cords and cables this man has put in the hands of gamers would reach from Bentonville to the moon. (Probably.)
↓ 09. John Riccitiello, CEO of EA
August 2, 2012 Update: EA ran into some problems with BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, meeting dipping numbers with a turn to a free-to-play model.
Even with the announcement of the return of Army of Two as well as new Mass Effect 3 DLC, EA moves one position down to reflect the heavy hit on SW:ToR.
July 3, 2012 Update:Not the greatest E3 for EA, but the company’s FIFA and Madden series look strong and a continued push into Facebook and mobile gaming still feels like smart, early work that lays a foundation rivals will envy in the coming months and years.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: That risky Star Wars MMO of EA’s already has 1.7 million paying customers. Riccitiello is holding steady.
Why He’s Powerful
The former Sara Lee and Pepsi executive is in his second tour as CEO of Electronic Arts. Under his leadership the company has won more hearts and minds of gamers than an Evil Empire is supposed to.
They’re allegedly not evil anymore, and to those who point out that the stock price is not what it was several years ago (i.e. two-thirds of its all-time high), have you seen the quality of their games? Have you played the Dead Spaces and Bad Companys, FIFAs and Mass Effects? Have you played their Facebook games or tried the best of the bunch coming from EA acquisition Chillingo?
They make lots of money. They appear to toss some of it away by backing questionable efforts like EA Partners’ Alice: Madness Returns. But, look, the economy is bad and they’re still a juggernaut. EA is now the most diversified company in the business, with big bets not just in console gaming but in Facebook gaming, iOS gaming… you name it, EA is trying to make a hit there. Plus, the company is the leader in sports gaming on any turf other than the basketball court. And if they weren’t going to take a risk on a game like Alice, who was?
Riccitiello is a prophet of saying games should be treated like ongoing services, and no one denies he’s smart about that kind of thing. But what happens if Battlefield never dethrones Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty, Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn’t knock off World of Warcraft and the world falls out of love with Facebook gaming?
EA has the most ways to succeed and the most ways to fail. On the eve of a console transition it also has an opportunity to reassert its might for a new generation of gamers.
• 10. Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft Boss
August 1, 2012 Update: Ubisoft’s PC game service, Uplay, ran into major security issues that allowed outsiders to breach users’ computers.
July 3, 2012 Update: Ubisoft’s boss moves up five placements to reflect a very successful E3, with impressive showings of out-of-nowhere Watch Dogs, some Wii U games that outshined many of Nintendo’s own, an impressive demo of Assassin’s Creed III and an all-around awesome press conference.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: The confirmation of Assassin’s Creed III for October 2012 is not enough to bump Guillemot up, and a partnership with Japanese mobile phone power player GREE—which is making inroads to the West later this year—is probably better for GREE now than it is for Ubi. We’ll see.
Why He’s Powerful
People who work for Ubisoft know that their company is a little weird. Ubi is a large corporation that acts as if it is an artist’s collective—pay no attention to all those sequels they like to churn out. They are a quirky outfit and not one to be trifled with under the leadership of their long-standing boss Yves Guillemot, who helped start the company 25 years ago.
Ubisoft boasts massive development studios in France, Canada and China and an enviable knack for making hits. One year, they’re creating Assassin’s Creed, the most successful new high-definition franchise of this generation, give or take Gears of War; two years later, Just Dance comes out of nowhere and becomes one of the hottest series on any platform, even outselling most of Nintendo’s best on the Wii. Guillemot has managed to run a powerhouse publisher that is willing to take countless creative risks, but he routinely flirts with disaster, supporting risky experiments that flop and testing the limits of mass-produced quality by throwing hundreds of developers on annualized sequels.
Ubi’s best strengths are its numerous brands, ranging from Rayman to Trackmania to Assassin’s Creed to Splinter Cell and the rest of the Clancyverse. His company also often finds a way to thrive on new platforms, putting the ever-experimental Ubi in a prime spot to capitalize on the launch of the Wii U in 2012.
• 11. Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder
Feb 20, 2012 Update: No huge changes yet, but what’s with Amazon hiring a bunch of game developers? Hmm. Power play coming?
Why He’s Powerful
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is a triple threat: powerhouse retailer with a wonderful games loyalty program and release-day shipping; the proprietors of the only other credible tablet in the Kindle Fire; and overseers of the powerful Amazon Web Services platform on which a large portion of the internet’s cloud services operate.
Gaming has never overtly been Bezos’ passion, but he has been known to make small investments in social gaming startups.
Whether he actively makes gaming power-plays or not, it doesn’t matter. Amazon is a mighty force in the medium.
↑ 12. Paul Raines, Used GameStop CEO
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Given how much money GameStop likes to rake in from the sales of used games, Raines better hope that the next Xbox’s possible blocking of used games doesn’t become a reality. If it does, he drops. For now, it’s unconfirmed.
Why He’s Powerful
Nobody’s saying video game retail is fun. But there’s only a single real dedicated gaming brick-and-morter chair left, and that’s Gamestop, helmed by the relatively green Raines.
Although GameStop has struggled to remain relevant as gamers increasingly avail themselves of online distribution platforms, Raines is slowly stockpiling digital distribution into Gamestop’s arsenal. And never forget that Gamestop owns Game Informer, the last remaining print magazine with serious clout in the industry.
↑ 13. Shigeru Miyamoto, Lead Game Designer at Nintendo
July 3, 2012 Update: No offense, Mr. Miyamoto, you had a solid E3. But Ubisoft had a great one, and so their boss’ surge is pushing you and a lot of the people near you on the list down.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: We admit it. We put him too low last month. Miyamoto’s genius has still been absent from the public eye—and will probably continue to be until E3. So while Nintendo’s 3DS hardware may be finally selling at decent rates, and Miyamoto may well still be exerting much influence over the hardware and software designers of the 3DS and forthcoming Wii U, until we see some of the fruits of that labor, the power he exhibits right now will continue to be, in our eyes, mid-list-level.
Why He’s Powerful
He is, with little argument, the most creatively successful and influential video game designer of all time.
The inventor of Donkey Kong, the chief architect of Mario and Zelda‘s first adventures, he has been a creator with a golden touch, maintaining his relevance and design genius despite generational changes in taste, the rise and fall and rise of his own company and the inevitable effects of age that can dampen one’s spirit or corrode skills wielded better by younger minds.
With the possible exception of Rockstar’s Houser brothers, he is the only game designer whose departure from a game company could shake both its fans and its shareholders. (In fact, we already got a test-run of that when a December 2011 report of Miyamoto’s “retirement”—later refuted by Nintendo—cut Nintendo’s stock by 2%.)
There’s a major “but” to all this: Shigeru Miyamoto, a good showman every year, hasn’t unveiled a hit of the high caliber he’s renowned for, since 2008’s Wii Fit. This is partially because it his lieutenants running the Zeldas or 3D Marios occasionally get the spotlight they’ve long deserved. But as Nintendo shifts from the highs of the Wii years to the skepticism of the emerging 3DS and the forthcoming Wii U, the question to ask will be: Does Miyamoto still have it? The direction of that answer is the weather vane for Nintendo’s future.
↑ 14. Mark Rein, Epic Games Vice President
July 3, 2012 Update: Unreal Engine 4 looked fine last month. It’ll likely be a big deal next-gen, keeping Epic very relevant. An investment in Epic by Chinese gaming giant Tencent is useful, too, but Rein goes down a notch to make room for the surging chief of Ubisoft, which had an incredible E3.
May 30, 2012 Update: A first tease at Unreal Engine 4 shows impressive imagery from Epic’s new engine, promising a reveal in the works that could impact developers and their future games. The company also dodged fines in a court case against Silicon Knights.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: He drops primarily because others have leapt over him. Epic is holding steady.
Why He’s Powerful
The vice president and co-founder of Epic Games doesn’t make the company’s Gears of War blockbusters nor their surprise iPad hit Infinity Blade. He doesn’t design Epic’s ubiquitous Unreal Engine. But the man is everywhere, pockets bulging with devices he is eager to show you will also run some great new version of Unreal’s graphics tech.
If Rein and Epic have their way, the Unreal Engine will power every hit made by every major video game company working on iOS, Android, gaming handhelds and the next generation of console games. Good luck getting Nintendo or Rockstar or Bethesda to make their games in Unreal (hint: they won’t), but Rein and co. still have most of the gaming industry ready or able to work with Epic. And with a new generation of consoles now in the works, Epic just might have significant say about how much technical muscle Sony and Microsoft put in their next boxes.
Just remember: Epic wasn’t the first video game company to have a popular graphics engine. That perch is by no means permanent and if they fall, they have far to go.
↑ 15. Yoichi Wada, CEO of the Square-Enix-Eidos Empire
July 3, 2012 Update: Square Enix bumps up quite a bit for the month of June, with an impressive E3 line-up including Tomb Raider and Hitman, two games that have been the subjects of recent heated conversations.
Square Enix’s CEO also gets the increased placement for the unveiling of an impressive new engine.
Why He’s Powerful
There was a time when Final Fantasy was the biggest of deals. In that era, Yoichi Wada would have been a Power 40 top five.
Then there was Final Fantasy XII. Then XIII. Oh… XIV. Final Fantasy is no longer a video game main event.
Square-Enix does make Dragon Quest, too, which is still the biggest of deals in Japan and the smallest of curiosities in America. Cue the Konami-style fade of another proud Japanese game company.
But wait! They bought Eidos. Those Eidos people made a wonderful new Deus Ex in one of those great, giant Canadian-subsidized Montreal game development studios. Eidos has top people cracking away on a Tomb Raider revival that looks great. They’ve got multiple teams making multiple Hitman games.
Naturally, only the announcement of The World Ends With You 2 could vault Wada-san to the top of the Kotaku Power 40, but his company is, oddly, a Japanese publisher on the rebound. The steam lost in being a primarily-PlayStation-oriented studio going into the current generation has been regained with a diversification of content and the smart nabbing of Eidos. They’re on the verge of making juggernauts again, even if the Square part of the company is, well, far less cool than it used to be.
Bonus power factor: They’re all over iOS and other mobile platforms, which is good and all, but they’re the masters of charging $5-$10 more for their games than you would expect to. This makes Yoichi Wada’s rule seem brazen if a bit… unrealistic.
↓ 16. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook
August 1, 2012 Update: Facebook’s stock continues to plummet since it went public, even recently facing its biggest one-day loss at a drop of 12%. This resulted in Facebook’s market value losing $34 billion, as well as Zuckerberg’s position moving four slots down.
July 3, 2012 Update: Social-network video games are still very popular, but Facebook is a wounded company now, still stumbling after a debacle of an IPO and, in general, seeming more vulnerable, more prone to be challenged by a rival, than ever before.
May 30, 2012 Update: Since Facebook opened up to the public and settled in with Nasdaq and their very own IPO, troubling reports have surfaced. Though Nasdaq initially went on record to say they were at fault for the resulting glitches, speculation that Facebook had been hiding and falsifying information has resulted in a class action lawsuit. We’ll have to see how this progresses and continues to affect Facebook’s stock, but so far it does not bode well for early investors.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Leapfrogged by new Sony boss Kaz Hirai. Facebook may still be a juggernaut, but in preparation for going public, the company revealed just how much it depends on Zynga, one company that generated 12% of mighty Facebook’s revenue. What if people lost interest in Zynga games?
Why He’s Powerful
The boy king of social holds 800 million people in his hands, making Facebook the largest connected gaming platform in the world. Granted, it’s a platform that hasn’t been exploited to its full potential—Zynga’s Everythingville iterations notwithstanding—but as 3D-capable, browser-based games mature, there’s little to prevent Facebook from becoming the one-stop gaming platform of the future.
He can afford to treat Facebook like a gaming platform. And who could stop him? Which game company wouldn’t want to access Facebook’s more than 800 million of users?
We see increasingly-impressive video games running in browsers. We see increasingly-impressive games running in Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg could make Facebook the power-player in video games, if he wanted to. The question is: does he?
• 17. Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, Who Invented Minecraft
May 30, 2012 Update: The release of Minecraft on the 360 was met with strong sales, and even bumped Call of Duty from the Xbox charts. Call of Duty!
Feb 20, 2012 Update: He had a big month, but with all the movement around him he stays put. The power he wields continues to be evident, though. His fans have turned official Minecraft LEGO sets into a reality, and his mere Tweet that he might fund Psychonauts 2 turned into, if briefly, a real conversation about funding a game that industry favorite Tim Schafer has struggled to get greenlit (it’s still far from a sure thing). Oh, and in one weekend a charity drive by Notch’s company earned almost half a million dollars.
Why He’s Powerful
Twenty million registered users of Minecraft. That’s all it takes to make Markus “Notch” Persson one of the most powerful people in gaming. The Swedish indie games developer’s success with a seemingly simple premise—Minecraft is essentially a virtual building blocks game—has shown that there’s still millions of dollars to be made in video games by the garage developer who strikes ludic gold.
Will Persson be able to roll the success of Minecraft into something more lasting? His quickly-growing company Mojang continues to announce new titles like Scrolls and Cobalt. For thousands of game developers in the world, Persson has shown the way toward financial and critical success outside the confines of traditional game publishing. And that was before his game even came out. He even had his own convention in Las Vegas last year—and that too was a hit!
Now Minecraft is in the hands of other developers at Mojang. Notch is dreaming up his next great video game.
Here’s a wrinkle, though: Could Minecraft, which is full of user-made content based on pop culture copyrights, survive if the U.S. government passes the Stop Online Piracy Act (or its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act), which could crush well-meaning Internet sites in the name of defeating online pirates?
• 18. Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take Two
August 1, 2012 Update: Take Two cited an underperformance from both Spec Ops: The Line and Max Payne 3 in their first quarter fiscal reports.
July 3, 2012 Update: X-Com: Enemy Unkown was a stand-out at E3 and Borderlands 2 and NBA 2K13 looked good, but, overall, not a brilliant E3 for Take Two. No reason to bump him up the way we did the bosses at Square-Enix and Ubisoft.
May 30, 2012 Update: Strauss moves down 3 positions, mainly because others have leapt over him.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Max Payne 3‘s delay from March to May reduced the odds of the game’s developers at Rockstar getting Grand Theft Auto V out for Take Two this year. Borderlands 2, however, is now targeted to September. Zelnick drops, partially to make room for Shigeru Miyamoto advancing above him.
Why He’s Powerful
He’ll never live down being the only gaming bigwig to show off his muscles on the cover of a men’s fitness magazine (please don’t take that as a challenge, rival execs), but what does he care?
While flashier third-party publishers EA and Activision battle for market share and headlines, the not-tiny Take Two Interactive takes its time preparing to launch potential games of the year, from BioShock: Infinite and the next NBA 2K game to, of course, anything Take-Two-owned Rockstar Games makes, like, you know, the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V. Take Two’s deep bench of hit makers also includes Sid Meier’s Civilization (and X-Com) crew at Firaxis.
Successful as some of its games are, the company doesn’t have much to boast about in categories some of its rivals consider to be the most important markets: social gaming, mobile gaming or even, outside of the Borderlands series and Rockstar’s almost-there efforts, a powerhouse online game.
• 19. Sam and Dan Houser, The Brothers Rockstar
May 30, 2012 Update: Even after getting hit with a delay, the release of Max Payne 3 was received highly, including by us.
Feb 20, 2012 Update: Max Payne 3 slipped from March to May. Delays of Rockstar games usually lead to very good games, but they also tend to lengthen the wait for the next one, likely knocking GTA V out of any crystal balls that pegged it for 2012. GTA III on iOS is a hit, though, and now the original Max Payne is en route. Signs of a new platform for Rockstar to rule?
Why They’re Powerful
Somewhere right now the Houser brothers are being taken for granted. They stay out of the spotlight, expecting their work to speak for itself. And does it ever. The brothers’ Rockstar Games are responsible for the king-maker franchise Grand Theft Auto, the stunning 2010 creative and commercial success Red Dead Redemption, plus a line of buzz-worthy games that has included Manhunt, Bully and even a table tennis game.
There is no studio more unpredictable than Rockstar, and there is no better studio at making sure that every single one of its games—even the oddball ones—is a big deal. They made a mid-20th-century detective story a major game release in 2011 and intend to make a revival of Max Payne a huge deal in 2012. Their newly-revealed Grand Theft Auto V brought the Internet to Apple-keynote-level attention with a single teaser and its possible 2012 release would challenge Halo 4, the next Call of Duty and the Wii U as the biggest gaming happening of the year.
But even tallying all that past and probably future success is taking the Housers for granted. Which studio sets the standard for.. soundtracks? Cut-scenes? Writing? Voice-acting? It’s the one run by these guys. They keep Rockstar vital year after year, as one of gaming’s most intriguing brands. All they are on the verge of is potentially the biggest Rockstar year yet.
They have power, the we-can-do-whatever-we-want kind of power.
