The Most Important People in Gaming - 1980s
The people that have shaped the industry
The 1980s was when video games started to go from a niche product to a more mainstream one (although still niche in many circles). It was also the birth and rise of many of the big players from the Japanese industry that are still around to this day. The decade saw wild swings from the peak of the Atari era to the 1983 North American crash to the rise of Nintendo and the 8-bit era. Here are the twelve people and/or groups of people that set the stage for the video game boom of the late 80s and 90s.
12 - Toru Iwatani
Joining Namco in 1977 at just the age of 22, Toru Iwatani would provide the industry with its first truly popular character. Pac-Man was an effort by Iwatani and his team to create a video game not just for the mostly male demographic in the arcades, but for women too. The maze-like addictive gameplay put the yellow guy into the pop culture lexicon and launched gaming’s first icon. Pac-Man is still easily playable to this day, and the impact of the character is felt beyond gaming.
11 - Steven Spielberg
Surprise? You shouldn’t be. Spielberg has been into video games much longer than people realize. Today, he’s admitted to playing Call of Duty titles and has been on and off potential video game-related projects, as well as the director for the video game-inspired adaptation of Ready Player One (a fantastic movie, by the way). Back in the 1980s, he was all over Atari as an advisor and helped pitch numerous projects for game adaptations of his films, from good (Raiders of the Lost Ark) to bad (E.T.). He was as important to the gaming scene of the decade as its developers.
10 - Ken and Roberta Williams
Who says love and video games don’t mix? This husband-wife duo created a company (Sierra On-Line Systems, which later became Sierra Entertainment) and many popular games of the decade. They were also important in the computer and network industries, with Sierra’s ImagiNation Network being sold to AT&T. Games the two worked on together or separately included Mystery House, The Dark Crystal, King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, and more. Roberta went on to become a writer after retirement, and both she and her husband came back to make the Colossal Cave remake in 2023. Roberta has been listed as one of the most inspirational and important women in video games.
9 - The Stamper Brothers - Chris and Tim
Chris and Tim Stamper became legends in the European video game industry. They formed Ultimate Play the Game, which later became Rareware. The Stamper Brothers made several video games that became childhood staples in many U.K. households, specifically for the ZX Spectrum. The Stampers would eventually expand their influence in a bigger way in the 1990s with Nintendo, but in the 80s, they established themselves as major influences in European gaming.
8 - Howard Scott Warshaw
If I told you that man who created the so-called “worst video game in the world” E.T. the Extraterrestrial created some the 1980s greatest Atari titles, would you believe me? Howard Scott Warshaw is known for E.T. but is actually an exceptional developer who made a couple of the decade’s best games. He led the development of classics Raiders of the Lost Ark and Yars’ Revenge. Add in his work with E.T. and his impact on gaming is during the 1980s is massive.
7 - Ed Logg
It is high time we gave Ed Logg his flowers as a superstar video game developer, as much as we do names like Miyamoto, Howard, Sakaguchi, and Kojima. Listen to this résumé - Super Breakout, Asteroids, Othello, Centipede, Millipede, Gauntlet, and Xybots (and that’s just the 1980s). Logg was the guy you immediately paid attention to when he came out with a new game. In many ways, he was Atari’s Miyamoto.
6 - Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers
Alexey Pajitnov was a citizen of the Soviet Union who created a fun game, Tetris, as a hobby. Back in the West, Henk Rogers saw the game and fell in love with it. What ensued was a war for the rights as Henk promised Nintendo handheld rights for the game, which would be instrumental in the launch of the Game Boy. Rogers fought the Soviet Union and won, taking the rights of Tetris to the western world. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Alexey joined Rogers and they created a company focused on licensing out and distributing Tetris. Today, Tetris is one of the most popular video games of all time. It helped launch Nintendo’s handheld ambitions and gave us a behind the scenes story the industry still talks about.
5 - Trip Hawkins
Hawkins was an employee of Apple but left to create his own company after discovering his love for video games. Hawkins created Electronic Arts, which has become one of the biggest third-party publishers in gaming. He also landed John Madden and believed in Madden’s vision to make the best football game possible, leading to the most popular sports video game franchise and establishing a standard for sports gaming. He has gone on to have a life full of success with EA and interesting gambles with 3DO. Hawkins’ passion for video games is still with him today, and his company has had a profound impact.
4 - The Founders of Activision - Bob Whitehead, Steve Cartwright, Larry Kaplan, David Crane and Alan Miller
Feeling undervalued and disrespected by the new regime at Atari, this group of developers had enough and left to start Activision. Thanks to their know-how with the Atari hardware, they were able to make their own games for the popular console and immediately made a name for themselves with the iconic classic Pitfall. These individuals did more than just quit their jobs and start a new company... They changed the amount of power a console manufacturer could have and gave developers a way to make games their own way. The third-party video game publisher model is still around today, and Activision set the precedent... even if they were recently bought by a console manufacturer.
3 - Hiroshi Yamauchi
The cold and calculating boss of a toy company, who made a decision to enter the new video game market - Yamauchi is like a god in Nintendo’s long history. Taking the reins from his family, he immediately established himself as a near dictator-like presence in the company, known for his cold personality and temper. Many to this day make jokes he was part of the yakuza. Yamauchi ‘s personality and controversies aside, he did have a soft spot when you helped him be successful. He was great at scouting talent and took on the new market, eventually going all in. Under his leadership, Nintendo “saved” the American video game market, established the Walt Disney of video games, created a wealth of IPs and characters, created countless memories, and provided legendary and iconic hardware that made way for countless classics. He believed in an artist to create Donkey Kong, and provided help to Henk Rogers to take on a super power. The industry isn’t what it is unless Yamauchi makes the move to enter the market, stern face and all.
2 - Shigeru Miyamoto
One day, a recent graduate just wanted to sit home and play his guitar, but his dad would have none of it. Forced to get a “real job“, Shigeru Miyamoto got a job at Nintendo, despite showing up in casual clothing. It’s obvious Yamauchi saw something deeper, as he still hired him, and the rest, as they say, is history. He was picked randomly to help Nintendo deal with a failing game, as they had arcade cabinets to sell. The solution… make a game about a plumber saving a girl from an escaped gorilla called Donkey Kong. From there, everything he touched was golden, establishing himself as a rockstar developer known even to the casual fans of the medium. Along the way, he created childhood memories and turned Nintendo into the Disney of video games, because , in many ways, he is the closest thing to another Walt Disney. Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong in the 1980s would only be the tip of the iceberg. As you can guess, this most likely won’t be his only entry in these lists.
1 - Gunpei Yokoi
For every genius, there was a mentor, and for Miyamoto, that was Gunpei Yokoi. Yokoi was Yamauchi’s golden employee. He had successfully developed numerous toys that helped the company thrive during the post-war changes after World War II. Yokoi eventually got the idea to enter the video game market by making handheld systems that used calculator-like technology during a train ride, which led to the Game & Watch. During much of Miyamoto’s early days making games, it was Yokoi who mentored him and helped him get them done. He was so highly respected in the company that, despite reservations from his peers, he got the go-ahead to create a handheld game system, which would become the Game Boy. Yokoi’s entire company history sets the stage for the rise of the big N, as he set the company on a course with gaming, mentored their greatest developer, and created the handheld idea that Nintendo still relies on to this day with the Switch brand. He had greatly impacted a company in a long-term direction, and as a result, impacted the critical gaming era of the 1980s.