In a landmark feature, Next-Gen.Biz has gathered together the names and bios of the 100 game developers we believe are the most influential in shaping the 2006 game industry.

We selected the Hot 100, based primarily on their studio’s market success in 2005. In addition, we kept in mind any potential huge successes for 2006, as well as people who are clearly industry luminaries regardless of their recent or upcoming projects.

We tried to keep a strong balance between these criteria, but the fact of the matter is that there are far, far more than one hundred people that were influential in these ways, so we placed a maximum cap of two people per development studio. Even then, we had to make some very difficult decisions – therefore, this list does not represent everyone we consider important to the current industry, but rather it's what we feel is the best representative sample of the strongest talent of today.

This list does not include the areas of mobile games, serious games or casual games. Its focus is on mainstream commercial platforms. Also, on the whole, we have given precedence to studio heads as opposed to corporate VP or publishing heads of development who may oversee many studios.

We have noticed that women are in the great minority on this list – in fact, there is only one. We leave what this says about the industry, the market it caters to, and all other related issues up for discussion.

We have no doubt that this list will prompt hot debate. Next week we'll publish an additional feature calld 'The Ones that Got Away'. If you believe we have missed anyone, plese email your entry (in the style of this feature) to contact_us@next-gen.biz

Onto the list, which is alphabetical, and divided into ten pages of ten entries...