Every year, Edge selects its Hot 100 based on a series of unchanging criteria. The primary factor taken into account is market success—those who saw games release to strong sales in 2008, or who are expected to see a friendly market in 2009. Critical reception and contributions to the art and craft of development are also weighed heavily in Hot 100 placement.

One hundred is a lot of people. By looking backwards and forwards this deeply, our goal is to capture a snapshot of the industry at this moment in time, through the faces of the individuals who are leading the way. But it is also not enough people, and even though several market segments were left outside the scope of the Hot 100—the mobile sector, true, publisher-free independents, and computer-based casual developers—it is without doubt that talented leaders were left off this list, many of them narrowly.

Every year teams grow in size, making it harder and harder to say that a single person could be even remotely responsible for the development of a successful game. This year, there are some exceptions from the digital distribution space that prove the rule. For everything else, however, strong teams need strong leaders, but that doesn’t make the contribution of the team any less valuable. We acknowledge that each person on the Hot 100 was backed by a team of talented individuals, and that the contributions of those individuals were vital to success.

Obviously there is a lot of room for debate here. We sought to make even more room by ordering these developers based on influence, which is certainly a controversial notion. But this is part of the goal. We want you to talk about these luminaries and remember their names, and we want you to champion your own industry heroes to anyone who will listen. It’s people who will push this increasingly important business, this medium, forward in 2009. The Hot 100 is about these people.