80. Scott Blackwood
Executive Producer
EA Black Box

Blackwood is an EA veteran, acting in a producer role for company touchstone titles as important as the original Need for Speed. He then transitioned from racing to spy thrillers through 007: Racing, but left the Bond franchise to help lead the team that sought to usurp skateboarding game leader Tony Hawk’s. The franchise he helped build, Skate, succeeded in its goal in most ways, and the early 2009 sequel Skate 2 has debuted to positive critical buzz and strong sales.



79. Shigenori Nishikawa
Gamer Director
Platinum Games

Nishikawa landed as a planner at Capcom in 2000, and in that role worked on the latter two Dino Crisis games as well as the GameCube remake of the classic Resident Evil. He broke out in 2005 when he took a design role on the instant classic Resident Evil 4; apparently noticing his talents, the legendary founders of Platinum Games offered him the opportunity to direct his own game. He took it; his game, MadWorld, is one of the most hotly anticipated Wii titles of 2009.




78. Tomonobu Itagaki
Former Director
Team Ninja

After releasing the strong selling 360 exclusive Ninja Gaiden II in the summer, Itagaki sent shockwaves through the typically placid Japanese game industry when he announced he was both leaving and suing Tecmo for unpaid bonuses. Undoubtedly the company’s most important creative and public figure, shareholders punished Tecmo’s stock price for letting him go; meanwhile his franchises, Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, currently sit with no announced future entries. The outspoken Itagaki is also uncharacteristically quiet, but the man has said he’ll be back in gaming soon. Whatever way you feel about the man, it’s hard to deny he speaks with conviction.




77. Yoshihisa Hashimoto
Game Director
Sonic Team

A longtime member of Sonic Team at the workhorse level—he was the programmer on the Sonic Adventure series’ lovable Chao diversion—Hashimoto was promoted to director as an effort to bring hungry new passion to Sonic Unleashed. Whether he was the right man for the job, and whether he was given the tools to be the right man for the job, is a subject of much debate among longtime fans. What isn’t debatable is that the project he led, Sonic Unleashed, capably sold to Sonic’s young audience and kept the franchise going as Sega’s valuable flagship in 2008.




76. Chris Ferriera
Lead Designer
EA Montreal

Ferriera’s time as a designer at Stormfront Studios saw him lend design work to EA’s critical Lord of the Rings movie licensed projects. It was during this era that Ferriera transitioned over to EA proper, and got his hands on another successful title—the licensed Godfather game. In 2008, however, Ferriera and his team proved they didn’t need a license to leave an impression with the co-op heavy Army of Two, on which Ferriera was the lead designer.




75. Ed Boon
Creative Director
Midway

The co-creator of the enduring Mortal Kombat franchise has proved once again that he and his team are Midway’s greatest asset. In an otherwise gloomy year for the publisher, Boon delivered the multi-million seller Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Whether the current bankruptcy woes of his parent company result in a stronger Midway or no Midway, there’s no question that Mortal Kombat will survive, with Boon hinting that the next game will be a more serious, gritty take on the typically silly series.




74. Hajime Tabata
Director
Square Enix

Hajime Tabata’s past is mysteriously undocumented, but as a major leader of Square Enix’s handheld and mobile efforts his future is bright. 2008’s Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII was one of the biggest critical and commercial PSP hits ever, with rumors abounding that it acted as a sort of dry run for the design direction of Final Fantasy XIII. Now Tabata’s name is showing up all over, attached to his company’s biggest IPs. He’s currently credited as the director of PSP titles Final Fantasy Agito XIII and Parasite Eve: The Third Birthday, and mobile game Kingdom Hearts: Coded.




73. Mike Samachisa
Head of Console Division
Hudson Soft

Hudson is quickly making a name for itself as one of the Wii’s most prominent journeyman publishing houses. Last year Mario Party 8 was one of the console’s best-selling titles, but in 2008 the company exploited a major market desire for more Wii Sports-like content with Deca Sports. Strong marketing allowed the game to outmaneuver a crowded market and become a top hit, a brilliant piece of business that Samachisa and his team should be proud of.




72. Shingo “Seabass” Takatsuka
Executive Producer
KCEJ

Pro Evolution Soccer has long been the bellwether of the sports games, and Takatsuka has long led the team responsible for this internationally beloved simulator. Takatsuka’s 2008 entry was considered by many reviewers to be a solid but conservative take on an aging premise, but that naturally didn’t stop longtime fans from turning it into an global bestseller. With anticipation high and the heat from EA’s FIFA series becoming overwhelming, there’s strong incentive for Takatsuka to deliver a knockout entry to PES this year.




71. Seiichiro Nagahata
Director
Chunsoft

Japan’s favorite brand of roguelike is Chunsoft’s Mystery Dungeon series, and Nagahata has been working on that series since the beginning--he’s credited as a planner on the 1993 franchise starter Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon. Since the he has worked on countless franchise entries, and in 2008 he had a hand in delivering two of them to the world: the DS port of Shiren the Wanderer, and the sequel to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. The former was largely ignored, but the latter was a million seller and the biggest Pokemon product of the year.