5. Marc Whitten

Microsoft

New Xbox Experience was one of the design highlights of the year.

Despite advances by platform-rivals, Xbox Live remains the most advanced console online service available. The arrival of NXE in 2008 fortified that position. Undoubtedly, Microsoft borrowed many of the elements that make up NXE, but the genius of this update was that it borrowed the best stuff, and enhanced what was already working on XBL. Microsoft’s deal with Netflix was one of the best partnerships of the year, moving consoles once again further into the heart of family entertainment. As manager of Xbox Live, Whitten deserves his share of the credit.

4. Shigeru Miyamoto

Nintendo

Ground-breaking products like Wii Fit don’t just emerge – they are created.

Miyamoto’s almost saint-like reputation has been brushed with reality these past few years, as it’s become clear that he doesn’t sit and create these games all by himself and that, every now and again, he’s capable of producing a duffer. But he has never laid claim to omnipotence or infallibility and, if anything, the absurd hero-worship always needed a dose of reality. None of this detracts from his status as a man who consistently delivers great ideas, and in 2008, his best was Wii Fit, one of the most important products ever to have been created by the game industry.  It’s entirely the end-result of a mind searching for ways in which interactive entertainment can deliver fun experiences by emulating and simulating the things all people, everywhere, love to do. With fitness and exercise he got it right.

3. Mark Healey

Media Molecule

Creation of a genre-defying game that lit up PlayStation 3.

The industry has been waiting for truly classic PlayStation 3 exclusive, and Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet delivered. It became one of only two 10/10 games in Edge in 2008 and, for many, signaled a real reason to buy PS3.  When Phil Harrison premiered the game at GDC 2007, he made the point that Sackboy would signal a new, more creative way of playing games, allowing users to create content as a form of play. This idea still has a long way to go, but LBP has done more than any other game to nurture the vision.  The LBP story is all the more romantic because Healey and his team represent a story that allows us to believe that the games industry really does know a good idea when it sees one. Healey was a Lionhead artist who knocked out indie games like Rag Doll Kung Fu, before he set up Media Molecule in a dingy office, and started pitching the game around the business. Phil Harrison deserves credit too for recognizing the game’s potential.

2. Dan and Sam Houser

Rockstar Games

Creating a stunning story and a media sensation.

That Grand Theft Auto IV was a sales phenomenon - sales of over 10 million units - is reason enough to include the Houser brothers, creative force behind the modern GTA series. But there’s something above and beyond the dollars and cents that’s well worth noting – GTA IV was a bold, innovative and fun game that seriously attempted to tell an American story via the games media. Through Niko Bellic, the  modern urban underclass immigrant experience was retold for the umpteenth time, with an original spin.  Although the Housers have sometimes behaved dismissively towards critics of their games (Sam Houser called them “reactionary creeps”) they are clearly at their best when allowing their skills as producers and writers to make the convincing case that violence in games is as valid as violence in any other entertainment medium.