Hey, there's been quite a few people, but who do you believe has had the biggest impact in the quality of gaming and the evolution of gaming to where it stands now.

For me, there is one man who stands up there. The creator of Zelda and Super Mario. Shigeru Miyamoto. Mario made Nintendo the big company it is now, and spearheaded the assault of the NES and the SNES. Super Mario Brothers 3, and Super Mario World, were two classic games that firmly established the platforming genre. And of course, there's Zelda 1 and 2 on the NES, and A Link To The Past on the SNES. The guy was rightly described as a genius for these games.

Anyone think differently?

Ok,
Peter Molyneux, ex-Bullfrog, now Lionhead.
He's just... the spearhead of the English Gaming industry, he does so much, breathing so much passion into his own games (Magic Carpet, Theme Park, Theme Hospiral, Black and White).
And he's also trying to set up having the Government give grants to smaller Game Development units seeing as Gaming today is such an important art form.
And the English Movie Industry gets government grants, so, why should the English Gaming Industry?
Smart Bloke.

Right, now to reply to the other dozen new threads. o_0

I have no idea who does games, but I guess Will Wright is cool.

SC, your pick was totally awesome. Theme Hospital is one of the best games ever. Very underrated.

And BZ's guy needs to be slapped for creating the disrespectful trash that is Zelda 2. One of the worst games ever.

So he creates one not so good game and he lost all respect :o haha xD

I agree with both Solocommand and Bz; Miyamoto and Molyneux. They both have thought up some brilliant games/series and just thought up some new and original ideas :D

Miyamoto and Uematsu, 2 of my favorites. Uematsu because he is responsible for the music of the FF games, which is brilliant in my opinion. And ofcourse Miyamoto for Nintendo, the father of Mario and Zelda. I don't think that needs more explanation :).

Shiggy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all

I've always had a great respect for Sid Meier - the Civilization games are perfectly balanced gameplay.

But I'd have to say the most influential person of recent times is Gabe Newell, creator of Half-Life - he turned a stagnant genre into a new era of gaming.

I believe thats how you spell his name. He was the brains behind the metal gear solid games for PS and PS2. Those games were amzing and it's influence is spreading across the genres. mostly, his belief that in a game, it is only real if you can interact with absolutly everything(i.e-Metal gear solid 2-sons of liberty - you shoot a small bottle of ketchup on the ship, it explodes, shoot a pan, and see it move and make a "DING!" :D)

I would along with most story creators for the final fantasy games, who also make a huge contribution.

laterz
lone wolf

Umm yeah the peson who invented Nintendo is definitely the most influential man in gaming history withut a doubt. Nintendo made video games popular. Or we can go back to those old arcade games but thats not video games.