WSJ's list of games biz movers and shakers

By Vladimir Cole

According to Wall Street Journal writer Nick Wingfield, these are "some of the people ... who are reshaping the videogame busines." In no particular order:

  • Sam Houser (34): President, Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive Software. He's the "Quentin Tarantino of videogame designers." Come on. He's not nearly as annoying.
  • Jason Jones (34): Lead designer, Bungie Studios, Microsoft. Halo 3. 'nuff said.
  • Shigeru Miyamoto (53): Sr. managing director and general manager, entertainment analysis &
    development division, Nintendo.
  • Will Wright (46): Chief creative officer, Maxis Electronic Arts.
    According to the WSJ, Will's about to ski-jump a shark–he's exploring a reality-TV project.
  • Satoru Iwada (46): President, Nintendo. He's "shunning the battle between Microsoft and Sony for domination of the living room.
  • Ken Kutaragi (55): President, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony.
  • Tony Hawk (37): Professional skateboarder and game celebrity. Didja know that the series of games bearing his name have sold more than $1 billion?
  • David Stern (63): Commissioner, NBA. He controls the NBA licensing. Clearly,
    though, he's got no power to keep games based on the NBA license from sucking. That's too bad.

  • Gene Upshaw (60): Executive director, NFL Players Association. Same deal as Stern, different sport.
  • Mitch Davis (43): CEO, Massive. Massive puts ads in games, gingerly.
  • Brian Farrell (52): CEO,
    THQ. He's listed and the CEOs of Activision and EA are not because his stock is up way more than either of his rivals'.
  • Frank Gibeau (37): Executive VP, general manager, North American publishing, EA.
  • Peter Moore
    (50): Corporate VP interactive entertainment business, entertainment and devices division, Microsoft.
  • Jason Hall (34): Sr. VP, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Time Warner. He's heading up a game based on
    Dirty Harry. Could be sweet.
  • Peter Jackson (44): Film director, producer.
  • Steve Schnurr (44): World-wide executive of music and music marketing, EA.
  • Larry Shapiro (41):
    Co-head, videogame department, Creative Artists Agency. Hollywood agent that perpetrates hate crimes against games in the form of games-turned-movies. Doom and whatnot.
  • Edward Castronova (43): Associate professor and director of graduate studies, telecommunications department, Indiana University (Bloomington). He writes about games from an academic perspective. Pretty cool gig, if you can get it.
  • Rob Pardo (35): VP of game design, Blizzard Entertainment, Vivendi Universal.
  • Jill Hamburger (47): VP of gaming domain, Best Buy.
    Now gamers have an effigy to burn for warmth when we're shivering outside Best Buy on a cold fall night awaiting the launch of the next big gaming console.
  • Tim Harrison (35): Head of games, Vodafone Group
  • John Riccitello (46): Managing director and co-founder, Elevation Partners. He's behind the purchase of Pandemic and Bioware.
  • Doug Lowenstein (54): President, ESA. This man is fending off attacks from rabid,
    misguided politicians who are looking for a galvanizing election issue. He's got his work cut out for him.
  • Hirokazu Hamamura (45): Editor in chief, Famitsu Editorial Board; President, Enterbrain. It's hard to understate the importance of this magazine in that market.
  • Metacritic, CNET.

If you want to read the full article, you'll need to get a copy of the paper or buy an online subscription to the WSJ. TANSTAAFL and all that.

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