41 Video game businesspeople

Robert Alan Altman was an American lawyer and video game executive. He worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C. and was involved in a scandal surrounding the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. In 1999, he and Christopher Weaver founded ZeniMax Media as the parent holding company for Bethesda Softworks, a video game developer Weaver had founded earlier. Altman served as ZeniMax Media's chief executive officer and chairman until his death. He was also a member of the advisory board of the George Washington University Law School.

Deborah Jayne Bestwick is a British entrepreneur. Following a short career in video game retail, she was part of the December 1990 merger between British video game publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7 that led to the formation of Team17, where she acts as chief executive officer. Bestwick was awarded various accolades related to the video game industry between 2015 and 2017, and was pronounced a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in June 2016 for her services in that industry.

Michael Capps was the President of Epic Games, based in Cary, North Carolina from 2002 - 2012. He stepped down from the post in December 2012. In 2018, he co-founded a new artificial intelligence company called Diveplane Corporation.

Douglas Gene Carlston is the founder and current CEO of Tawala Systems based in San Rafael, California. He was previously CEO, chairman, and co-founder of Broderbund Software, a major software publishing firm that produced software such as Lode Runner, The Print Shop, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Prince of Persia, and Myst. Broderbund was acquired in 1998 by The Learning Company for $420 million, and the combined company was sold to Mattel for $3.6 billion.

Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game Blade Runner, and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party video games for the Nintendo Wii console based on Spielberg's design ideas.

Mark Evan Cerny is an American video game designer, programmer, producer and entertainment executive.

Michael Condrey is the co-founder and former studio head of Sledgehammer Games, which he founded with Glen Schofield after their collaboration on the popular video game franchise Dead Space. He is now the president of 31st Union, a 2K studio located in Silicon Valley, California.

Mel Croucher is a British entrepreneur and video games pioneer. Originally an architect, he moved into computers and in 1977 launched one of the very earliest games companies, Automata UK, as an extension of his travel guide publishing business. He is now credited for setting up "the first games company in the U.K.", celebrated as "the father of the British videogames industry" and presented as "a pioneer in affective computing". His first broadcasts of computer game software were made over AM and FM radio. After the release of the Sinclair ZX81, his label published several games for the early home computer market, including three Computer Trade Association award-winners: Pimania (1982), Groucho, and the groundbreaking "multi-media" title Deus Ex Machina (1984).

John De Margheriti is an Italian-born Australian electrical engineer, software developer and entrepreneur. De Margheriti is widely seen as a founding 'father' of Australia's video games industry and Australia's most experienced interactive entertainment business executive.

Jason Della Rocca is the former executive director of the Montreal chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA): Della Rocca supervised the daily operations, outreach initiatives, and membership programs of the organization from September 2000 to March 2009. After leaving the IGDA following his 9-year involvement with the company, Della Rocca founded Perimeter Partners, a consultancy that provides strategic level guidance and expertise to companies and organizations in, and around, the game industry globally. More recently, Della Rocca cofounded a hybrid incubator/accelerator for independent mobile game startups called Execution Labs. In the summer of 2013 he was appointed to the advisory board for the ICT practice of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, Canada's foreign and trade ministry.

Jesse Divnich is the current Vice President of Product at Hibernum Creations and former Vice President of Product Strategy & Insights at Tilting Point as well as the former Vice President of Insights and Analysis for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR).

Julian Eggebrecht is a German video game businessman. He is notable for having been one of the founding members and creative director of Factor 5, a German-American game development company.

Frank Brian Fargo is an American video game designer, producer, programmer and executive, and founder of Interplay Entertainment, inXile Entertainment and Robot Cache.

Reginald Fils-Aimé is an American businessman best known for being the president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, the North American division of the Japanese video game company Nintendo, from 2006 to 2019. Prior to his promotion to president and COO, Fils-Aimé was Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Dennis Fong, better known by his online alias Thresh, is an American businessman and retired professional player of the first-person shooter video games Quake and Doom. He is a co-founder of Xfire, an instant messenger and social networking site for gamers, which was acquired by Viacom for US$102 million in April 2006. He also co-founded Lithium Technologies, a social customer relationship management (CRM) company. In his playing career his highest profile victory came in 1997 at the Red Annihilation Quake tournament, where he placed first and won id Software CEO John D. Carmack's Ferrari 328. Fong is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the first professional gamer.

Ed Fries ( "freeze") is an American video game programmer and entrepreneur who was the vice president of game publishing at Microsoft during much of the Xbox's life-cycle.

Owen Kay Garriott was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 during the Skylab 3 mission, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Space Shuttle mission in 1983.

Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux is an American video game developer, entrepreneur and astronaut. Although both his parents were American, he maintains dual British and American citizenship by birth.

William "Bing" Gordon is a video game executive and technology venture capitalist. He served ten years as Chief Creative Officer of video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts (EA) prior to his current partnership with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). He was a founding director of Audible.com and has served on several high-profile Boards of Directors including Amazon, Ngmoco, and Zynga. He designed the video games Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's SimGolf and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.

Phil Harrison is a vice president and general manager for Google, and the former corporate vice president of Microsoft. Previously, Phil was the British corporate executive and a representative director of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. (SCEI) and Executive Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE). At E3 in 2005 he showcased the first public realtime demonstrations of PlayStation 3 development hardware. On 3 March 2008, Infogrames Entertainment SA announced Harrison was their new President and Directeur Général Délégué. On 29 May 2009, it was announced that Harrison had become the non-executive director of Atari, formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA.

William Murray "Trip" Hawkins III is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate.

Todd Hollenshead was President and CEO of id Software while the company put out some of the gaming world’s most iconic video game franchises: Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, and Rage. In addition to his software work, he is also known in the gaming community for his long hair and his role as "MC" at Quakecon, a LAN party and gaming convention in Dallas, Texas.

Andrew House is a Welsh businessman and the former chair of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). He previously served as President and Global CEO of SIE. House started working for Sony Computer Corporation in 1990, working in the Tokyo-based corporate communications department. Five years later in 1995, he transferred to SCEI's marketing and communications to contribute to the launch of the PlayStation gaming system. March 1996, he was promoted to Vice President of Marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), then promoted again in 2002 to Executive Vice President of SCEA. From 2005 to 2009, Andrew House was the chief marketing officer of the Sony Corporation. From 2009 until 2011, House was co-CEO and then CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), then became President and Group CEO of SCEI, replacing Kaz Hirai. In 2013, House led the conference which revealed the PlayStation 4. In 2017 House announced he would step down as head of Sony Interactive Entertainment at year end.

Robert A. Kotick is an American businessman who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard. He became CEO of Activision in 1991 after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games during the late 2000s, which led to the creation of Activision Blizzard in 2008 and him being named the company's inaugural CEO. He has also served on several boards, including The Coca-Cola Company since 2012 and the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE), which he co-founded in 2009. From 2003 to 2008, Kotick was a director at Yahoo!.

Shawn Layden is an American businessman and was the Chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios. Previously, he served as the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America (SIEA), executive vice president and COO of Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI).

Donald Allan Mattrick is a Canadian businessman best known for being the former CEO of social gaming company Zynga, as well as a member of its board of directors. Previously, Mattrick was the president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. In this role, he was responsible for a collection of consumer businesses including Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox One, Kinect, TV Music and Video services, Microsoft Mediaroom, PC and Mobile Interactive Entertainment as well as the manufacturing and supply chain for Microsoft. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2007, Mattrick served as the president of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts, where he worked for 15 years. At only 17, Mattrick founded Distinctive Software, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991 and subsequently became EA Vancouver.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi is a Japanese video game designer, producer, and businessman. Along with ex-Sega developers he is the one of the co-founders of the video game development firm Q Entertainment. He formerly worked for Sega as a producer in their Sega AM3 'arcade machines' team, developing games like Sega Rally Championship and Sega Touring Car Championship, before moving on to become the head of Sega's United Game Artists division, the team responsible for Rez and Space Channel 5. Mizuguchi is known for creating video games that incorporate an emphasis on interactive sound design, evidenced by Rez, Lumines, Child of Eden, and Tetris Effect.

Peter Moore is a British-American business executive. He is known for his former positions as Senior VP of Global Sports Marketing at Reebok, President of Sega of America, and Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division, overseeing the Xbox and Xbox 360 game consoles. From 2007 to 2011, he was head of Electronic Arts' EA Sports game division. In 2012, he was appointed COO of Electronic Arts. He resigned from Electronic Arts in February 2017 to become CEO of Liverpool Football Club. It was announced in July 2020 that Moore would be leaving Liverpool Football Club at the end of August that year, having completed his three-year tenure with the club.

Michael "Mike" Morhaime is an American video game developer and entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Dreamhaven, located in Irvine, California. Morhaime is best known as the co-founder and the former president of Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., that was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse. He served on the Vivendi Games executive committee since January 1999, when Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. became a subsidiary of Vivendi Games.

Jennifer Pahlka is the founder and former Executive Director of Code for America. She served as US Deputy Chief Technology Officer from June 2013 to June 2014 and helped found the United States Digital Service. Previously she had worked at CMP Media with various roles in the computer game industry. She was the co-chair and general manager of the Web 2.0 conferences.

Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.

Lawrence Francis Probst III is an American businessman who is best known for his work with the video game publisher Electronic Arts, including acting as CEO from 1991 until 2007 and as executive chairman from 2013–14. He remains chairman of EA and served as chairman of the United States Olympic Committee until 2019.

Jade Raymond is a Canadian video game creator, best known for helping create the Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs franchises, and for building the Ubisoft Toronto and EA Motive Studios. On 16 March 2021, Jade Raymond announced the founding of a new independent development team called Haven Entertainment.

Mark A. Rein is a Canadian entrepreneur and the vice president of video game and software development company Epic Games. He is also a co-owner of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes.

John Riccitiello is an American business executive who is chief executive officer (CEO) of Unity Technologies. Previously, he served as CEO, chief operating officer and president of Electronic Arts, and co-founded private equity firm Elevation Partners in 2004. Riccitiello has served on several company boards, including those of the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the Haas School of Business and the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Jason Rubin is an American video game director, writer, and comic book creator. He is best known for the Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter series of games which were produced by Naughty Dog, the game development studio he co-founded with partner and childhood friend Andy Gavin in 1986. He was the president of THQ before its closure due to bankruptcy on January 23, 2013.

Suzanne Seggerman is the co-founder of Games for Change and is a public speaker and adviser on new media and social impact. At the 2015 Annual Game Developers Conference she was given an award by the Higher Education Video Game Alliance along with Dr. Mary Flanagan, Professor of Film and Media at Dartmouth College and Dr. James Paul Gee, Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University.

Jia Shen is an American technology entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of RockYou, a company that developed games and widgets for social networks, such as Myspace and Facebook. At RockYou, Jia led the company to acquire over 400 million users and raise over $140 million in investment.

Phil Spencer is an American business executive, who is the current executive vice-president of Gaming at Microsoft. He is currently the head of the Xbox brand and leads the global creative and engineering teams responsible for gaming at Microsoft.

Jack Tretton is a member of the advisory boards for Genotaur, an artificial intelligence startup, and LifeApps Digital Media, a digital publisher of products and services focused on health, fitness, and sports topics. He is best known for being the former President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) from 2006 to 2014.

Feargus Urquhart is a Scottish-American video game designer and CEO of Obsidian Entertainment.