Steve Jobs has a new accolade to add to his list of achievements. The founder of Apple has been named the most influential man in gaming, and the iPhone the most influential device in video game history.
More than 1,000 video gaming execs were surveyed to compile the list for the London Games Conference, which takes place next week. Read on for the full list.
Here's the full line-up:
- Steve Jobs founder of Apple and mastermind of the iPhone
- Gabe Newell co-founder and boss of Valve, the people behind Half-Life, Portal and Steam
- Shigeru Miyamoto developer at Nintendo and the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda
- Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the World Wide Web
- Mark Zuckerberg founder and boss of Facebook
Now sure, it's an exercise in promotion for the conference so a bit of controversy is probably welcome, and those surveyed should be given credit for thinking out of the box -- or rather, out of the console -- but we're not convinced by some of the names on here.
Jobs, who died last month, gets the nod for precipitating the seismic shift to casual gaming with the iPhone, which was also voted the most influential device in gaming history -- beating the Nintendo Wii, Xbox Live, the original PlayStation and Steam.
We'd argue we've had pocket-friendly, go-anywhere gaming for years -- where's the GameBoy on this list? -- but then the iPhone, and, just as important, the iTunes App Store, is filled with a different type of game. Instead of full-sized, expensive games, iPhone gamers play cheap, casual games that require little investment yet are utterly addictive. You could say it's the difference between a pop single and an album.
Facebook supremoid Mark Zuckerberg also appears as a casual gaming architect. To be fair, he's the guy who got our mums gaming. Sadly, that game is Farmville. Cheers for that, Zuckster.
We showed the list to our button-bashing buddy Mark Walton from GameSpot UK, who put down his Wiimote long enough to exclaim "Steve Jobs the 'most influential person' in gaming?! Not likely. Sure, the Apple II ushered in a golden age of gaming with titles like Zork and Ultima, and the iPhone continues to change the way we play, purchase, and value games today. But still, where the heck is John Carmack? Doom, anyone?"
Where, indeed, is Metal Gear guy Hideo Kojima, master strategiser Sid Meier, or Will Wright, the man who had us casual gaming with The Sims when the iPhone was still a twinkle in Jobs' eye? If we're thinking outside of the gaming world, what about Brian DePalma, after Scarface influenced so many shooty-crime games? For that matter, what about the GamesMaster himself, Patrick Moore?
We're sure you have plenty of suggestions of your own -- Tell us your thoughts of the list in the comments or on our Facebook page.
For all your gaming news, previews and videos needs check out GameSpot, including the casual gaming show Appetite for Distraction.
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Comments 31
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anonymous 4 November, 2011 17:27
most retarded thing I've ever read. Absolutely, retarded...retarded to the highest level of retard.
Peter Hudson 4 November, 2011 17:30
None of these are the most influential people in gaming history. The most influential in the 10 years of gaming maybe. But if this was really about gaming history, none of these people would appear on the list.
anonymous 4 November, 2011 17:33
Utter horse '%&^
anonymous 4 November, 2011 17:40
If Sir Dennis Ritchie starts taking paternity leave, It would take a a life.
anonymous 4 November, 2011 18:23
WTF? Mark Zuckerberg no.5 on this list? Who came up with this list, a bunch of fat kids sitting on their arses updating their profile on Face**** because they have no real life friends?
anonymous 4 November, 2011 18:25
WTF? Mark Zuckerberg no.5 on this list? Who came up with this list, a bunch of fat kids sitting on their arses updating their profile on Facecrap because they have no real life friends?
Ryan J Pattinson 4 November, 2011 19:21
bahaahhahahahahahahah what load of horse plop his got nothing to do with gaming lmao come on least name some point as apple ever made a game ? nope ever made a gaming device purely for gaming? no so yeah this is rubbish im thinking dice are one of the best look at bf3 graphics are out of this world
anonymous 4 November, 2011 19:53
What a monumental pile of complete ****. How can it not be Miyamoto? What next? Jobs being voted the most influential man in the history of cheese?
Mugen13 4 November, 2011 20:18
This is pure ridicule. The games in the app store with vere (very) few exceptions are **** . Yes they make money because they cost nothing to buy but on their own merit they are worthless. I would reckon Mario should always be the turning point of video games, and i am a ps3 owner
Mark Anderson 4 November, 2011 21:13
This is a joke, right?
i take it the majority of those 'executives' are actually one horse iPhone app developers then and the ones who think Zuckerberg is the man make those utterly rubbish flash games on Facebook?
Utter nonsense and utterly laughable.
anonymous 4 November, 2011 22:43
This is such a rubbish list, im fairly sure it insults my religion. And im not even religious.
anonymous 5 November, 2011 02:38
And where is John Carmack? Hmmm
anonymous 5 November, 2011 08:58
Sir Clive Sinclair invented the machine that the British games industry learnt their trade on.
anonymous 5 November, 2011 10:56
The most biased piece of **** I've ever seen. What did Steve do?
Ultraman1966 5 November, 2011 12:23
This shows how out of touch these execs have become. I have never played a game that Steve Jobs has had a direct or even indirect hand in. Why take a poll from idiots detached from reality? What does it shows except that they're disillusioned nimcumpoops?
anonymous 5 November, 2011 12:24
This is the worst goddamn thing I've ever read in my entire life
anonymous 5 November, 2011 14:29
what the F#### !
Retarded does not even begin to describe the quality of the article.
Since CBS (American) has taken over CNET the quality of writing has gone through the floor
I am a long time visitor to the various CNET sites.
Please get people to write about things they know about !
anonymous 5 November, 2011 15:03
must be trollin
anonymous 5 November, 2011 18:07
dont know about you but i thought GAMING was more than playing some mini games on a phone
anonymous 6 November, 2011 16:04
CNET UK have now resorted to trolling - posting such an outrageously out of touch article surely just to provoke! Why would any self-respecting tech site report such ludicrous findings? My deceased cat, Cheeky, was more influential in the gaming industry than Steve Jobs.
Next week: how Jobsy revolutionised the world of domestic cleaning with his invention of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
aok617 6 November, 2011 17:04
All of you r-tards should read the actual article before you scream "biased!" - they clearly dismissed the rankings as a pile of horse*****. As they described the survey is clearly designed to be controversial causing the outcry exhibited here. The underlying question is: are we drifting from mobile gaming that was well thought out and conceptually designed (Zelda: Link's Awakening anyone?) to "pick up and throw away" type games you find on the iPhone which don't have as much depth.<br />
<br />
And also Farmville is not a game, it's an ingenious way of keeping lame *** people inside the house.
jk80 6 November, 2011 20:12
What a load of old tosh, by some reckonings Jobs and the iPhone are destroying gaming, certainly in its traditional sense. I guess you could call that "influencing" it!
Rich Trenholm 7 November, 2011 09:16
We all owe Cheeky so much
anonymous 7 November, 2011 09:26
Do they do this survey in an apple store?
anonymous 7 November, 2011 10:01
absolute joke!
anonymous 7 November, 2011 10:33
What a load of ****. The guys at Nintendo (Miyamoto, Yokoi), Sir Clive, Bill Gates, Sid Meier, the guys behind Elite (David Braben and Ian Bell) etc. etc. etc. should all be ahead of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg. Respect to these guys in their respective fields but these fields aren't gaming.
anonymous 8 November, 2011 06:59
This is utter garbage. If anyone deserves to be the most influential person in gaming, it should be either the person who INVENTED the computer, or at least the man that created Flash Player.
anonymous 10 November, 2011 18:04
I respect everything Steve Jobs has done for the computing industry as much as the next guy, but seriously, most influential person in gaming?! Not a chance. The iPhone isn't a genuine gaming platform. Casual games do not count as full games at all! Carmack should have taken it, I can't believe he isn't even on the list, man.
anonymous 10 November, 2011 18:06
Anonymous, 2 up from me, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak DID invent the computer as you know it today.
anonymous 11 November, 2011 03:29
This is a load of ****. As others have said, the people on the list should be the likes of Miyamoto or Sinclair, although I think the top spot should be given to Allan Alcorn who made PONG.<br />
<br />
@anonymous 10 November, 2011 18:06<br />
Apple copied like they always do. The "computer as you know it" was invented by IBM (hence computers being known as IBM clones). If we assume you're actually referring to the GUI-based system (which is what I thing you mean) then the credit goes to Xerox PARC for making the first GUI operating system which the others are based on.
anonymous 11 November, 2011 15:26
As they say in the article, where the heck is Carmack? Not only did he pretty much invent the modern FPS, but also brought the idea of shareware in games to the forefront. I would not be a PC gamer now if it wasn't for his creativity.