Welcome to the People wing of the 2024 Shacknews Hall of Fame class. This category honors the individuals and teams who created games that touched our lives and changed the industry.
When you're finished, use the Table of Contents links below to visit other areas of the Shacknews Hall of Fame Class of 2024.
Tony Hawk from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Once in a great while a video game character becomes such an icon that we induct them into the Shacknews Hall of Fame. Tony Hawk from the original THPS joins Bo Jackson in Canton this year with this special induction. Landing Tony’s signature 900 in a video game for the first time was a magical moment for players of all ages. The attention to detail that Tony brought to the game shined through in the magnificent gameplay loop that showcased street skating but also amazing vert tricks. Tony Hawk will forever be synonymous with the sport of skateboarding as will his legendary video game persona.
Yuji Hori
Simply saying “he created Dragon Quest” would be enough to solidify Yuji Hori as a Hall of Famer, but leaving it at that wouldn’t do the legend justice. With Dragon Quest, Hori redefined the RPG genre, introducing ideas and concepts that remain staples to this day. He’s been with the franchise since the beginning and has helped deliver some of the most memorable gaming experiences with entries across nearly 40 years worth of consoles.
The influence of Dragon Quest can be seen in some of the medium’s most beloved franchises, including Pokemon, Chrono Trigger, Yakuza, and Final Fantasy. In a way, Dragon Quest is sort of the grandfather of Japanese RPGs the way we know them. Even if a game doesn’t appear to take direct inspiration from Dragon Quest, it’s probably inspired by a game that did.
In 2022, the Game Developers Conference honored Yuji Hori with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Of course, he didn’t do it all alone, frequently collaborating with late legends Koichi Sugiyama and Akira Toriyama. His next effort is the long-anticipated Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate.
Akira Toriyama
There’s arguably no greater sign of the impact a person had on a culture than the way they’re celebrated after passing away. When Akira Toriyama died this past March, it felt like the entire world came together to cherish the life of a man who touched millions.
As the creator of Dragon Ball, Toriyama is responsible for fond childhood memories of children and teens sitting in front of the TV, watching in awe as Goku’s epic saga played out in dramatic fashion. Who among us hasn’t fantasized about going Super Saiyan at least once? Goku remains one of the most recognizable characters in all of fiction.
Toriyama brought his signature style to Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest, where he served as a character designer. He remained the latter’s character designer for the rest of his life. May we all aspire to leave behind a fraction of the impact that Toriyama-san did.
Davide Soliani
The now-defunct E3 showcases gave us plenty of memorable moments over the years, but few tugged at our heartstrings like Davide Soliani’s in-crowd reaction during the reveal of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle at the Ubisoft Showcase in 2017. After Shigeru Miyamoto took the stage and complimented Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Creative Director Davide Soliani was visibly emotional. It was a heartwarming glimpse into the love and admiration that goes into game development.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle went on to be a pleasant surprise in 2017, garnering positive reviews after its August review. Davide Soliani went on to direct the 2022 sequel, Mario + Rabbids : Sparks of Hope.
Laralyn McWilliams
Laralyn McWilliams is largely remembered as the creative director of Free Realms, Sony's foray into family-friendly online gaming. For audiences too young for games like Blizzard's World of Warcraft, McWilliams helped introduce a generation to the concept of MMO gaming and helping it gain immense popularity.
Before landing at Sony, McWilliams' career took her through Disney and Dreamworks, helping put together some of their movie tie-in games. She also worked as the lead designer for Full Spectrum Warrior, one of the most memorable titles to come out of Pandemic Studios.
McWilliams is considered a champion for gaming as a whole and an inspiration to women looking to jump into the industry. She tragically passed away earlier this year at the age of 58 from cancer. We remember her incredible career through this Hall of Fame induction.
Yoko Shimomura
Among the titans of video game music, Japanese composer Yoko Shimomura stands among the tallest. After graduatingi from Osaka College of Music in 1988, she began racking up an astonishing career as composer for some of the most recognizable gaming soundtracks in history.
Starting with Capcom, Shimomura worked on the soundtracks for some of the publisher's best titles of the early 90s, including Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and Gargoyle's Quest. In 1994, she began work with Square Enix and is recognized for some of the publisher's all-time greatest compositions. Her credits include Live A Live, the Mana series, and the Kingdom Hearts series.
Shimomura would also frequently collaborate with Nintendo, starting with the Nintendo/Square Enix joint effort Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. She would continue working with Nintendo on the Mario & Luigi series and Xenoblade Chronicles. She would return to Super Mario RPG in 2023, creating a fully remade soundtrack of her own classic work. She continues her work with Square Enix today, as fans wait in anticipation for the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4.
Warren Spector
Perhaps most well-known as one of the pioneers of the immersive sim genre, Warren Spector is a game designer of many talents. He has decades of experience as a designer, writer, producer, production manager, and director, and is also a novelist.
Spector got his start as an editor of Space Gamer before becoming editor-in-chief of Steve Jackson Games, a company known for tabletop RPGs. Within a short time, he was producing RPGs and overseeing everything from the development of games, art and graphics, even typesetting for written materials. In 1989, he joined Richard “Lord British” Garriott’s company Origin where he produced a co-produced titles ranging from Ultima Underworld 1 and II, Ultima VII, and the original System Shock, which, along with its sequel, is one of the most beloved immersive sims in the industry.
Later, Spector accepted an offer from fellow gaming pioneer John Romero to make a game without any creative restrictions and a huge marketing budget. He took him up on the offer. That game became Deux Ex, a critically acclaimed immersive sim that gave players ways to play the game however they chose.
Spector oversaw development of Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows before leaving Ion Storm to pursue other interests. In 2005, he founded a new game development house, Junction Point Studios, and worked with Disney—which acquired Junction Point—on Epic Mickey, a Wii exclusive released in 2010.
Besides, designing games, Spector has been a continued source of guidance and information concerning them. He worked with the University of Texas at Austin to create a game development program, overseeing the creation of a curriculum, courses, and lab work.
Today, Spector is still in the gaming industry working on System Shock 3 and Underworld Ascendant, a spiritual sequel to Ultima Underworld.
Niklaus Wirth
One of the computer science field’s most prolific inventors, Niklaus Wirth passed away this year at the age of 89. His contributions to technology, and in an indirect way, to our hobby, make him more than worthy of inclusion in the Shacknews Hall of Fame.
Wirth was the creator of multiple programming languages, with Pascal perhaps being the most well-known among them. He was a computer science professor at Stanford University, where he created three languages, and later at University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. From 1976-77 and 1984-85, Wirth took two one-year sabbaticals at Xerox PARC, the California-based R&D company whose scientists made great strides in the field of computing—ethernet connectivity, laser printing, the modern PC, and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) among them.
Niklaus Wirth was so prolific in computer science that he had a law of computing named after him: Wirth’s Law states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is getting faster.
Katsuhiro Harada
Since the very beginning of Tekken’s launch, there has been one developer that has almost always been the front-facing voice of the franchise. Born in 1970, Katsuhiro Harada joined Bandai Namco as a promoter around 1994. He did so well that he earned a commendation from the president of the company at the time, and it was at that point that he asked to be transferred to game design, which landed him a position on the first Tekken.
Harada has worked on every single Tekken since the first game, starting as a developer, voicing the character Marshall Law and others for a few entries, and becoming a director by Tekken 3. Harada has been a lead on the series ever since, and a notably public figure at that. He has been a comedic and sometimes blunt force, as well. His arrival at E3 in a shirt that read “Don’t Ask Me For Sh**” become an attitude synonymous with him that many in the fighting game community laugh about and celebrate to this day (despite failing to follow the instructions here and there).
As a lead at Bandai Namco, Harada has also lent his talents to numerous projects outside of Tekken. He has been an advisor, marketing manager, and product manager on a number of non-Tekken releases including the God Eater games, Tales games, Ace Combat games, Code Vei, and more. However, many will recognize him eternally for his contributions to the fighting game landscape. Few game franchises have had as long a run as Tekken, and while many hands have contributed to its overall legacy, it’s hard to know how much of that legacy happens without Katsuhiro Harada.
