Video Game Legends We Lost In 2018

When it comes to video game icons, Atari occupies a special place in the annals of history. Atari was created in 1972 and became a self-proclaimed "pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers." The company — known for such classics as Pong, Asteroids, and Missile Command — was founded by electrical engineers Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Samuel Frederick "Ted" Dabney Jr. was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in late 2017, and passed away on May 26, 2018.

Ted Dabney of San Francisco, California started off as a trade draftsman who served in the United States Marine Corps, where he began taking courses on electronics. After short stints working in technology at Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, and Ampex, Dabney partnered with Nolan Bushnell to start a company called Syzygy, where he developed the first ever arcade video game, Computer Space. Syzygy went on to become Atari, Inc. before releasing the massively successful Pong, and the rest is (as they say) history.

Nolan Bushnell took to Twitter to eulogize his longtime friend and collaborator: "Ted was my partner, co-founder, fellow dreamer and friend. I'll always cherish the time we spent together. RIP." Atari, Inc. authors Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel paid their own tributes on Facebook: "We're at a loss ... Thought he still had a bit more time. You always wish someone like him did."

Shoji Mizuno was a veteran member of the Hudson Soft creative team and will always be known as the developer and character designer of Bomberman, the eponymous hero of Hudson Soft's commercially successful action-puzzle game. According to a blog post from former Hudson Soft executive Takahashi Meijin, Mizuno artist passed away in June of 2018 from unknown reasons at the age of 58.

Mizuno is also well known for his extensive work as original character designer on the Beyblade animated series. But his comprehensive time on Bomberman — from his days as character designer on the original, to his role as movie director on Bomberman World in 1998 — is the real legacy he leaves behind. Bomberman was first published in 1983, and since then he's appeared in almost a hundred different games across 39 platforms. Bomberman's simple design is familiar to audiences now, but Mizuno described his innovations to interviewers in the New Bomberman Complete Encyclopedia: "Before I joined, his design had more human-like proportions. I changed it to something a little more flexible."

If you take a moment to consider your favorite LucasArts games of the 1980s and '90s, there's a good chance that Martin "Bucky" Cameron played a pivotal role in the visual aesthetics on display. A California native, Cameron was instrumental in many LucasArts titles including The Secret of Monkey Island, Star Wars: X-Wing, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and many more. He worked on cutscene cinematics from Star Wars: TIE Fighter – Defender of the Empire and Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, and even provided cover art for four Star Wars classics in the X-Wing series of games. In addition to his video game industry work, Cameron was known for illustrating stories for Analog magazine, the Major Arcanium Gazette (his steampunk collaboration with Robert E. Vardeman), and various other projects including animation and motion graphics for indie documentaries.

Cameron passed away "peacefully" from congestive heart failure on March 26, 2018 at the age of 61. Monkey Island assistant designer and co-founder of Double Fine Productions Tim Schafer offered his condolences on Twitter: "Sad to hear of the passing of our friend Martin "Bucky" Cameron. One of the Monkey Island originals, the artist and animator behind the Voodoo Lady, Meathook, and many others. A great talent and a kind fellow. We'll miss you, Bucky!"

Of the several video game industry deaths in 2018, the passing of Mike Sherlock has come as one of the most surprising to those of us left behind. Before joining Square Enix in 2005, Sherlock served as president of international publishing for Acclaim Entertainment and executive vice president of sales & marketing for Sega Europe. After his stint as senior vice president of marketing at Square Enix Europe, he was named COO before taking on the added responsibilities of Square Enix America COO in July of 2015. Sherlock's death came unexpectedly in early September, and the cause of death is currently unknown.

Square Enix America and Europe CEO Phil Rogers lamented over the loss in an official press release from the company: "Mike was a principled and charismatic leader who led by example. He was extremely proud of the progress and success we have shared over the years. The entire Square Enix family mourns this tragic loss, and our deepest sympathies are with his family and loved ones."

Although his list of credits is relatively short, the legacy of Japanese developer Hidenori Shibao runs long. Known as the writer and director of Paladin's Quest (the turn-based RPG released for SNES in 1983) and its sequel, Shibao is also recognized as the developer of the original concept behind the PlayStation RPG Legend of Legaia. After a storied career as a writer of manga and games, Shibao passed away in the spring of 2018 near the age of 56.

Game historian John Szczepaniak paid tribute to Shibao in a special piece for NintendoLife, and revealed Shibao's nascent views of the aesthetics behind video game narrative. In Shibao's own words: "When people ask what video games are like, particularly role-playing games, I always think the World's Fair is the closest comparison. We never encountered foreigners in our normal life, but at the World's Fair, there they were! And there are all these little pavilions you can visit, and each one is like another country, offering a completely different experience ... Meanwhile in role-playing games you travel the world, visiting a variety of towns, and dungeons, and having adventures. And I think those are very similar experiences. At the expo, you're asking, 'What can I get to eat in here?', and in games you're asking, 'What sort of magic can I get in here?'"

Micael Priest has been hailed as the "the godfather of poster art," but you might recognize him as one of the most prolific illustrators of Britannia, the setting of Richard Garriott's Ultima series of RPGs. The esteemed creator provided art for over ten releases from Origin Systems during the 1990s, and — after passing away at the age of 66 from multiple health issues — has left a lasting impression on the artists he's left behind.

As a youngster, the California native was awarded a scholarship to the Disney art school — an opportunity he had to dismiss when his family relocated to Texas. Years later, however, Armadillo World Headquarters owner Eddie Wilson commissioned Priest to start creating posters for the Austin venue, and the rest is history. Priest would go on to posterize such prolific acts as Frank Zappa, the Ramones, Willie Nelson, and the Pointer Sisters to name a few. Cartoonist Kerry Awn described Priest as "a walking, talking, real-life cowboy hippie cartoon character artist," elaborating that "ink ran through his veins." Priest's award-winning style has been described as "bold and distinctive."

From Ultima VII: The Black Gate to Ultima Online: Renaissance, Priest became one of the go-to portrait artists for Garriott's massive fantasy landscape, despite being colorblind. Regarding his trademark style, the artist told the Austin Chronicle in 2006: "I have always been enamored of Disneyesque, which was actually a brush style where you used the varying thickness of line to imply weight, depth, or shadow."

It's safe to say that the majority of video game fans identify Nintendo by their lovable, mustachioed mascot, Mario; but you might be surprised to learn that the Mushroom Kingdom's mightiest hero actually got his name from a reserved real estate developer rather than a plucky plumber. The story goes that when the Japanese publisher was prepping Donkey Kong for launch in the United States during the early 1980s, "NOA President Minoru Arakawa noticed physical similarities between Donkey Kong's short, dark-haired protagonist [Jumpman] and the landlord [of Nintendo's US headquarters]." That landlord was a man named Mario Segale, a well-to-do real estate developer from Tukwila, Washington, born to first generation Italian immigrant farmers. "So the crew at NOA nicknamed the character Mario, and it stuck."

Segale, the real-life namesake of Nintendo's iconic character, passed away Oct. 27 of unknown causes. Gaming historian Benji Edwards helped spread the news to the community at large on Twitter following an obit from the Auburn Reporter. Sagale's official obituary from the Seattle Times describes his reluctance to promote the historic association: "While he was the inspiration for the name of Nintendo's 'Super Mario' from when they were tenants in his business park in the 1970s, he always ducked the notoriety and wanted to be known instead for what he accomplished in his life. Indeed, for generations of his family to come, and for the people who had a chance to know him well, his impact will remain ever present."

Although he wasn't directly involved with the development or publishing of video games, Stan "The Man" Lee — co-creator of such monumentally influential Marvel Comics superheroes as Spider-Man and the X-Men — has had an enormous impact on the industry. Whether you consider the countless adaptations of his endearing comic book characters, or his amusing and often heartwarming cameos, Stan Lee was unobtrusively a huge part of the games we know and love. Following an inspired career full of incredible collaborations and a staggering body of work, Lee passed away in November at the age of 95.

The first video game featuring one of Stan Lee's immortal creations was Spider-Man from Parker Brothers in 1982 for the Atari 2600. Discussing the adaptation, the game's lone programmer, Laura Nikolich, told Polygon: "We all worked hard. We were solving problems that hadn't been solved before. It was fun." And even though his creations take center stage, Lee has his own history of signature cameos in video games, beginning in 2000 with his narration for the Character Viewer in Neversoft's Spider-Man. It's only fitting that his final cameo would hail from another release about New York's favorite friendly wall-crawler. A certain diner scene in Marvel's Spider-Man from Insomniac Games on PS4 displays the tender, nostalgic side of Stan Lee that has inspired so many dreamers for so many generations, and offers a bittersweet goodbye to The Man himself. 'Nuff said.