Steve Jobs, most important man in gaming history

And the iPhone voted the most influential platform ever in the London Games Conference.

According to Eurogamer (via MyNintendoNews), the majority of the 1,000 people surveyed (26%) believe that Steve Jobs is the leading man who shaped video games. Meanwhile, Gabe Newell, the co-founder of Valve – one of the most influential companies in the industry – received only 16% of the votes. Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario – the most recognizable game character in the world – received only 7% of the votes. Oddly, Mark Zuckerberg, a guy who hasn’t done a darn thing for gaming (not directly, at least), received 3% of the votes.

Source.

I could really understand this coming from "casuals", but these guys are supposed to be avid fanatics of video games, some of them even professionals who earn their bread with gaming. This is absolutely ridiculous.

PS: Sorry if old, didn't find anything in General Discussion.

Ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

What. The. Fuck.

Poor gabe

Steve Jobs for President.

@Jimbo said:

Steve Jobs for President.

Too soon... or too late?

Alright, well that's obviously wrong, so what else is up?

Who the heck was their survey audience?

It's understandable. Steve Jobs was way more of a public figure than Gabe or Miyamoto would ever be in their entire lives. That's pretty much all this survey proves.

They do realize that there's no reason to kiss his ass now, right? He's kinda dead

LOL THEY SO FUNNY

British videgame development has gone down the shitter since the late 80's - early 90's, the idiots who voted for Steve Jobs are partly why this has happened.

Yeah well celebrity ass licking... What would the western world do without it?

@DonPixel said:

Yeah well celebrity ass licking... What would the western world do without it?

Oh, oh me me! me! I know! .. become an even better part of the world

You must be clinically retarded to actually believe that.

Dude is dead there was a lot of fuss about hime being brilliant in media so people believe in stuff like that. If Michael Jackson was an option he would easily won.

@Hailinel said:

Who the heck was their survey audience?

The LGC attendees, both fans and professionals. Which makes this survey even sadder.

Well the Apple II had Lode Runner I guess?

That shit cray.

I can understand people thinking its ridiculous now but in 10-15 years i can see people looking back at iOS and the app store as a real game changer. As it stands today though...Crazy

Sure. I mean he is no Jeff Minter but sure.

No

To anyone who works with this stuff, I'm sorry, but surveys, studies and polls are completely useless and a waste of everyones time in 99,99% of the cases. Truckloads of bias and incompetence from every direction. And even if it's slightly good... what the hell is the purpose of this?

Oh thanks, some random people think Steve Jobs is the most important man in gaming! How big is the control group? A thousand people! Yeah well I ate cheese yesterday... just wanted to share some similarly important info.

People are dumb. Not surprised.

Didn't he make the 1st Pong AI or something?

ok...

My mum is addicted to Words With Friends on her iPhone. Dude must've done something right.

there was a thread on this already, when the article was released. 
 
yeah, it is a little ragging to read that. mark zelkleburg has nothing to do with gaming. he only made facebook and other companies put their crappy games on the website. steve jobs didn't do anything really either. he made the apple 2 and iphone but again companies put their games on it.

I consider Steve Jobs an important man in gaming history but not THE most important man in gaming history. Anyone who deserves to be number 1 has got to be Shigeru Miyamoto. That dude has inspired every gaming gurus that we know and love from Akira Yamaoka to Hideo Kojima to Warren Spector.

Steve Job invented games.

I'm guessing the London Games Conference had a lot of employees and fans of Zynga, Gameloft and the like.

@Willin said:

It's the Apple Pippin. And it has nothing to do with Steve Jobs. It came out in 1995, the year before he returned to Apple.

Anyway, on the actual topic, Steve Jobs and iPhone are a valid choice. They've totally reinvented the mobile and portable gaming markets. That's pretty damn influential. I'd certainly put him above Gabe Newell. Gabe introduced a pretty good digital distribution service, but I think that was an inevitable step that someone was going to do soon enough. Steve reinvented an entire market. We're talking about the 3DS and Vita being the last standalone portable consoles due to the influence of the iPhone on portable gaming. We're talking about an entire section of the gaming market being wiped out because of something Steve Jobs introduced. The portable gaming market was a big, lucrative space, and it's looking likely that it will be gone in a few years time. Or at the very least it'll fill a much smaller niche than it has in the past. Whether or not you like the iPhone as a gaming device, I don't see how you can argue against it's influence on the industry. It's had a huge impact. And it was Steve Jobs that introduced it.

I'd personally probably put Miyamoto above him, sure, but that's personal preference. I totally understand why people voted for Steve and think it's a fine choice. Just because I don't personally have much connection to the types of games he is associated with doesn't mean I should ignore his influence.

As Martin Crane said, ''Sorry, son. You can't beat a dead guy''.

Well he helped ruin the portable market by supporting the race to the bottom in pricing. I guess that counts for something?

He is twisting in his grave right now :)

lol

Wow, this Steve Jobs adoration thing is getting way out of hand.

Well, I guess there were a lot of casuals among those 1k people.

So yeah... that's the problem with casuals, I'm fine with them getting lots of games and driving the industry, as far as there are games for me to play (not-so-casual games, I don't consider myself hardcore either).

But please, if there is a survey about games and you just happen not to know a thing about them, just restrain from showing your ignorance and making the survey so shaming, pitiful and laughable. Related:

So 260 people said that Steve Jobs was the most influential person in gaming history? Great.

But iPhone games are awful. They never grab my attention for more than 10 minutes. While they are a fun distraction, they're nothing to get excited about.

michael jackson, the most important man in movies

stupid. Steve Jobs did not care for games and was vocal about not caring for them as well.

Just because the platform he helped develop and sell is a big success for game (and app) developers does not mean he personally has made any impact on the gaming world. He did not care for it at all. In that case Bill Gates is a much bigger influence for bringing us the windows and xbox platforms.

he did work at Atari.

If this came from people in the games industry they should be fired. Steve Jobs hated video games.

What the hell is a Steve Jobs?

It makes sense. Apple release an iterative product every year or so, so they're in line with EA, Activision and are years ahead of Nintendo.

That makes no sense. How about the guy who, I don't know, invented video games (Ralph Baer)? Wouldn't he be the most important man in video games. I really wish people weren't so enamored with Steve Jobs. He did a lot of great stuff, but he was far from the most important man in games. This stuff makes me mad.