Hironobu Sakaguichi has received plenty of recognition over the years for creating one of the most significant video game franchises of all time. Now he’s adding one of the biggest awards in the industry to his shelf.
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi will receive the lifetime achievement award at the 15th annual Game Developers Choice Awards.
Above: Hironobu Sakaguchi
The awards take place at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 4, and they’re a big deal because developers’ peers, not press, make the selections. The awards recognize a lifetime of achievement in video games, and few have had as much impact as Sakaguchi, who created Final Fantasy at Square (Now Square Enix) and now is founder and president of his own game studio, Mistwalker. The Final Fantasy series has sold more than 110 million copies worldwide since 1987.
Double Fine Productions chief executive Tim Schafer hosts the Choice Awards, and Capybara Games cofounder Nathan Vella hosts the Independent Games Festival Awards. Sakaguchi served as director of planning and development at Square, where he created the first Final Fantasy, a groundbreaking role-playing game (RPG) that has since gone on to spawn 13 sequels, numerous spinoff, films, and TV series.
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Past winners include Sims creator Will Wright, Super Mario Bros. creator and Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto, and Sid Meir, whose Civilization games remain among the most popular strategy series in gaming.
Sakaguchi called it Final Fantasy because if it failed, he was going to quit game development. At RPG development house Square, he also helped create other hits, including Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, and Kingdom Hearts. In 2004, Sakaguchi founded the development house Mistwalker, where he helped with the creation of Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and The Last Story for consoles and Terra Battle, a hit mobile game in Japan.
“Over his illustrious and thriving career, Sakaguchi has established some of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time, and helped cement the RPG genre in Japan and around the world. But the gaming world owes an even greater debt to Sakaguchi and team for making a compelling game narrative as important to game development as its graphics and sound,” said Meggan Scavio, the general manager of all GDC events, in a statement. “Final Fantasy helped pave the way for game stories that dealt with death, regret and character development in a mature and significant way, and we’re proud to honor Sakaguchi as a true leader in the space, and an inspired game developer.”
The recipients of the award are chosen by the Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Committee, which includes game industry notables such as Doug Lombardi (Valve), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Independent), Chris Charla (Microsoft) and Erin Robinson (Independent).
The Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony takes place 6:30 p.m. March 4 at the Moscone Convention Center during 2015 GDC in San Francisco.
