In 1997, Jones started work on a real-time strategy game called Blam. After deciding it was better as a third-person shooter – and then deciding it was even better as a first-person shooter – Jones decided that Halo: Combat Evolved was a more enticing name.<\/p>\n
Halo went on to be one of the greating gaming successes, with more than 43 million copies sold, over US$3 billion in the bank, and the total reinvention of the console first-person shooter genre.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/jason-jones-bungie.jpg\" "\\"jason")
<\/a>Jason Jones<\/p><\/div>\n
Richard Garriot<\/strong><\/p>\n After creating the Ultima series, Garriot dumped game design for a bit and bought a US$30 million ticket to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n In 2011, he officially changed his name to Richard Garriott de Cayeux, which even sounds <\/em>expensive.<\/p>\n Richard Garriott de Cayeux<\/p><\/div>\n Don Mattrick<\/strong><\/p>\n The former president of EA’s Worldwide Studios division cashed in his stock options for US$21 million<\/a> in 2009.<\/p>\n He then took a new job as president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, where he spends a lot of time telling people that everything is better with Kinect. I’m sure his pay cheque counts too.<\/p>\n Don Mattrick<\/p><\/div>\n Bobby Kotick<\/strong><\/p>\n Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision-Blizzard, a mega video game publisher owned by the Vivendi group.<\/p>\n Notorious within the gaming community, if you had a dollar for every person who said “Bobby Kotick is evil”, you’d probably have about US$8.3 million a year. If you were Bobby Kotick, anyway<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bobby Kotick – powered by your hatred.<\/p><\/div>\n Yasuhiro Fukushima<\/strong><\/p>\n Fukushima, an architect turned entrepreneur, started a company called Eidansha Boshu Service Center in Tokyo in 1975.<\/p>\n Shortly thereafter, the company was renamed Enix – one of Japan’s biggest video game, manga and anime companies. In 2003, the company merged with its main competitor, Squaresoft, to form super developer\/publisher, Square-Enix.<\/p>\n Several decades on, Fukushima’s estimated net worth is around US$660 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yasuhiro Fukushima<\/p><\/div>\n Hajime Satomi<\/strong><\/p>\n After dropping out of Aoyama Gakuin University in 1975, Satomi founded Sammy Corporation, an equipment manufacturer for Japan’s pachinko<\/a> industry.<\/p>\n In 2004, Sammy Corporation acquired gaming hardware and software developer, Sega Corporation for $394 million. Forbes puts his net worth at US$1.15 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hajime Satomi<\/p><\/div>\n Mark Pincus<\/strong><\/p>\n Pincus owns Zynga, which basically means he also owns half of Facebook*.<\/p>\n This is oddly appropriate considering that just about every game put out by Zynga is like the other half of some other game released by another company<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pincus (in)famously admitted that: “I did every horrible thing in the book too, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don’t know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it.”<\/p>\n Forbes puts Pincus’ worth at $1.8 billion, placing 719th overall.<\/p>\n Marc Pincus says: “Ha ha ha!”<\/p><\/div>\n Gabe Newell<\/strong><\/p>\n Gabe Newell is the managing director of video game development and online distribution company, Valve Corporation.<\/p>\n The company developed the hugely successful Half-Life series and was behind the Steam digital distribution platform.<\/p>\n Of the 1,226 billionaires around the globe, Newell is ranked 854th on Forbes, with an estimated net worth of US$1.5 billion<\/a>. It’s still not enough money to ship Half-Life 3 on time, though.<\/p>\n Gabe Newell<\/p><\/div>\n Hiroshi Yamauchi<\/strong><\/p>\n The former CEO of Nintendo retired in 2005, after 55 years at the company, to become the 11th richest man in Japan. He’s worth US$2.5 billion<\/a>, although that’s much less than the $7.8 billion he was worth in 2006 before Nintendo plunged into financial semi-crisis.<\/p>\n It’s still not bad going for a man who started out making playing cards.<\/p><\/div>\n Yoshikazu Tanaka<\/strong><\/p>\n You know who loves casual gamers? This guy.<\/p>\n The founder and CEO of mobile gaming and social networking service, GREE, is already worth US$3.5 billion<\/a> at the age of just 35. The thing about casual games, you see, is that there’s huge heaps of cash in it.<\/p>\n Yoshikazu Tanaka: Smarter than the average hardcore gamer.<\/p><\/div>\n *Not in real terms<\/small><\/p>\n Related Articles<\/strong><\/p>\n 10 richest people in the gaming industry<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Games vs. movies: who wins?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n PC exclusives heading your way<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n 10 most bizarre Skyrim mods<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Xbox 360 exclusives you can look forward to<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>