When Great Minds Think Alike: Six Game Designers and Their Cinematic Counterparts

These pairings might have more in common than you’d think.

By: Marty Sliva
October 19, 2011

The art of filmmaking began with the Lumiere brothers projecting their 50-second shorts on the wall of a Parisian cafe in the late 19th century, and has since evolved over the past century into a three-dimensional spectacle. In roughly a third of the time, video games were born, grew, and reached an evolutionary point that’s nearly identical with film’s current standing.

When you take a look at them side by side, the similarities between film and video games are uncanny. Aside from being two of the more infantile art forms, they’re also chimeras consisting of an amalgam of sights and sounds. And though they are both heavily collaborative mediums, video games and film each have figures that stand out as creative pillars of their respective industries. This is not a list of the most important or influential artists in their mediums, but rather a pairing of 12 individuals with careers, ideas and accomplishments that bear a striking resemblance to one another.