About

Game Developer Research Institute (GDRI) was officially established on August 26, 2006 with the installation of this wiki. Our mission is to figure out the identities of the real developers behind the games we have all enjoyed over the years and give them the credit they deserve.

"Real developers?"

For a long time, we have taken for granted who developed our favorite games. The publisher took the credit (or the blame) for the games it released. But the fact is that there were individuals involved in making those games. And they didn't always work for the publisher.

These individuals might have actually worked for a development house contracted with the task of making games for the publisher. Sometimes, the publisher had no objections to revealing the developer. But many times, the developer's identity was concealed completely or only mentioned as an afterthought.

There are some general reasons why this might have occurred. Perhaps it was a way for publishers to prevent other companies from stealing away their talent. The developer itself might not have cared about recognition. Or in the case of the elusive TOSE, it might not have wanted any at all. But when all is said and done, the game industry is a business. For many, making these games was just a job and the primary objective was a paycheck, not being recognized for their work. If that was the way the publisher wanted it and enough money was changing hands, there was little reason to question that.

Cultural differences

In Western games, it was not uncommon to see the name of the development house or at least the credits right at the beginning of the game for all to see. This practice can possibly be traced back to the founding of Activision, which was started by Atari employees who were tired of not being given credit for their work. It was Atari policy not to mention its game makers in order to keep headhunters at bay. This attitude extended to the other big players in the console market, Mattel and Coleco. At Activision, the game designers were promoted as individuals. A similar approach was taken during the early days of Electronic Arts. EA treated its developers like rockstars. Their names were displayed on the front cover of the games they created. Gamers came to know the likes of Bill Budge and Dan Bunten.

In Japan, the situation was different. A number of games in the 1980's and 1990's did not have any sort of credits or staff mentions and if they did, they used awkward pseudonyms. While a corporate mentality similar to Atari's might have come into play here, Hideo Kojima explains that the game industry was not respected early on, so the staff withheld their full names. [1]

In short, Western developers tended to want credit for their work, while Japanese developers were more willing to take a backseat. Today, however, companies on all sides of the Pacific have become more open about who worked on their games.

The GDRI story

The year was 2005. Founder CRV noticed the words "PROGRAMMED BY SIMS CO., LTD." shortly after starting up George Foreman's KO Boxing for the Sega Master System. He posted his findings on SMS Power, jumpstarting a whole investigative thread uncovering many other games developed by SIMS. The success of this investigation led to more of them, including ones on Aicom and games published by Pony Canyon, both of which led to some grueling discussion.

As more developers became uncovered and more people became interested in helping, it no longer seemed practical to continue only posting on message boards. CRV felt there should be one source for all of this information. SIT Developer Table, a site with listings for a wide array of developers, provided the inspiration, but he wanted something more dynamic. The solution he found was in the form of wiki technology.

CRV asked for web space from the webmaster of SMS Power, which he was soon given. On August 26, 2006, the wiki software was installed and work began immediately.

That takes us to today. The research rolls on and we continue to learn new things. But what's different now from when we first started is that we have perfected our investigative skills into a series of what we call "research methods," tools that have become ever-so-essential to our work. Click here to find out more about those.

Now read about the people that make GDRI possible...

GDRI Faculty

CRV
Founder, administrator of GDRI.

Dimitri
Performs code comparisons and translates credits.

Idrougge
Helps write entries and is able to write in Japanese.