WMichael Abrash is a programmer and technical writer specializing in code optimization and 80x86 assembly language, a reputation cemented by his 1990 book Zen of Assembly Language Volume 1: Knowledge and a monthly column in Dr. Dobb's Journal in the early 1990s. A later book, Zen of Graphics Programming, applied these ideas to 2D and 3D graphics prior to the advent of hardware accelerators for the PC. Though not strictly a game programmer, Abrash has worked on the underlying technology for games, such as Quake, for much of his career. Since 2014, he has been the chief scientist of Oculus VR, a subsidiary of Facebook, Inc.
WDoug Church, is an American video game designer and producer. He attended MIT in the late 1980s, but left and went to work with Looking Glass Studios, when they were making primarily MS-DOS-based immersive sim games, including Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld II, System Shock and Thief. His colleague Warren Spector claims, in fact, that Church was the one who originally coined the term "immersive simulation".
WJess A. Cliffe is a video game designer who co-created the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Minh Le and started the Counter-Strike series. He is also the "voice of Counter-Strike" via the radio commands, the voiceline "Counter-Terrorists Win!" and sound effects. He has worked on maps for Half-Life: Deathmatch.
WChet Faliszek is an American video game writer that has worked for companies like Valve and Bossa Studios, having been involved in the story writing for series such as Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead.
WMike Harrington is an American programmer and businessman. He is the co-founder of the video game company Valve. After the success of the first Valve product, Half-Life (1998), Harrington left Valve in 2000. In 2006, he co-founded the photo editing service Picnik.
WMarc Laidlaw is an American writer of science fiction and horror, and a former writer for the video game company Valve. He is most famous for working on Valve's Half-Life series.
WMinh Le, also known by his online nickname Gooseman, is a Vietnamese Canadian video game programmer who co-created the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Jess Cliffe in 1999 and started the Counter-Strike series. He was later employed by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, and worked for 8 years in Korea on the multiplayer first-person shooter Tactical Intervention. He is a contractor on the multiplayer survival first-person shooter Rust. In the small-team games that he has worked on, Le has been a programmer, modeler, and designer.
WMike Morasky is an American composer, animator/visual effects artist, director and programmer. He is best known for his work at Valve composing the scores for Team Fortress 2, the Left 4 Dead series, Portal 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Half-Life: Alyx. He is also known for his visual effects work on The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix trilogies as well as founding the underground art bands Steel Pole Bath Tub, Milk Cult and DUH.
WGabe Logan Newell is an American businessman and the co-founder and president of the video game developer and digital distribution company Valve.
WJay Pinkerton is a Canadian humorist known for co-writing, with Erik Wolpaw, the story of Valve's video game Portal 2. A former editor of both Cracked.com and Cracked magazine, PlayStation World magazine referred to him as a "one-man gag machine". Prior to joining Cracked, Pinkerton served as the managing editor of NationalLampoon.com, the website of the national comedy and film brand.
WChris Remo is an American video game designer, composer, writer, podcaster, and former journalist.
WJake Rodkin is an American video game designer, writer, graphic designer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader of Tales of Monkey Island and the co-project leader and co-writer of The Walking Dead, Poker Night at the Inventory, and Puzzle Agent 2. He was also the director of the fifth episode of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, and designer and writer of Firewatch.
WKimberly Swift is an American video game designer best known for her work at Valve with games such as Portal and Left 4 Dead. Swift was featured by Fortune as one of "30 Under 30" influential figures in the video game industry. She was described in Mental Floss as one of the most recognized women in the industry and by Wired as "an artist that will push the medium forward".
WSean Vanaman is an Irish–American video game designer, writer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader and lead writer of The Walking Dead, and Puzzle Agent 2. He also wrote the third episode of Tales of Monkey Island, and was the designer of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, and the writer of the third episode, Muzzled. He was one of the regular hosts of the Idle Thumbs podcast and is one of the co-founders of Campo Santo, the company that produced Firewatch.
WIoannis "Yanis" Varoufakis is a Greek-Australian economist and politician. A former academic, he served as the Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015 under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He has been Secretary-General of MeRA25, a left-wing political party, since he founded it in 2018. A former member of Syriza, Varoufakis was a member of the Hellenic Parliament for Athens B from January to September 2015; he regained a parliamentary seat in July 2019.
WRobin Walker is an Australian video game designer best known for co-developing Quake Team Fortress, Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life: Alyx. He went to RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
WErik Wolpaw is an American video game writer. He and Chet Faliszek wrote the pioneering video game website Old Man Murray. He subsequently worked for game developers Double Fine Productions and Valve, and is known for his work on video games including Half-Life 2, Psychonauts, Portal, Portal 2 and Half-Life: Alyx.