In Memoriam 2014

Ralph Henry Baer was an engineer, game designer, and inventor who is considered the "Father of Video Games" for his contributions and inventions that helped define the video game industry.

In 1966, he began developing the prototype for the Odyssey, the first commercial video game console, which was released in September 1972.

He died at the age of 92 on December 6, 2014.

Masato Masuda was a director and game designer who became famous for the Fire Pro Wrestling series, his first wrestling game was Pro Wrestling for the NES in 1986, but it was with Fire Pro Wrestling Combination Tag for the PC Engine that he started to put into practice the ideas he wanted to have in the first game.

In addition to the Wrestling games, Masato was in charge of several Formula 1 games that Human made in the 90s. Unfortunately, Masato passed away on April 4, 2014 at the age of 48.

Michael Bernard Gottlieb was a game producer and film director. Among the films he directed were the comedy Mannequin and A Kid in King Arthur's Court.

Among the games he produced were NBA Hangtime, Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat Gold.

He passed away at the age of 69 on May 23, 2014.

Hans Rudolf Giger was a Swiss artist, renowned for his art that combined horror and eroticism, and his most famous work was the design for the film Alien.

He died at the age of 74 on May 12, 2014.

Hal Finney was a programmer and game designer who, in the 1980s, was responsible for developing games such as Adventures of Tron, Space Attack and Space Battle.

After that, he ended up developing software in other areas such as PGP, an encryption software to ensure privacy and authenticity of data in digital communications.

He is also known for being the first user of Bitcoin, being one of the first people to receive the currency directly from the creator of the currency: Satoshi Nakamoto.

He died at the age of 58 on August 28, 2014 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).