9,000 international game developers contributed to the survey, who were asked to list who they considered as ‘game developer heroes’. The list included other luminous gaming industry figureheads such as ‘SimCity’ and ‘The Sims’ creator Will Wright, and PC gaming ubergeek John Carmack. Miyamoto is famous for his role in creating Nintendo icons Mario, Donkey Kong and the Legend of Zelda series of games, over a career spanning decades, and has been the driving force behind motion-controlled endeavours such as Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Music in recent years.

The survey was commissioned by the 2009 Develop Conference, a gaming industry conference held by the Brits in the city of Brighton. Event manager Andy Lane declared that “It’s no surprise that Miyamoto-san is the development hero of developers – over the last thirty years he has created games that have not only driven the evolution of the games industry but also changed people’s lives.”

Here’s the full list:

1. Shigeru Miyamoto
2. John Carmack
3. Will Wright
4. Dave Jones
5. Sid Meier
6. Peter Molyneux
7. David Braben
8. Masaya Matsuura
9. Michael Morhaime
10. Jonathan Blow

Source: Develop