GDC 2015 To Honor The Man Behind Final Fantasy

<p>If you love Final Fantasy&comma; Blue Dragon&comma; or Lost Odyssey&comma; you just might know the name Hironobu Sakaguchi&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s been making games for quite a while now and as it turns out&comma; he&&num;8217&semi;ll be honored for them with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the GDC Awards in San Francisco next month&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>At Square Company&comma; Ltd&period; &lpar;now Square Enix&rpar;&comma; Sakaguchi notably served as Director of Planning and Development and created a certain role-playing game called <em>Final Fantasy&period; <&sol;em>Despite its nod to Sakaguchi’s previous plans to leave game development&comma; the series&comma; of course&comma; turned out to not be so final after all&comma; spawning 13 sequels with another hopefully on the way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In his tenure at Square&comma; Sakaguchi also helped produce <em>Vagrant Story&comma; Parasite Eve&comma; Kingdom Hearts<&sol;em> and many others&period; Sakaguchi&&num;8217&semi;s since left Square Enix and founded the development house Mistwalker&comma; where he helped with the creation of <em>Blue Dragon&comma; Lost Odyssey&comma; The Last Story<&sol;em> and <em>Terra Battle<&sol;em>&period; Since its initial release in 1987&comma; the Final Fantasy franchise has put more than 110 million units into people&&num;8217&semi;s pockets worldwide and has received seven Guinness World Records&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Over his illustrious and thriving career&comma; Sakaguchi-san has established some of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time&comma; and helped cement the RPG genre in Japan and around the world&comma;” says GDC’s Meggan Scavio&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote><p><span style&equals;"line-height&colon; 1&period;5&semi;">&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;But the gaming world owes an even greater debt to Sakaguchi-san and team for making a compelling game narrative as important to game development as its graphics and sound&period; Final Fantasy helped pave the way for game stories that dealt with death&comma; regret and character development in a mature and significant way&comma; and we’re proud to honor Sakaguchi-san as a true leader in the space&comma; and an inspired game developer&period;”<&sol;span><&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>Lifetime Achievement recipients are chosen by the Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Committee&comma; which includes game industry notables such as Doug Lombardi &lpar;Valve&rpar;&comma; Harvey Smith &lpar;Arkane&rpar;&comma; Raph Koster &lpar;Independent&rpar;&comma; Chris Charla &lpar;Microsoft&rpar; and Erin Robinson &lpar;Independent&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Doublefine&&num;8217&semi;s Tim Schafer&comma; creator of many classics himself and founder of Double Fine Productions&comma; will be in attendance to host this year&&num;8217&semi;s GDC <strong>Mar&period; 4th<&sol;strong>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Via<&sol;strong> <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;gamasutra&period;com&sol;view&sol;news&sol;235592&sol;Hironobu&lowbar;Sakaguchi&lowbar;to&lowbar;receive&lowbar;Lifetime&lowbar;Achievement&lowbar;Award&lowbar;at&lowbar;GDC&lowbar;2015&period;php">Gamasutra<&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;