I feel like Iranian-American programmer Nasir Gebelli deserves a special mention here. His early Apple II and Atari 800 games were credited simply: NASIR. I rem

I feel like Iranian-American programmer Nasir Gebelli deserves a special mention here. His early Apple II and Atari 800 games were credited simply: NASIR. I remember playing Space Eggs on my Atari 800 as a kid and being mystified at this strange name at the bottom of the title screen. But what he’s most known for is more or less single handedly carrying Squaresoft through their formative years. He was responsible for Rad Racer, Final Fantasy I-III, and Secret of Mana. Nasir was such a legend that Squaresoft flew him to Japan from the US to work on their games. At one point when his work visa expired, they flew the entire Squaresoft dev team back to Sacramento and completed FFIII in Nasir’s apartment.