A game designer is a person who designs games. The term can refer to a person who designs video games, or one who designs traditional games such as board games.

Video and computer game designer
The first video games were designed in the 1960s and 1970s by programmers for whom creating games was a hobby, since there was no way to sell them or earn money from creating games (the games required large mainframe computers to play). Some were designed by electrical engineers as exhibits for visitors to computer labs (OXO, Tennis for Two), others by college students who wrote games for their friends to play (Spacewar!, Star Trek, Dungeon).
Some of the games designed during this era, such as Zork, Baseball, Air Warrior and Adventure later made the transition with their game designers into the early video game industry.
Early in the history of video games, game designers were often the lead programmer or the only programmer for a game, and this remained true as the video game industry dawned in the 1970s. This person also sometimes comprised the entire art team. This is the case of such noted designers as Sid Meier, Chris Sawyer and Will Wright. A notable exception to this policy was Coleco, which from its very start separated the function of design and programming.
As games became more complex and computers and consoles became more powerful (allowing more features), the job of the game designer became a separate job function, with the lead programmer splitting his time between the two functions, moving from one role to the other. Later, game complexity escalated to the point where it required someone who concentrated solely on game design. Many early veterans chose the game design path eschewing programming and delegating those tasks to others.
Today, it is rare to find a video or computer game where the principal programmer is also the principal designer, except in the case of casual games, such as Tetris or Bejeweled. With very complex games, such as MMORPGs, or a big budget action or sports title, designers may number in the dozens. In these cases, there are generally one or two principal designers and many junior designers who specify subsets or subsystems of the game. In larger companies like Electronic Arts, each aspect of the game (control, level design or vehicles) may have a separate producer, lead designer and several general designers.

History
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Danielle Bunten Berry, of the seminal M.U.L.E. and The Seven Cities of Gold
Marc Blank, co-designer of Zork, co-founder of text adventure publisher Infocom
Bill Budge, developer of Pinball Construction Set, designer who anchored launch of Electronic Arts
Chris Crawford, creator of Balance of Power and the founder of the Game Developer's Conference
Jon Freeman, designer of the Archon series and many original Epyx titles
Richard Garriott (Lord British), developer of the Ultima series of games
Ron Gilbert, creator of Maniac Mansion and the Monkey Island series
Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of the Dead or Alive series, and the Ninja Gaiden series remake
Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear Solid series
Jordan Mechner, designer of Prince of Persia, Karateka, and The Last Express
Sid Meier, creator of Civilization, Railroad Tycoon and other game series
Shinji Mikami creator of the Resident Evil series
Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and Super Mario series
Peter Molyneux, creator of the Populous, Black and White, Fable series, and Theme Park series
Brian Reynolds, developer of Civilization II, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Rise of Nations
John Romero, creator of Wolfenstein 3D, the Doom and Quake series
Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey
Tim Schafer, creator of Grim Fandango and Psychonauts
Bruce Shelley, co-creator of Age of Empires series and Civilization
Warren Spector, developer of System Shock, Deus Ex and Thief series
Roberta Williams, designer of King's Quest and several other computer game series
Will Wright, designer of SimCity, The Sims and Spore == ===Notable video and computer game designers=
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