Sidney (Sid) K. Meier

Founder of Firaxis Games and creator of "Civilization," Meier has made landmark contributions to the video game industry. In 1982, along with Bill Stealy, he co-founded MicroProse, where the "Civilization" franchise first started. In 1996, he left MicroProse and went on to found Firaxis Games, where he helped develop scores of popular video games, including the continued "Civilization", "Pirates!" and "Railroad Tycoon". Also in 1996, he was awarded US Patent 5,496,962 for a "System for Real-Time Music Composition and Synthesis" used in a product called "CPU Bach".