Variety recently published its seventh annual edition of Variety500, which explores the top five hundred business leaders that are shaping the international media industry. Published on December 19th, the new edtiion reflects members that had made strong accomplishments over the past twelve months, and this time it features a rather familiar list.
Before we get to it, we wanted to talk a little about how the names are decide. For the list, the Variety staff considers the successes over the past year of each potential candidate. At the start, there are around a thousand potential names submitted. Extra attention is given to those who are seen to "innovate, take risks, stimulate growth, and make impactful moves that attract the attention of both consumers and industry professionals." The final selection is detirmined thorugh series of meetings to refine the list and research in more depth their indiviidual journey these past twelve months. Not an easy thing to have examined!
One of those individuals named in the Variety500 is none other than Sam Lake, Creative Director at Remedy with the outlet crediting his work on Alan Wake 2. While the description doesn't go into it, Lake's involvement with the game extended to representing the series at events, flying out to events, taking part in interviews, in presentations, showcasing the game live on The Game Awards stage, and more, alongside his day-to-day work.
Describing his achievements this past year, Variety writes, "In a landscape where the number of studios developing AAA games as standalone entities continues to shrink, Finnish studio Remedy is an outlier, due in large part to Lake’s penchant for narrative finesse. His latest game, “Alan Wake II,” released in October to substantial acclaim as the next standout in the survival horror genre, where franchises like “The Last of Us” and “Resident Evil” reign supreme. A direct sequel to the 2010 game, “Alan Wake II” was published by Epic Games and did great at the Game Awards in December, winning best game direction, narrative and art direction. Those accolades are huge for Lake, as “Alan Wake II” was the writer’s first outing as game director as well, a duty he shared with Kyle Rowley. Remedy’s last original, 2019’s “Control,” was also written by Lake and received eight Game Awards nominations, winning best art direction."
Lake is one of twenty four developers listed for their work in video game, and the only Finn in the category. Other named Variety Honors include Sarah Bond (President of Xbox), Neil Druckmann (Co-President of Naughty Dog), Gabe Newell (Co-Found and President of Valve) and Phil Spencer (CEO of Gaming at Microsoft).
You can see the full list, HERE.
