The Most Famous Video Game Creators and Players in the World
Top 21 of 21 ranked · August 2026 · See today's live standing →
First issue under methodology v5.62. Movement begins with the next issue frozen under the same version.
IShowSpeed outranks Kojima and Miyamoto as streamers top the games list
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · 1 min read
A YouTuber leads the August 2026 Video Games ranking at 21.4, ahead of a film composer, the designers who built the medium and the late Akira Toriyama.
The most famous name in video games for August 2026 has never shipped a game. IShowSpeed, the American YouTuber and streamer who turned gaming antics into a global act, scores 21.4. Hans Zimmer, the German film composer, is second at 17.5, an adjacent figure the sector gathers through his scores. The first designer is Hideo Kojima, the Japanese writer, director and producer, third at 15.6.
Akira Toriyama, the manga artist and character designer who died in 2024, is fourth at 12.9, the only dead name among the leaders and still above Shigeru Miyamoto, born in 1952 and the designer behind Nintendo's biggest franchises, at 11.4. Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker and a prolific voice artist, sits between them at 11.7. Gabe Newell, president of Valve, is eighth at 11, and Markus Persson, who created Minecraft, the best-selling game of all time, tenth at 9.2.
The streamers keep coming. Hasan Piker, the political commentator known as HasanAbi, is seventh at 11.1, and Kai Cenat ninth at 10.3. Three of the top nine names built their fame talking over games rather than making them. Composers Michael Giacchino and Brian Tyler, Ella Purnell, the English actress and voice performer, and Faker, the South Korean League of Legends player, fill eleventh to fourteenth. Fifteenth is not a person at all: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Nintendo game, at 8.4.
Twenty-one names were measured across eight countries, twenty of them living. The United States supplies nine and Japan four, but Japan holds the design seats: Kojima, Toriyama, Miyamoto and Zelda. The ranking measures worldwide fame, and in gaming the attention has moved to the people on camera.
| Rank | Name | Score | Live |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  IShowSpeed  celebrityAlive | 21.4 | iFANN → |
| 2 |  Hans Zimmer  celebrityAlive | 17.5 | iFANN → |
| 3 |  Hideo Kojima  celebrityAlive | 15.6 | iFANN → |
| 4 |  Akira Toriyama celebrity | 12.9 | iFANN → |
| 5 |  Mark Hamill celebrityAlive | 11.7 | iFANN → |
| 6 |  Shigeru Miyamoto celebrityAlive | 11.4 | iFANN → |
| 7 |  Hasan Piker public figureAlive | 11.1 | iFANN → |
| 8 |  Gabe Newell celebrityAlive | 11.0 | iFANN → |
| 9 |  Kai Cenat celebrityAlive | 10.3 | iFANN → |
| 10 |  Markus Persson  celebrityAlive | 9.2 | iFANN → |
| 11 |  Michael Giacchino celebrityAlive | 9.1 | iFANN → |
| 12 |  Ella Purnell  celebrityAlive | 9.1 | iFANN → |
| 13 |  Faker  celebrityAlive | 9.0 | iFANN → |
| 14 |  Brian Tyler celebrityAlive | 8.9 | iFANN → |
| 15 |  The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild celebrityAlive | 8.4 | iFANN → |
| 16 |  Luigi Mangione celebrityAlive | 7.9 | iFANN → |
| 17 |  Steven Ogg  celebrityAlive | 7.8 | iFANN → |
| 18 |  Alex Garland celebrityAlive | 7.8 | iFANN → |
| 19 |  Liam McIntyre  celebrityAlive | 7.7 | iFANN → |
| 20 |  Keith David celebrityAlive | 7.6 | iFANN → |
| 21 |  Shawn Ashmore celebrityAlive | 7.5 | iFANN → |
About this list
This list ranks the most famous video game creators and players in the world as of August 2026, by overall global fame rather than one month's attention. It is the top 21 of 21 names the rankings measured in this sector, frozen as the permanent record of that edition. This is the standard reading: everyone, living or dead, on one scale. 20 of the 21 listed are living; the Alive reading restricts the same ranking to living people.
IShowSpeed is No. 1 on this list for August 2026. Behind IShowSpeed come Hans Zimmer and Hideo Kojima.
What famous means here
Fame, in iFAMOUS, is how widely the world knows a name: how recognisable a person's name, face or work is, and how well people know who they are. It is assessed from extensive historical and current public data, some of it reaching back more than twenty years, and it is not merit, talent, importance or popularity on iFANN. The rankings model real-world global fame, not internet fame; the data is the instrument, not the subject. Activity on iFANN itself is excluded.
The month in the title is the date of this edition, not the period measured. The list is a snapshot of overall fame as it stood when the issue was frozen: a name does not lose its place because one month was quiet, and a trending moment alone does not put a name here. Trending attention is published separately on ifann.net.
How the list was ranked
The iFANN Global Fame Rankings combine worldwide Wikipedia readership across languages, worldwide news coverage and search interest anchored against stable reference names, with search history reaching back to 2004. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped, so the list reflects durable recognition rather than one week of headlines. Rankings are computed daily on ifann.net and frozen on the second day of the following month as that month's issue; a published issue never changes.
About Video Games
Video Games is one of the sectors the journal ranks every month, alongside every country, origin and region list in this issue. Sector lists use the same rankings and the same scale as The 100, so a name can be compared across sectors and against the world. Video game publishers, franchises, developers and esports overlap.
Powered by iFANN
iFAMOUS is published by iFANN and powered by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings v5.62. Today's live standing for this list is on ifann.net; the journal freezes it once a month so it can be cited permanently.
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"IShowSpeed, No. 1 on The Most Famous Video Game Creators and Players in the World", iFAMOUS No. 1 (August 2026), ifamous.org