A survey held by the Develop Conference has found that Shigeru Miyamoto is regarded as the hero of the game development community. No surprise there, really.

The Develop Conference is an annual event drawing in developers from throughout Europe for what is essentially to devs what E3 is for press – a pile of speeches and information on emerging tools, tech and troubles, as well as some contact making and chin-wagging.

It sounds like a small event, but when you consider that such heavy hitters as Ubisoft, Little Big Planet developers Media Molecule, Crytek UK and Lionhead Studios are making an appearance you realise how much of a big deal this is for the developer community.

As such the organisers have a fair bit of weight and can do these silly surveys of developers. Nine thousand took part in a global survey designed to find out who developers saw as the “ultimate development hero”. The result was hardly surprising: Shigeru Miyamoto, the man regarded as the “father of modern video games”, is now also the man developers most want to be changing in phone booths and wearing lycra.

Naturally he wasn’t the only man mentioned – in fact he got 30% of the vote, which while still a majority leaves it really open for other faces in the list! With this in mind, here is the top ten in order.

10: Jonathan Blow
A man many people find arrogant, but his story is in no doubt a very inspiring tail of “the little dev who could”. Creator of the award-winning Braid.

9: Michael Morhaime
Co-founder and President of Blizzard, he created Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft including the immensely popular (and profit-making) World of Warcraft.

8: Masaya Matsuura
The creator of PaRappa the Rapper, Matsuura is credited with pushing the frontiers of computer and videogame music. PaRappa was well ahead of its time and was a push for the audio quality as a whole in games.

7: David Braben
Founder of Frontier, he was a co-writer for the original and much loved space game Elite. Currently working what could become yet another industry-breaking release by the name of The Outsider.

6: Peter Molyneux
Everyone knows this guy. Creator of the “god” genre and the Fable series, currently the Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios. His biggest release this year was of the Natal-based AI demo Milo.

5: Sid Meier
Creator of Pirates! and Civilisation, he was the second person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ hall of fame behind Miyamoto.

4: Dave Jones
Creator of Grand Theft Auto, and Lemmings (what a change), Jones is the co-founder of Rockstar North and founder of Realtime Worlds (best known for Crackdown).

3: Will Wright
He took an idea that nobody took seriously and turned it into the greatest selling PC game of all time. A big believer in making people think, he created The Sims, Spore and now currently runs the entertainment think tank Stupid Fun Club.

2: John Cormack
Co-founder of id Software, and lead programmer on the original Doom and Quake, John and his team stretched the limits of what was thought possible at the time.

1: Shigeru Miyamoto
Lord Shiggy was the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, F-Zero… the list goes on. Many people credit him for dragging the US videogame market out of the 1983 crash. Personally, I’m just scared crapless of his neck.