Rieko Kodama
, also known as Phoenix Rie, was a Japanese video game artist, director, and producer employed by Sega from 1984 until her death. She is primarily known for her work on role-playing video games including the original Phantasy Star series, the 7th Dragon series, and Skies of Arcadia (2000). She is often recognized as one of the first successful women in the video game industry. Kodama began her career at Sega as a graphic designer on arcade games and Master System games, including Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986) and Phantasy Star (1987). The success of Phantasy Star led her to continue with the series thereafter, including directing Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium (1993) for the Sega Genesis. She did artwork for other Genesis games, including Altered Beast (1988) and Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). Later, as producer, she oversaw the development of several Sega video games, including the commercially and critically successful Skies of Arcadia. Kodama remained a producer at Sega until her death. She received the Pioneer Award at the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards in recognition of her lifelong contributions to video games. Early life and education Rieko Kodama was born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan, in May 1963. She enjoyed playing arcade games as a child. In high school, Kodama was interested in designing advertising materials. After entering college, she felt indecisive between pursuing studies in art or archaeology, since she carried an interest in Egyptology. In her indecisiveness, she failed in all of her classes. She remembered her original interest in advertising and decided to dedicate herself fully to her art passion, enrolling in an advertising design program at a trade school. She grew an interest in graphic design and wanted to pursue doing her own work rather than trumpeting works of others as in the advertising business. The video game industry caught her attention as an emerging field. Home game consoles were new as most of the industry was still in the arcade field. The industry piqued Kodama's curiosity as she rarely went to the arcades and felt her unfamiliarity with the medium would make it a good way to challenge herself. Career Early work Kodama was hired by Sega in 1984 through one of her colleagues who was already employed there. She originally thought she was going to be working on advertising and graphic design, but after seeing the game development department, she felt that would be fun as well. She learned how to create graphics from Yoshiki Kawasaki, the sprite artist behind Flicky (1984). Her first job was as character designer for the arcade game Champion Boxing (1984). She continued to work on other arcade games such as Sega Ninja (1984). Because development times were short and Sega was low on design staff, Kodama would sometimes work on five to six games at once. She designed the art for Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986) for the Master System, was "deeply involved" with the arcade and Master System versions of Quartet