As the traditional entertainment industry contracts, a new generation of players, content creators and developers are pushing gaming into the spotlight—and brands and investors are eager to run up the score.
By Matt Craig, Ethan Davison and Robert Davis
For content creators like Emily Schunk, better known online as “Emiru,” the perks of ever-rising online celebrity are always tempered by the all-too-present threat of unwanted attention. With nearly 2 million followers on Twitch—and some 5 million across other platforms—the 27-year-old livestreamer is watched for hours each day as she plays video games, chats and dresses up in cosplay, developing the kind of passionate fan base that pays for subscriptions, buys her merch and listens to her podcast. And brands pay good money to tap into her audience—she earned $1.5 million over the past 12 months, according to Forbes estimates.
But that fandom showed its dark side at San Diego TwitchCon in October, when a large man barged to the front of her meet-and-greet line and attempted to kiss her before being pushed away by a bodyguard.
Speaking to Forbes in September, before the incident, Emiru said that invasions of privacy are just another part of internet fame. “In the past, when talking about stalkers or people fixating on celebrities, it would be people like Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus that are so out of reach in a lot of ways,” she said. “But a lot of people feel like they have direct access to streamers. So especially in the case of people who might be mentally ill or maybe don’t really like women, it can be scary. You just have to do your best to take care of yourself and take care of your friends.”
Emiru is one of many fearless women who lead Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Games class of 2026 across every category of the traditionally male-dominated gaming industry. Ana Aguilar, 24, runs one of the most success virtual fashion houses with the Roblox metaverse. Alexis Guarrasi, 23, is among the most successful female esports professionals ever. Roxanne Sabo, 29, Michelle Cheng, 27, and Rachel Sima, 28, have risen the ranks at established gaming developers like Amazon, Respawn Entertainment and Firaxis Games.
Many of this year’s nominees are actively working to make games more accessible to traditionally underserved groups. Crystal Yang, 18, runs a nonprofit working to make games more accessible for blind players, and 29-year-old Yudi Sun is responsible for growing retention and engagement on Duolingo, hoping to give the world the gift of language that helped her after leaving Beijing to pursue her education at age 10. While working at Carry1st, 28-year-old Spencer Ma led growth at Africa’s leading mobile games publisher, bringing dedicated servers on major titles to the continent for the first time, as well as a new payments solution for a population largely without credit card access.
And Emiru is hardly the only Under 30 lister to drawing large audiences to their video content. Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, 24, successfully pivoted his professional esports career into content creation, where more than 14 million people follow his “Valorant” content across social platforms, and Stephen “SpringSims” Works, 29, is one of the most popular Sims players in the world. And experienced dealmakers like Sebastien Delvaux, 29, cofounder of talent agency Evolved, and Judah Silver, 29, an agent at United Talent Agency, continue to push up fees for the new generation of gaming superstars.
And while user-generated content on gaming metaverses such as Fortnite and Roblox has swallowed up much of the independent game industry, indie developers like 28-year-old Julian Cordero, who made the award-winning Despelote, and 28-year-old Isadora Rodopoulos, who left a corporate job at Microsoft to cofound Coldblood Inc., are proving that there is still space for bootstrapped developer success in the gaming world. Rodopoulos tells Forbes the biggest myth about her generation is “that we’re naive or we don’t know how the world really works. It’s only by breaking existing norms and following our guts that we can truly innovate.”
This year’s class was selected from hundreds of nominations, submitted through a public online nomination form and generated from conversations with a variety of sources including industry insiders, internal research and Under 30 alums. Candidates—who had to be 29 or younger as of December 31, 2025, and could not have been previously named to a Forbes 30 Under 30 North America, Europe or Asia list—were then reviewed by a panel of judges including Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter, a top content creator and 30 Under 30 alum (2022); Angela Browder, studio director at Bethesda; Jason Chapman, cofounder at Konvoy Ventures; and Selina Liu, game producer II at Riot Games and 30 Under 30 alum (2025). Of those who made this year’s Games list, 50% are women or non-binary, 41% are founders and 44% identify as people of color.
This year’s list was edited by Matt Craig, Ethan Davidson and Robert Davis. For a link to our complete Games list, click here, and for full 30 Under 30 coverage, click here.