Top 10 Game Developers of All Time
- Thread starter Polycount
- Start date
BigRedPDX
Posts: 313 +224
Back when ID Software was making games, I was rocking a VooDoo graphics card. It was 3DFx until NVIDIA came to be. I completely forgot that Nintendo made card games back in the day. The first game I ever... tactically acquired online... was Wolf3D. ID Software is in my blood. Anyone remember MUDS on Telnet?
Reehahs
Posts: 1,297 +970
They were fantastic when they were independent like WestWood. Both got killed off by EA.
Square Enix is not a top 10 Game Dev LOLOL
Pastuch
Posts: 155 +169
EA is trash bruh, they ruined so many games with their microtranzactions
Cooe14
Posts: 81 +113
Psygnosis only makes the list if you consider not just game development but game dev tools development as well. Their strength was always in creating top-tier dev tools for Sony, NOT actually making games (which were VERY hit or miss. For every Wipeout they would also inevitably release a piece of freaking TRASH as well!), which was a CRITICAL part in the OG PlayStation's absolutely GARGANTUAN levels of immediate success.
And Mojang??? ... -_- ... Are you freaking SERIOUS here??? A studio that has only made a SINGLE GAME doesn't deserve to be on a list of the greatest studios of all time, no matter HOW good or influential that single game is...
axiomatic13
Posts: 657 +835
In almost every case, except for maybe Nintendo, Valve, and Naughty Dog, inviting the executives to the party ruined the developer.
pencea
Posts: 351 +337
In no particular order. The top developers for me or the ones that developed titles I mostly enjoyed throughout my 35 years of gaming are
Capcom
Namco
Square Soft aka Square Enix
Konami before the Kojima fallout
Naughty Dog
Crystal Dynamics
Sony Computer Entertainment
Nintendo
Sega before they exited the console hardware market
Insomniac Games
Other notable mentions are
id Software
Kojima Productions
Platinum Games/Clover Studios
Rare
Thatgamecompany
SCE Santa Monica Studio
Game Arts
Media.Vision
Capcom
Namco
Square Soft aka Square Enix
Konami before the Kojima fallout
Naughty Dog
Crystal Dynamics
Sony Computer Entertainment
Nintendo
Sega before they exited the console hardware market
Insomniac Games
Other notable mentions are
id Software
Kojima Productions
Platinum Games/Clover Studios
Rare
Thatgamecompany
SCE Santa Monica Studio
Game Arts
Media.Vision
Last edited:
Jimster480
Posts: 156 +139
Honestly this is like a "most popular by sold games #" only list.
definitely not the "best of all time".
Humongous Entertainment? While they only made kids games, they pioneered many concepts used in modern day games.
Gas Powered Games or Cavedog - Creator of Total Annihilation (CD), Supreme Commander (GPG) they defined what a modern RTS game is. Today there is Planetary Annihilation.... which has set a new standard.
Westwood - Literally pioneered the concept of RTS games.
ID Software deserves to be higher up in the list, they Pioneered the FPS and literally developed the modern FPS engines that power so many games today.
MicroProse - Literally pioneered 4X games, the latest being the final Master Of Orion... developer is currently rebooting.
There are many other developers to name like Sega, THQ, Novalogic, Team17, Maxis, Polyphony Digital, Codemasters, Namco, Bandai...... the list goes on and on.
This list of developers is clearly made by someone who likes specific franchises of single player games and thinks they are the greatest ever. The only 3 who deserve to be on this list are Valve, Nintendo, Blizzard (even this one is a bit debatable, however they pioneered online play with battlenet) and ID... the rest are debatable with Square Enix being the biggest contender to add to the list with the aforementioned 4.
definitely not the "best of all time".
Humongous Entertainment? While they only made kids games, they pioneered many concepts used in modern day games.
Gas Powered Games or Cavedog - Creator of Total Annihilation (CD), Supreme Commander (GPG) they defined what a modern RTS game is. Today there is Planetary Annihilation.... which has set a new standard.
Westwood - Literally pioneered the concept of RTS games.
ID Software deserves to be higher up in the list, they Pioneered the FPS and literally developed the modern FPS engines that power so many games today.
MicroProse - Literally pioneered 4X games, the latest being the final Master Of Orion... developer is currently rebooting.
There are many other developers to name like Sega, THQ, Novalogic, Team17, Maxis, Polyphony Digital, Codemasters, Namco, Bandai...... the list goes on and on.
This list of developers is clearly made by someone who likes specific franchises of single player games and thinks they are the greatest ever. The only 3 who deserve to be on this list are Valve, Nintendo, Blizzard (even this one is a bit debatable, however they pioneered online play with battlenet) and ID... the rest are debatable with Square Enix being the biggest contender to add to the list with the aforementioned 4.
Jimster480
Posts: 156 +139
That is true, although Blizzard pioneered online play in the masses with battlenet back in the day. There was no system quite like it for online play at the time. As a person who played online in the early 2000s, they were one of the first (if not the first) to build a major online gaming platform.
mrSister
Posts: 94 +121
Really, you mention Naughty Dog and do not mention Crash Bandicoot as notable franchise? Sure it is now in the greedy hands of activision, but they were the creators and should be credited as such.
And where are Sega, Konami, Namco and all the devs from the good old arcade days?
Also, is Valve a game developer anymore or just a software distribution company that happens to make a game every now and then?
And where are Sega, Konami, Namco and all the devs from the good old arcade days?
Also, is Valve a game developer anymore or just a software distribution company that happens to make a game every now and then?
I was also expecting to see Maxis you know they are in my top 10
ZedRM
Posts: 1,804 +1,207
I'm not saying that Naughty Dog isn't a good company or does not make good titles. What I'm saying is that they have not contributed to gaming history as much as Sega has.
ZedRM
Posts: 1,804 +1,207
GLenn63
Posts: 148 +55
What about coleco?
terzaerian
Posts: 1,517 +2,260
RE: Bioware
"I, I do not remember your [games, Bioware]. I have tried. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory but it is gone. A hollow dead thing. For years I clung to the memory of it, then the memory of the memory, then nothing, [E.A.] took that from me too. I look upon you and feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me along with all the others."
"I, I do not remember your [games, Bioware]. I have tried. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory but it is gone. A hollow dead thing. For years I clung to the memory of it, then the memory of the memory, then nothing, [E.A.] took that from me too. I look upon you and feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me along with all the others."
terzaerian
Posts: 1,517 +2,260
Nintendo still puts out quality games but their corporate conduct is, if anything, almost worse than EA's. They go out of their way to level unusual punishment on ROM distributors (even for games which are long out of production and unavailable by any other means besides grey market), spam spurious DMCA claims liberally on YouTubers that deal with their content, and generally treat the competitive Smash community like garbage. The Stockholm syndrome of their fans is the most powerful in gaming.
Avro Arrow
Posts: 3,721 +4,821
I'm kinda surprised that you had Naughty Dog in there instead of Namco. To anyone who doesn't recognise the Namco name, well, it's a pretty old company. So old in fact, that its first arcade game that I can remember was called Periscope and it was 100% mechanical without being a pinball game. I think that I was 5 or 6 years old when I first saw Periscope.
Let's do a list of the legendary franchises that Namco has spawned:
Pole Position (Every racing game owes its heritage to Pole Position and it's arguably the first 3-D game)
Breakout (what Arkanoid copied)
Galaxian (Space Invaders on steroids)
Galaga (Even Iron Man knows this game "THAT MAN IS PLAYING GALAGA!")
Tekken (The first 3D fighting game)
Ace Combat (Arguably the greatest fighter jet franchise of all time)
You know... I think that I'm forgetting something big and important.... Oh yeah, this one:
Even Google has its own small playable version:
https://g.co/kgs/8fs9ea
Pac-Man was acknowledged as the "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game in History" by The Guinness Book of World Records in 2005. In an obituary for Masaya Nakamura in 2017, Nintendo Life's Damien McFerran wrote: "without Namco and Pac-Man, the video game arena would be very different today."
At 42,071,635 units sold, Pac-Man is the 11th-best-selling game in history and, the oldest game in the top-50 list by 3 years and 11 months in a list that has only 5 games from the 1980s. The only two games from the 80s that are ahead of it are Super Mario Bros. (because it was included with EVERY NES console) and Tetris (which was included with every Game Boy). Pac-Man is 14 places ahead of Duck Hunt which was included in every NES Action Set (with the light pistol). No Pac-Man game was ever included with a console, not even the horrible Pac-Man port done by Atari. Also remember that this was back when video games were extremely expensive.
Let's do a list of the legendary franchises that Namco has spawned:
Pole Position (Every racing game owes its heritage to Pole Position and it's arguably the first 3-D game)
Breakout (what Arkanoid copied)
Galaxian (Space Invaders on steroids)
Galaga (Even Iron Man knows this game "THAT MAN IS PLAYING GALAGA!")
Tekken (The first 3D fighting game)
Ace Combat (Arguably the greatest fighter jet franchise of all time)
You know... I think that I'm forgetting something big and important.... Oh yeah, this one:
Even Google has its own small playable version:
https://g.co/kgs/8fs9ea
Pac-Man was acknowledged as the "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game in History" by The Guinness Book of World Records in 2005. In an obituary for Masaya Nakamura in 2017, Nintendo Life's Damien McFerran wrote: "without Namco and Pac-Man, the video game arena would be very different today."
At 42,071,635 units sold, Pac-Man is the 11th-best-selling game in history and, the oldest game in the top-50 list by 3 years and 11 months in a list that has only 5 games from the 1980s. The only two games from the 80s that are ahead of it are Super Mario Bros. (because it was included with EVERY NES console) and Tetris (which was included with every Game Boy). Pac-Man is 14 places ahead of Duck Hunt which was included in every NES Action Set (with the light pistol). No Pac-Man game was ever included with a console, not even the horrible Pac-Man port done by Atari. Also remember that this was back when video games were extremely expensive.
Last edited:
ZedRM
Posts: 1,804 +1,207
Yup. Those are not significant contributors to gaming history.
That's an opinion. Not everyone shares it.
That is patently false and you are nitpicking. Do stop..
Yes, I know I already responded, but I felt like a more fine grained input.
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Revisit: Is this the GOAT?- Achaios replied
