Top 10 Game Developers of All Time

I might be too old, but I tried to jump on the wagon a few months back, and bought Doom Eternal. My experience with the game was so terrible, I returned the next day, and got a refund.

Turned out, everything I saw and heard of the game before I bought it was a lie. I spent 95% of time trying to master the unthinkable - how to jump and grab on shite, which required unfathomable accuracy and patience that was just beyond me. Way to ruin the franchise.
 
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ZedRM said:
I would have included Sega in this list and left out Naughty Dog as Sega has contributed far more to gaming history by far than many of the companies in this list, especially ND. Heck, even Capcom has contributed more than ND.
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Lol sega are you kidding me? How badly they ruined sonic alone should put them on the top 20 of the worst devs
 
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Bethesda Game Studios

This must be some kind of joke. All they make are games that are buggy as H*** and then Hope that modders fix everything because they just don't care. All Bethesda games I have played are pure crap. Perhaps casual player like them but hardcore players like me look elsewhere.

FromSoftware

OK, they make hard games. But. Storyline is simply non-existent so that some players can say they "understand" story and are better than others. In truth, there is nothing to really understand as there is no story. I guess that works.

Other than that, Souls games are nothing else than endless grinding with crappy combat mechanics. Not to mention 30 FPS on earlier games makes them unplayable. Top 10? Really?

Valve

Not that I like Half life 2, it just sucks, but leaving Episode 2 into cliffhanger for 14 years is more than enough to remove Valve from top 10. Not that I bothered even play it but still. They don't respect players so why should players respect them?

Honorable mentions

Where is Activision? Where is THQ? Where is Sega?

It seems listing is just for "most popular game developers of all time". No matter what quality they have done.
 
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jdwii said:
Lol sega are you kidding me? How badly they ruined sonic alone should put them on the top 20 of the worst devs
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You are missing some important context. The list is called "Top 10 Game Developers of All Time" not "Top 10 Developers of the last 5 years". Sega has and will always be one of the biggest contributors to gaming history, regardless of ignorant opinions like the one you offered.
 
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VitalyT said:
I might be too old, but I tried to jump on the wagon a few months back, and bought Doom Eternal. My experience with the game was so terrible, I returned the next day, and got a refund.

Turned out, everything I saw and heard of the game before I bought it was a lie. I spent 95% of time trying to master the unthinkable - how to jump and grab on shite, which required unfathomable accuracy and patience that was just beyond me. Way to ruin the franchise.
Click to expand...
The same thing happened to me. So difficult to move forward in the game that I had to quit. I cannot repeat levels for more than five times. Not fun.
 
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You can now do a "Top 10 Greatest developer downfalls of all time"

The perks is that you don't need to change the list at all: every single name on the list has released some of the worst games of all time, nothing survives Capitalism.
 
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ZedRM said:
I would have included Sega in this list and left out Naughty Dog as Sega has contributed far more to gaming history by far than many of the companies in this list, especially ND. Heck, even Capcom has contributed more than ND.
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Wow, dismissing the complete Crash / Uncharted / The Last of Us franchises? Pretty much anything they do is a masterpiece.

Sega, on the other hand, made around 50 franchises, of which only Sonic is a memorable one.
 
Hysc84 said:
Why no mention EPIC Games ?

It has Unreal and Unreal Tournament plus Cliff B and Unreal Engine
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You forget something much more important: Jazz Jackrabbit 1 & 2 !!

I can't get over the fact that they're never re-released those on consoles :( It'd be THE perfect couch co-op game. It's never too late, EPIC, so, if you're reading this, you know what to do...
 
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Azurelas said:
Bethesda shouldn't be anywhere near this list. Their games are fundamentally broken and are only made better/playable by the community.

A hill I'm willing to die on.
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90s Bethesda with Daggerfall made up for it a little bit by being fairly good gameplay on the parts that didn't utterly broke the game like *reads note* the main quest!? Ok n/m

But on a more serious note I do see a pattern here: except for Nintendo videogame reputation going back to the late 80s, every single one of this companies is fondly remembered by being a powerhouse of creativity in the 90s back when there was little to no major investment in the videogame industry outside of maybe Japan and even then mostly for the console hardware not really development which was still a microscopic affair compared to modern AAA games.

Some of you might already know where this is going but here it is: why did we needed to "elevate" gaming with AAA budget and corporate meddling? It seems like the universal agreement by most critics is that videogames peaked in the 90s if we go by lists like this giving praise to developers and I don't disagree, I just think that the art of it basically got away from these companies once the budget rolled in.
 
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HardReset said:
FromSoftware

OK, they make hard games. But. Storyline is simply non-existent so that some players can say they "understand" story and are better than others. In truth, there is nothing to really understand as there is no story. I guess that works.

Other than that, Souls games are nothing else than endless grinding with crappy combat mechanics. Not to mention 30 FPS on earlier games makes them unplayable. Top 10? Really?
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Completely agree. The games are lifeless and exist strictly on the basis of trading fun for difficulty. You don't get so much a sense of accomplishment when you complete sections of their games, you feel relief.
 
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- Bioware hasn't been "Bioware" since EA acquired them (between Dragon Age Origins and DA2). They're definitely way past their peak and all their "core" talent left ages ago. As Brent Knowles (lead developer of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire & Dragon Age Origins) said when he quit (after being disgusted with EA-Bioware's 'vision' for DA2), "I'm not the same person I was when I started, and BioWare certainly isn't the same company..."

- Bethesda hasn't been doing much "developing" at all over the past 10 years since turning Skyrim (2011) into an overly monetized cash cow. ES1: Arena (1994) -> ES2: Daggerfall (1996) -> ES3: Morrowind (2001) -> ES4: Oblivion (2006) -> ES5: Skyrim (2011) -> ES6: TBA (due 2016) -> ES7: TBA (due 2021). Now spot the missing two that could have been made but weren't because Creation Club + Remasteritus = Ker-Ching! Bethesda is far more of a publisher than a "developer". As for 'quality' of code, modders are still patching up Daggerfall...

Personally I'd have been far more interested in seeing a "What 40 different Game Developers have accomplished for PC gaming going back 40 years" series than a weak 'Top 10 Favourites'. So many other quality devs not on the list actually pushed things forward and invented whole genre's / were "benchmark setters" for their time (Black Isle, Ensemble, Looking Glass, LucasArts, Monolith, Sierra, Westwood, etc) vs just coasting along remaking / over-sequelling the same 15-25 year old IP or "remember the 2000's decade when Bethesda & Bioware actually made decent new single player RPG's?"...
 
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VitalyT said:
I might be too old, but I tried to jump on the wagon a few months back, and bought Doom Eternal. My experience with the game was so terrible, I returned the next day, and got a refund.

Turned out, everything I saw and heard of the game before I bought it was a lie. I spent 95% of time trying to master the unthinkable - how to jump and grab on shite, which required unfathomable accuracy and patience that was just beyond me. Way to ruin the franchise.
Click to expand...
I used WeMod to get past the parts I could not do. It was then that I realized how shallow Doom Eternal really is. Before using WeMod it was just hard. Now I don't really like the game
 
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I am surprised not to see Electronic Arts. I thought they are the 2nd largest after blizzard, with wonderful track record.
 
Either I'm getting old or the author is too young to leave out other developers like Origin (the original Texas developer who created classics like Ultima and Wing Commander series and others), Lucasfilm Games/Lucasarts, and shockingly-left-out Sierra.

And the author should have separated Square Enix to Squaresoft and Enyx as separate developers. Both developed excellent memorable games under their own banners before the merge. And obviously they didn't join for "mutual love" of RPGs.

He also left out Westwood, SSI, QQP, Microprose and Infocom.

And Dark Souls? It is definitely being over-hyped and being given more credit than it deserves. Must be a millennial thing.
Fortunately, he didn't mention CDPR.
Looks like this list was mostly made for the millenials. This shouldn't have been named ...."of all time".

There are other memorable developers that were sadly left out: Fasa Interactive, Bullfrog, Legend Entertainment, etc.

Leaving out Sega and Capcom is a joke too.
 
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