Like the title says - Who are your top three favorite game studios and why
Looking Glass Studios - The makers of classic games such as Thief, System Shock 1 and 2, Ultima: Underworld, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centari, the list goes on and on.
Why I love them:
Their games were full of interaction with the environment and different every time a new one came out.
CDProjekt Red - Creators of the Witcher video game franchise and soon Cyberpunk.
Why I love them:
Their games are striving to be what looking glass once was AWESOME in almost every way and different every time.
Also proving that Customer respect, Quality Games and DRM Free sells more copies than going DRM heavy with GOG.com.
EPIC Games - Creators of the Unreal Engine and Unreal Tournament series.
Why I love them:
How can you not love a company that sells you AAA quality tools at 19.00 USD a month and updates them as well per month.
Honorable Mentions -
VALVe - The creators of the Half Life Series, Left 4 Dead and Portal Series as well as owners of the popular platform STEAM.
Why I love them:
Story Telling in their games is top notch and they sell me games at the price of candy bars.
Red Storm Entertainment - Creators of the Tactical Shooter genre famous for Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. Started by Tom Clancy.
Why I love them:
Because they made shooter games that tailored to people who like to think. Highly lethal gun play and Tactics were the orders of the day in their games.
Obsidian Entertainment - Made up of former Black Isle staff. Famous for New Vegas and Work on Fallout 1 and 2 as Black Isle.
Why I love them:
They made classic games such as Wasteland, Fallout, etc. The list goes on
1.Epic Games - epic have empowered people to make their ideas a reality more so than other companies with their great licensing options and the content available through marketplace that can even be used in your own games is extremely helpful and support from epic staff is very good if you need help
2.ID software - Not for making the first 3d game because atari did that and not for anything they do now but because john carmack was the first person to ever work out how to get the pcs graphic card to emulate the nintendo system of the time by not redrawing everything at once paving the way for side scrollers on pc…they even made mario bros 3 in a weekend and submitted it to nintendo but nintendo didnt want anything that wasnt on their system
Diablo series: Diablo 2 was the first game I played for months. I was seriously addicted to it
Warcraft series: I enjoyed playing World of Warcraft for years, I was fascinated by this game. Warcraft III was a brilliant game too.
StarCraft series: StarCraft II was very much fun. Played it for about 2 years.
Looking Glass Studios
I will never forget Thief: The Dark Project
Firefly Studios
Creators of the awesome Stronghold series.
Honorable Mentions
EPIC Games
Unreal Engine. They inspired me to start working on my latest game project
Game Freak
Pokemon!
Nothing else to say here
Attention to Detail
The creators of Rollcage.
Playing this game in multiplayer mode was funny as hell back in the day
Valve
They brought DotA to a higher level with its own game “Dota 2” and with the nearly 11million $ price pool for a tournament this year they made a statement: e-sports is a real sport!
ArenNet
Guild Wars 1 Maybe the best “MMO” ever made?
ZeniMax(& their sub Bethesta)
Oblivion/Skyrim/ESO cancelled sub, but it’s a great game -> these games are awesome.
Irrational Games - Bioshock (1, Infinite, Burial at Sea)…nothing really else needed there.
id Software - Not only for their work in the genre, but their actual liking towards mappers and such. I always thought it was cool that they released the source code of their engine to everyone… and they made DOOM.
Valve - They change what we believed a FPS game could be so many years ago… Half-Life will always remain deep in my heart.
Epic Games - Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Engine, …
Ok so that was four, but I couldn’t find one to drop.
1 - Epic Games, for the technology they’re providing to a lot of people. Also, the Unreal series up to 2004 is fantastic, and they’re easily some of my favourite games.
2 - Valve, since they make great games and have helped keep PC and Indie gaming alive
3 - Looking Glass, the game I’m working on is heavily inspired by Thief so it wouldn’t be fair not to give them credit!
iD made some great games in their early days, and also released their engine code. Ion Storm (Austin), in their short life, also made the Deus Ex games and a very good Thief sequel.
Epic games - I think there is no need to elaboration, they are just amazing
Square Enix(Old) - I really like how they experimented with final fantasy series. Each title had unique and interesting rpg system, really differ from any other games. Nowadays everyone just copy rpg system from the most successful games. Plus, art and music is always A+, lovely tech & magic mix in most games
ArenaNet - the best environment and concept art ever! The amount of details is always so high as it could possible be. I can roaming in their locations without any fighting and still be happy
Valve. Every title is a brilliant, every game has unique atmosphere that swallow you and don’t want to let go.
Kodjima Production - well, it’s like Valve in one person, honestly
Valve - Thanks gabe for taking over $1500 from me so far in games.
3)Jagex - I still remember when you were decent before the buyout.
Infinity Ward - I still wish the original team wasn’t fired, I’d still be buying your COD games.
Ubisoft - Thanks for the first couple AC’s but after that… meh.
EA - Thanks for BFBC2, the only decent game you’ve impressed me with.
Studio Ghibli - Best Anime Movies Eva
Funanimation - Best Dub’s for Anime
Epic Games - because of being honest, and providing great tech.
Valve - because, thanks to them something is finally going on in Linux world.
CDP RED - because they make AAA quality games, which are not watered down to oblivion.
Other than that:
ArenaNET - mainly for Guild Wars 1. It’s game I still tend to play now. Guild Wars 2 is Ok, but I’m not sure if I ever forgive changing the old skill system.
Piranha Bytes - Gothic 1/2/3, Risen 1/3, I’m just fanboy of these games. Mele combat is terrible, dialogs are laughable, graphics always subpar, world is small, and yet I still play.
Relic - Well. they are the only ones, which made Warhammer 40k PC games, which are worthy playing.
Ah! How could I forget Kojima!
Especially now that MGS V is coming to the PC!
And “Silent Hills” (how many towns… or hills are there?) is being made by him.
Actually I’d like to include Crytek also just for their original work. If it wasn’t for Far Cry and Crysis, who knows where we would be?
However, I’m a bit upset with the whole “let’s go free to play and not pay people” approach… it’s just odd that they would do that.
Then again I’m assuming we’re not hearing the whole story (or at least I hope not).
Blizzard, because I’ve been hooked on pretty much every game they’ve ever made at one point or another, and I think I’ve spent more time playing with the StarCraft/WarCraft 3/StarCraft 2 level editors than I’ve spent actually playing games in total (well, maybe if you don’t count the time I spent playing WoW).
Bioware, for making my all-time favorite game series (Mass Effect) and most of their other games are pretty good too.
Valve, who may have been more influential on the game industry than any other company in the last 15 years. Oh, and I guess they make pretty good games too. This is the only other company besides Blizzard that I automatically play every game they release.
Because I can’t pick just 3:
90’s-era id Software. They’re not the company they used to be, but I don’t need to tell anyone how they revolutionized gaming with Doom, and again with Quake. Doom was also the game that introduced me to modding and level design. I was obsessed with making Doom levels all through middle/high school.
Epic, because I’ve always been a big fan of the UT series, and UE4 is giving me, a person with no coding experience, an opportunity to make my own full games on a AAA game engine (as opposed to mods/levels for other games) for the first time.
Nintendo, because c’mon, it’s freaking Nintendo! Pretty much everything they make is just really fun, and several of their games are listed as some of my favorite games of all time (Super Metroid was my #1 until Mass Effect knocked it out of the position).
I think the clear first winner for me is Epic. They’ve proven time and time again that they recognize the power of indie devs because of their own indie roots, and have done basically everything they can to foster those devs. I respect them because they respect me.
Second would have to go to Gearbox. I’ve heard time and time again about the great things they do for their community. Helping their fans out with super cool stuff like proposals and even paying respects with a eulogy. Regardless of what I hear about certain games, I know the company has heart, and I respect them for that.
Third is Creative Assembly, solely for the risk they took with Total War: Rome 2. Instead of buying more advertisements for their game, they decided to use it to commission the guys over at Extra Credits to do a video series of the history of the Punic Wars. Not only was this a fantastic example of reaching out to a community (in this case even without the requirement of advertising the game… which the Extra Credits guys did, because even they agreed that the idea was so cool and believed that the Creative Assembly team deserved recognition for it), but the video series itself was excellent. If they taught history like they did in schools, then I guarantee people would have been more interested.
If anyone else hasn’t seen it, check it out here:
- friendly staff, cool games, good support, unreal engine, they take care of the community + would be cool to work there 
. my list is: