Day after day, passionate gamers pour their love into discussions about video games of all kinds – rarely do we reflect the people behind the inventive puzzlers, story-driven adventures, and artistic experiments we obsess over.
Who are these video game makers, and what makes them special? What is their history? What have these developers done for the games industry in its 40 years of existence?
Well let s start!
#10 Id Software
Founded in: 1990
Key Games: Doom Quake Wolfenstein 3D
While id Software’s most recent release, Rage, wasn’t exactly an innovative title, the studio is responsible some of the most influential games in the industry. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II and the revolutionary 3D tech of Quake essentially defined the rules for what a first-person shooter should be. The influence was felt far beyond the scope of the genre, in particular with the Doom franchise as it sparked widespread user modding, file sharing, and, popularized the culture of competitive first-person shooting. The studio would later shift to solely focus on the multiplayer element with Quake III Arena, before returning to single-player style with Doom 3, but in the days since hasn’t has the same kind of widespread impact as it did with its early work. The first-person shooter genre has been relentlessly polished and refined over the years, but none of that would have been possible without id Software’s work in the 1990s.
Company Info
Website: http://www.idsoftware.com
Address: Mesquite, TX
Phone: (970) 522-1797
#9 Maxis
Founded in: 1987
Key Games: The Sims SimCity Spore
No one should be surprised to see Maxis on this list. This PC developer was founded by industry luminary Will Wright, who helped the studio create fan-favorite titles like SimCity, SimAnt, SimEarth and many more. After being acquired by Electronic Arts in 1997, the studio went on to create one of the publisher’s biggest franchises, the now world-renown The Sims. While more recent projects such as Spore and Darkspore have met with less acclaim, the studio’s next project, simply named SimCity, stands a chance to put them back in the spotlight again.
Company Info
Website: http://www.maxis.com
Address: 2 Theatre Square
Orinda, CA 94563-3346
Phone: (510) 254-9700
#8 Blizzard Entertainment
Founded in:1991
Key Games: Diablo StarCraft World of Warcraft
Many may not remember Blizzard used to develop console games. As Silicon & Synapse, the fledgling studio produced The Lost Vikings in 1992 for a variety of platforms, and later, as Blizzard Entertainment, went on to make Blackthorne in 1994 for Super NES and PC. It wasn’t until Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, a PC-based real-time strategy game, that Blizzard would begin its transformation into one of the most influential studios in the industry. By 2001, Blizzard was a dominant force in the real-time strategy genre with StarCraft and the role-playing genre with Diablo II. The remarkable success of World of Warcraft further amplified Blizzard’s growth, as the popularity of its fantasy MMO peaked around 12 million subscribers, and forever changed how studios approached development of online games. In 2012, Blizzard’s StarCraft II is a premiere title in e-sports competitions worldwide, World of Warcraft still has over 10 million subscribers, and many are anxious to see whether its next MMO, Titan, can replicate WoW’s success. For a studio to remain so critically influential over such a long period of time is truly a rarity.
Company Info
Website: http://www.blizzard.com
Address: P.O. Box 18979
Irvine, CA 92713-8979
Phone: (800) 953-7669
#7 Valve
Founded in:1996
Key Games:Half-Life Portal Left 4 Dead
Since the release of the landmark first-person shooter Half-Life in 1998, Valve has never relinquished its position at the bleeding edge of the industry. For most of its successful franchises, Valve brought onboard creators from the community to turn great ideas into full production titles, as was the case with its Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat franchises, alongside the upcoming Dota 2, which grew out of the Warcraft III mod scene. In addition to Valve’s amazing titles, the developer has been a critical innovator in the digital distribution space, launching its Steam platform at a time way before most other publishers were comfortable with the idea. Today, Steam is the dominant distribution platform, supporting everything from game publishing to mod consolidation to microtransactions, and even letting players create and profit from content in Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, making Valve one of the most important companies in the industry.
Company Info
Website: http://www.valvesoftware.com
Address: 520 Kirkland Way #201
Kirkland, WA 98033
#6 SquareSoft
Founded in:1986
Key Games: Final Fantasy VII Chrono Trigger Xenogears
SquareSoft doesn’t exist anymore. In 2003, it merged with fellow Japanese company Enix to become Square-Enix. But this developer and publisher still has to be on this list for its monumental contributions to the industry, and specifically to the RPG genre. From Final Fantasy to Xenogears, and from Chrono Trigger to Secret of Mana, SquareSoft was at one time considered the premiere developer and publisher of RPGs, a title it held for well over a decade. Square’s properties have since lost prestige, but the gaming industry and the RPG genre would look radically different without its body of work, which include a handful of the most beloved JRPGs ever created.
Company Info
Website: http://www.square-enix-usa.com
Address: 959 South Coast Drive Suite #400 Costa Mesa, CA 92626
#5 Atari
Founded in: 1972
Key Games: Asteroids Gauntlet Centipede
Most gamers associate the Atari brand with the Atari 2600, the 1970s device that popularized and crystalized what is still considered a game console to this day. But the Atari Games studio, known as Atari Coin early on, is also responsible for some of the biggest and most important arcade games released in the 1980s including Gauntlet, Marble Madness and Paperboy. The coin-op division would change corporate ownership often, but its heritage of arcade excellence always endured. In the 90s the studio was responsible for Primal Rage, Area 51, San Francisco Rush and other beloved titles.
Company Info
Website: http://www.atari.com
Phone: (800) 462-8274
#4 Konami
Founded in:1969
Key Games:Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Metal Gear Solid Silent Hill 2
Founded in the late ‘60s as a jukebox company, Konami emerged as a powerhouse of the gaming industry in the 1980s. Like Capcom, Konami has always been part developer and part publisher, but the contributions of its internal development teams to the realm of gaming is what it’s most fondly known for. Its Castlevania, Metal Gear and Silent Hill series are perhaps its three most well-known franchises, and they cover very different genres and subject matter. Konami may have fallen from grace in recent years, but it’s impossible to ignore the powerhouse it once was, such a powerhouse, in fact, that Konami created a spinoff corporation – Ultra Games – just so it could publish everything it was developing back in the NES days. Talk about output.
Company Info
Website: http://www.konami.com
Address: JAPAN:
Konami - Head Office
3-1, Toranomon 4-chome, Minato-ku,
Tokyo 105-6021, Japan
Phone: 650-654-5600
#3 Rockstar North
Founded in:2002
Key Games: Grand Theft Auto III Grand Theft Auto IV Red Dead Redemption (in cooperation with Rockstar San Diego)
The term "Rockstar" is thrown out for all games developed and published under that banner. But the sole developer responsible for a vast majority of Rockstar’s hits is, in fact, Rockstar North. The Scotland-based developer is best-known for its epic contributions to the gaming industry in the form of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto IV. And it’s currently working on Grand Theft Auto V, a game almost guaranteed to sell millions of copies from the get-go. But Rockstar North is known for even more – it created Manhunt and helped out Rockstar San Diego on development of Red Dead Redemption, too – and has a considerable history under another name, DMA Design. But for its GTA games alone, Rockstar North holds a special place in the history of the gaming industry.
Company Info
Website: http://www.rockstarnorth.com/
Address: Edinburgh, Scotland UK
#2 Capcom
Founded in: 1983
Key Games: Mega Man Street Fighter II Devil May Cry Resident Evil 4
Though Capcom has always been part publisher, part developer, its internally-developed games are its best known commodities. It’s been developing and publishing since 1983 but truly made a name for itself when the NES came out. Its Mega Man franchise – spanning six games on NES – are among the most fondly-remembered old-school titles of all-time. By the time the ‘90s rolled around, its Street Fighter franchise was gaining steam, and from the mid and late ‘90s right through ‘til today, it continues to bring players new games in its Resident Evil series. Capcom’s reach, its ability to relate to its fans and its oft-criticized, yet timely and financially successful ability to milk a franchise gives it our undying respect. Capcom helped craft, mold and define the gaming industry, a status few developers can lay claim to.
Company Info
Website: http://www.capcom.com
Address: JP OFFICE:
3-1-3 Uchihirano-machi, Chuo-ku, Osaka
540-0037, Japan
US OFFICE:
800 Concar Drive, Suite 300
San Mateo, CA
94402-2649
Phone: (650) 350-6500
#1 Nintendo EAD
Founded in:1983
Key Games: Super Mario Bros. The Legend of Zelda Metroid
The term ‘legendary’ almost isn’t enough to describe Nintendo’s Entertainment and Analysis Division (EAD), an internal group of development teams based in Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan that have revolutionized gaming time and time again for more than three decades.With various groups led over the years by such visionaries as Shigeru Miyamoto, Gunpei Yokoi, Hideki Konno, Katsuya Eguchi, Eiji Aonuma, Genyo Takeda and Takashi Tezuka, Nintendo has not only created iconic series like Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zelda and Metroid, but boldly redefined gaming with efforts like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Brain Age and Wii Sports. Its contributions have accomplished no less than saving the entire industry after it crashed in the early ‘80s, and continue to redefine how the world experiences games, even when it seems crazy to avoid commonplace trends.Nintendo has forever changed the way we interact with games, and every few years, it seems to do that all over again. That’s thanks to EAD. The only question confronting this crew isn’t if they’ll revolutionize the industry again – it’s when.
Company Info
Website: http://www.nintendo.com
Address: Kyoto, Japan
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