You favourite developer (company or individual)

I don't believe I've seen this topic actually brought up here before. If it has been, I couldn't find the topic.

Playing XCOM 2 recently (I've had zero issues performance wise with it - luck of the draw), it dawned on me that on my Steam library, Firaxis is the company whose games I have poured the most time in to. The biggest 'miss' of theirs was Beyond Earth, which is not a bad game, it's just not as good as Civ V. I know Firaxis is limited in the range of games they make, but I really like their current specialisation. A lot of companies or individuals make very similar styled games anyway (From Software comes to mind). This is not a criticism.

I know that my 'favourite' developer changes over time (as a kid, I would've said Lucasarts or Rare for sure), but I was wondering who your favourite developers were and why?

If I were to pick a single developer, I'd probably go with Tim Schafer.

I could also go for John Carmack, Jonathan Blow, Lorne Lanning, Ken Levine, or Rami Ismail. Partially because they've worked on games I've loved, but also because they have interesting things to say about game development and other game-related topics.

Irrational? Rocksteady? Kojima Productions? Tough question.

Johnny V.

CD projekt red! Real good developer making some of the best rpgs i've played. Their next game would be an instant purchase for me. They seem really talented and well-intentioned.

yeah Firaxis is a good one. Their output has been consistently high quality for eons.

I generally like anything Nintendo or Squaresoft/Square Enix (and most of Capcom's) makes, even to this day.

some individuals off the top of my head.

• Hironobo Sakaguchi
• Yasumi Matsuno
• Shigeru Miyamoto
• Hideo Kojima
• Hideaki Itsuno
• Eiji Aonuma
• Yuji Horii
• Roberta Williams

among many others

I'm familiar enough with their output, that i can play a game they make before knowing they are on it and usually recognize some of their sensibilities immediately . How much impact each actually has on a game I couldn't say. I don't know how much of Auteur theory is true. But I do like the idea of knowing some of the human faces behind games and recognizing their work. Or at least thinking I do.

Phil Fish might've made the craziest game in existence. And my never develop again.

Blizzard. They never fail to deliver something enjoyable to me. Ever since Warcraft 2 I have been hooked.

Valve is #2 but I never cared much for Left4Dead or Dota2.

i'm really interested in Hellblade, i just love Ninja Theory's output so far

Todd Howard is the only video game dev whose speaking has actually influenced me - and I'm in a completely different creative field than he.

In terms of games I enjoy Paradox is up there, at this point Crusader Kings 2 is among the games I've played most in my life. Naughty Dog - I've loved all their games since Crash, idk why I aligned like that. Bethesda - Oblivion blew my mind, I just never experienced a world like that one. Bioware has made some of the best games ever to me. And yeah, I agree above Phil Fish is one hell of a dev for making one unbelievable game in his career and then leaving like a fireball.

Probably Bioware and Obsidian, though the last few Bioware games have been a bit dissapointing in my opinion.

Double Fine for shaking up the industry, and making some of my favorite games.

Naughty Dog for Jak 1, Uncharted 2, and Last of Us.

Irrational/Ken Levine for elevating games to higher level.

Also, Nintendo. Without them we'd really be nowhere.

Troika.

Definitely Troika.

Probably Bullfrog.

LucasArts, Obsidian and Bioware (pre-EA) are up there too.

DrinkBox Studios because they make great games and they have the same love for the Vita as Vita owners.

Up to 2006 Square. Like most people grew up with Nintendo, I did the same with Square.

Squeenix is possibly my vote for least liked, ironically.

Probably Hideki Kamiya for me personally. I was never super into actions games when I was younger but I picked up Bayonetta by chance and since then every game Platinum has put out has been a must buy for me (with the Legend of Korra game being the one, minor exception).

A close runner up would be Swery. Not a huge catalog, but god dammit if he doesn't have a wacky style that really sticks with me. I played D4 with my girlfriend while she was finishing her Fine Arts degree and 'avvvaaaaannnnt-gaaaaarrrddeee!' has become one of our go to quotes. Plus Swery is adorable.

CD Projekt just for their incredible pro-consumer stance. Everything about how they develop and support their games creates a good vibe and in return people want to support them.

@tehbull: I don't really love the stuff that Blizzard make but that's a really cool answer because it's hard to think of a Blizzard game in the last decade or so that's been a 'dud'. They don't put a lot out but they aim for quality when they do. (I think almost the exact same of Valve)

Paradox and CD Project Red are probably my two favourites right now. Paradox because no one else makes games like their's and CD Project Red because they have always struck me as being very supportive of their customers.

Firaxis would have been on here once upon a time (how I love you Alpha Centauri) but I've fallen off the Civ games (IV being the highpoint for me and Beyond Earth being the low) and despite loving XCOM the second one especially has some really funky issues.

As a company, it's Nintendo. I would never have been as into games as I am if it hadn't been for their games. I've mostly been playing on ther consoles since the Wii, but I have yet to find a company that do the same things better. The best I've found are companies that do different things. Open world RPGs are amazing.

I don't really know or care enough about the behind the scenes stuff to have a favorite person that makes video games. Kamiya was a treat in his developer commentary for Bayonetta, though. Swery is enjoyable on Instagram. Almost all of the developers that turn up on GB are pleasant, it's just that mostly they've made games I don't care about. I love Dave Lang, but I think the only thing he's been involved in that I've played are old Capcom ports.

In terms of "largest number of games I like a lot" probably Rockstar and wadjeteye.

In terms of individuals that make me buy a game just because their name is associated with it: Sam Lake and Ken Levine

Also this. Forever in my heart.

Chris Avelonne is definetly my favorite game developer.

Other amazing studios are:

Clover/Platinum (Bayonetta, god hand, Okami)

Chris Avelonne/Obisidian (Planescape Torment, Alpha Protocol, Fallout New Vegas)

Naughty dog (Jak, Uncharted, Last of us)

Right now: Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve, CAVE, Raizing/8ing

In the past: Konami, Squaresoft, Capcom, Looking Glass, Sierra, LucasArts

Used to be Bioware, but they got replaced by CD Projekt Red. Platinum might be my second favorite.

Me too. . . my knee-jerk reaction to this question was "Ninja Theory." I love what they do with character development, voice acting and motion capture.

Thatgamecompany (Journey) and Team ICO (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Last Guardian)

Josh Sawyer/Obsidian

Tim Schafer

And I know he's probably never going to make games again but Will Wright just seems like a cool guy.

Kojima, Vanillaware, klei, supergiant games, vlambeer

Michael Ancel and Yoot Saito

Hmmmmm, I'd say Nippon Ichi Software, Atlus, and Vanillaware. If I absolutely had to pick just one, I'd go with Vanillaware. Their track record (at least for games officially released in the West) is literally perfect in my book. Every single one of those games would easily rank high among my favorite games of all time.

I don't even want to say. People here already think I'm nuts probably.

Genki

Sandlot

Polyphony digital

Zipper interactive (rip)

Blizzard

Takashi Tezuka

BioWare

Hideki Kamiya

Kojima.

I also have a soft spot for ACE team. (Zeno clash 1,2,Abyss Odyssey)

Bullfrog in the past.

CDPR for sure, I will buy anything from these guys.

Rockstar, despite that they treat PC platform not as important as consoles.

While it's tempting to say Atlus, the only things by them I really like are Persona 3 and Persona 4.

I really like turn-based strategy games. I've always loved Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, so Intelligent Systems is really high on my list of favorite developers. I've also logged countless (because I don't want to look at Steam's tracker...) hours in Civ and XCOM, so Firaxis is also really high up there. I think those two are actually my favorite developers.

EDIT: Just looked at the list of games Intelligent Systems is credited with. They're actually my favorite game developer of all time.

Western Dev would be Obsidian, Japanese Developers would be a combination of Atlas and Platinum.

For a studio, it would be tough for me to choose between CD Projekt and Rockstar.

Rockstar does fantastic work I think and I love the weighty feel of their recent games, which few other games have adopted. I think Red Dead is the best game they've made and up there with the best ever. I think they have some really underrated games (Max Payne 3 and The Warriors are two I find very underrated).

CD Projekt just does amazing RPG work. I think Witcher 2 and 3 have some wonky mechanics, but I really enjoy most of their games mechanically (particularly W3) but story wise they are just fantastic. I can't wait to see them do Cyberpunk.

For lone developers, I would go with Hideo Kojima and Sam Lake. Really enjoy both for their unique personality that comes through in their games. Both have created some of my favorite game worlds and moments.

Naughty Dog

If I ignore how they treat us europeans, then Atlus is probably the company that has created most of my favorite games with series like Persona, Shin megami tensei and Etrian odyssey.

Falcom has also climbed that ladder a bit thanks to the wonderful Legend of heroes-games and the overall great Ys-series.

I'd agree with that one. DeathDrome, MechWarrior 3, SOCOM and MAG were all great games.

My personal top picks for development studios would be Westwood and Looking Glass Studios though. Westwood had an incredibly varied output and almost all their games were among the best in their genre. The only game I really disliked by them was Sole Survivor, but as MOBA's go, it at least was somewhat interesting and was way ahead of it's time.

Looking Glass did stick more to a single formula throughout System Shock, Terra Nova and Thief, but they did that formula incredibly well and iterated on in interesting ways over the years. I've never been disappointed with a LGS game.

CD Projekt Red.

Obsidian close second.

I think it's got to be Obsidian. After finishing Pillars of Eternity I wanted to send them fan mail because holy shit that game was made for me.

Remedy and Rockstar I probably wouldn't give two shit about games anymore if GTA3 or Max Payne wasn't created I'm glad games in the past 15 years are more mature and darker while Rock music went into the pussy hipster direction games took off where rock use to be.

Relic Entertainment gave us Homeworld, Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes. All were massively influential games for me, and I still have a ton of respect for those franchises

The runner up would probably be DICE, as I've been buying & playing Battlefield games virtually nonstop since 2002.

Blizzard, CD Projekt Red, and Square-Enix can compete for third place

Obsidian.