Your Top 3 developer studios -- based on RobertR1's original idea

[AlNom]

woop! the one I work for has been mentioned twice already!

So what is the deal with SC5 being pushed back to 2008? Did Jade make a fuss?

If you're allowed to answer:

How are your people split up or organized? There are a lot of projects going on, of course - are the people shuffled around after completion of a project and a new 'temporary' team formed for the next one, or are there specific groups of people that always work together?

e.g.
A) people are selected from an "available pool" and a team is put together for every game
B) for a game series, the same people always work together on sequels or something new - Team Alpha, Beta, etc... The teams never change
C) combination of both?

 

[dlm]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Nintendo.

A couple others I'd like to add to the pile:
Double Fine - nothing needs to be said
Oddworld Inhabitants - Fantastic games (minus Munch)
Lucas Arts - By this I refer to the SCUMM adventure games
Sierra - Looking back at King's Quest, QfG, Space Quest, etc... some truly great games

 

[iceberg187]

Team Ninja
UBI Montreal
Bizarre

 

[ShaidarHaran]

1) MS - Flight Sim is my most-played and favorite game franchise ever
2) Genki - Tokyo Extreme Racer is a close second behind MS Flight Sim for "best franchise"
3) Monolith - F.E.A.R. is my favorite single game ever, especially multi-player

Honorable mentions:
id - Doom & Quake franchises are both excellent
Blizzard - Diablo & Diablo II used to consume my life
LucasArts - so many good games here... the old X-wing franchise was amazing, and provided so many hours of entertainment for me in the early/mid 90's

 

[.Melchiah.]

Do Konami and Capcom count as developers, when they're made up of smaller studios? Otherwise you could say 'Sony' or 'Nintendo' for the millions of games they've made without appreciating individual studios (which I see .Melchiah. has done!)

If the studios are wholly owned by the parent company, why not? I'd be against including 2nd party developers like Insomniac or Level 5 there, that's why I only mentioned titles developed by studios owned by Sony. And I also left out MotorStorm, as Evolution Studios was bought by Sony after the game was released.


P.S. Sad to see there's no love for Crystal Dynamics on this thread.

 

[LunchBox]

NIS (Nippon Ichi Software)
Square Enix
Koei

 

[mister slim]

Retro Studios. Amazing art design and atmosphere, though I suppose I can't fully credit them for the music. The best single-player level design in the business.

Insomniac. Not only do they provide me with great games, they do it every single year. R&C has me hyped, but I'm interested in seeing what Resistance 2 can do.

Valve. Retro's only competition for SP level design. Great art design. Valve's games really feel intentional, while almost every other game I can see elements that weren't fully considered.

Nintendo's EAD and Blizzard are both very deserving but somehow don't have quite the charisma they once did. And Harmonix is very close to grabbing a top-three spot.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I'd have to say:

Ubisoft Montreal: Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, soon Assassin's Creed
Bioware: Masters of the western RPG.
Rare (Conker, Ghoulies, Starfox Adventures, Viva Pinata)

It used to be AM2 and Sonic Team, but they haven't done anything super special in a while.

 

[joker454]

Yes, I love creepy games.

You should definitely try the game Condemned on the 360 and play it in the dark with a surround sound system. Thats one of the creepiest games I've ever played!

I'd have to give mad props to Konami, they were gods to me in the 8bit Nes days. I still have a large Castlevania poster on my office wall in homage

 

[macabre]

You should definitely try the game Condemned on the 360 and play it in the dark with a surround sound system. Thats one of the creepiest games I've ever played!

I'd have to give mad props to Konami, they were gods to me in the 8bit Nes days. I still have a large Castlevania poster on my office wall in homage

I think I played the Condemned demo on the PC when it came out, but never got the full game. I should play it before the sequel comes out...maybe it gets a good series like the famous Konami/Kapcom games. From the less popular series I also liked the first parts of the Suffering and Obscure series.