Who are your favorite developers? Was interested in seeing what the forum thought, being on the official BGS forums, everyone here pretty much loves them. But besides BGS, who do you admire?

(In no particular order) My favorites are below:

*Ensemble Studios - The game Age of Empires (the first one) was what really sparked my interest in gaming. I played some SNES games, but was never really into gaming until I played AoE, then my love for Ensemble was permanent. A shame that they closed down, really is. All their games, excluding Age of Empires 3 (which still was very well done in my opinion, just not as good as their previous work), were phenomenal. They really left a mark on RTS gaming.

*New World Computing - One series that always come to mind when I think of a good strategy game is Heroes of Might and Magic. The third was my all time favorite, and to this day I still play the game. Again, a shame they no longer exist, and I hate what Ubisoft is doing to the title.

*Blizzard - Another icon in RTS gaming is Blizzard. With Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and the series it spawned, I love the lore, and the gameplay of all their RTS games. Starcraft really set the standard and is recognized as one of the best, if the best RTS title. The balance between the 3 races was near perfect, and their is still a large competitive community playing the game. Other games such as Diablo left some good memories of me and friends staying up all night playing.

*Bioware - Knights of the Old Republic... Mass Effect... Dragon Age... Nuff' said. One of the best RPG developers. Their lore in their games is (to me) even better than the lore in TES (but not by much). I can really sit there for 30 minutes listening and reading codex entries in Mass Effect, and truly get immersed in the universe. Dragon Age lore wasn't as impressive, not that there was lack of it, simply that it is sort of generic. But the gameplay by itself is truly great, and the squad gameplay is as fun as anything.

*Valve - Where to begin? They have so many types of games it is hard to focus on one... well actually I take that back. Half Life. The first shooter I really liked, and the story is great also. (Where are you Episode Three!?!) However, they have many other great games! Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead are both great teamwork games, and both have a great online community that is still running. Their first-person puzzle game Portal is unmatched! One of the best, Valve is.

Blizzard, Bungie, Bioware (only for KOTOR), and SquareEnix.

LucasArts, even though they've not done anything with two high-profile franchises in quite some time (Battlefront III and Republic Commando II)

Visceral Games. I <3 Dead Space.

Epic games, for Gears of War and for helping out People Can Fly with Bulletstorm.

Sony Online Entertainment, for keeping Star Wars Galaxies alive, even after five or six years of it's community bashing it's work.

Bungie Studios for the Halo series.

Bethesda is probably my number one favorite, but that's obvious.

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Now, as for studios I dislike...

I hate Valve, because they seem to think they're the best studio ever. Half-Life is fun, but TF2 and L4D are SO overrated in my opinion. They do have an amazing PC games platform though.

BioWare, for betraying my trust with Dragon Age: Origins AND Mass Effect 2. I'm seriously worried they'll screw up TOR too. I do really love KOTOR though.

I also dislike Blizzard, since I dislike RTS games. I also find WoW overrated.

I love Rockstar North and San Diego for their skill with atmosphere, and Rocksteady for all the effort they put into Arkham Asylum, I like Lionhead's sense of humour. I like DICE just because Mirror's Edge is so awesome. I kinda like Valve since they seem to be one of the few devs that occasionally does nice things instead of just ruthlessly pursuing profits, but I don't like the way they've added so much random crap to TF2 that they pretty much destroyed the game - people just spend the whole time trading hats and ridiculous weapons, the game was good when it was just a fun multiplayer shooter. I also don't like the way every single game released on Steam nowadays has a huge banner like OMG 6 FREE HATS FOR TF2 THAT TOTALLY DON'T FIT THE VISUAL STYLE OF THE ORIGINAL GAME.

When has Valve ever acted like that? I know they are often regarded as very good, but I've never heard Valve brag about anything.



As for my companies this isn't so much "admiration" as the OP put it, I'm just more likely to pay full price for their games because I know they release quality, not rushed, products.

Bethesda is ok. This isn't necessarily to bash them (they certainly aren't bad) but games released by them are buggy enough they aren't in pre-ordering territory.

Valve
Blizzard
Arcen Games: Indie game company that makes several games I enjoy (AI + Tidalis). They have fantastic post-release support, updating AI War many times with free content and even improving on graphical effects for free.

Valve and Blizz.

In order of apreciation
1.Valve
(But where is my Episode Three?)
2.Bioware
Keep with the good work, restrains for things like Mass Effect 2
3.Obsidian
Alpha Protocol and New Vegas was awesome
4.Square Enix
Keep with the Single Player Final Fantasy series
5.EA
High hopes for Dead Space 2
6.Rockstar Games
GTA IV was great, Vice City and San Andreas too, but a little overrated

Bragging, no. Doing http://kotaku.com/#!293061/gabe-newell-smack-talks-the-pc-ps3-xbox-360-and-your-mother Yes.

TL:DR: Stating that another developer's work is trash is another way of saying "Ours is better."

Gabe Newell is also pretty fickle.

2007: "The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think it's really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted," said Newell. "I'd say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a 'do over.' Just say, 'This was a horrible disaster and we're sorry and we're going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it.'"

2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpcQoATYgsY

Team ICO is the only real stand-out development studio, in my opinion. Well, the only one consistent and great enough to be mentionable, anyway.

Square-Enix, Game Freak, Valve, and HAL Laboratories.

I can really blame them

Valve is still awesome after many years oo:

Aha, let's make him our [censored].


Pandemic was my favourite, then they went bust. I loved DAH, SW Battlefront and Mercenaries, they had five years of high productivity and then just disappeared.


Also the old Team 17 and Firaxis get good mentions.


Oh right yes, and Media Molecule. For daring to make PS3's Killer App in the middle of a game drought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im6yRpQrsaY

Current - Splash Damage, inXile Entertainment, Bethesda Game Studios, Id Software, Gearbox Software, CD Projekt, Piranha Bytes, Hi-Rez Studios, Interplay, ArenaNet, Team17, Epic Games, Digital Extremes, Double Fine, Obsidian, Valve, Nintendo, Retro Studios, Intelligent Systems, SOE, LucasArts (Monkey Island and Grim Fandango)

Defunct or owned by another company - New World Computing, Inc., Attic Entertainment Software, Arkane Studios, Dynamix, Blue Byte, Sierra, Westwood Studios, Legend Entertainment, 3D Realms, Black Isle Studios, Origin, Maxis

ROFL

Bethesda- For developing the best series I have ever played. Sure they may be buggy on release but the amount of care and attention they put into their games should speak for itself. Bugs can always be fixed. A [censored] game cannot.

BioWare- I just wish they would break away from EA asap. EA is ruining BioWare.

SquareEnix- Use to be my favorite in the world. They have slowly declined over the past decade. Final Fantasy XIII was the last straw. I'm done with Final Fantasy.

Bungie- You can argue that their games are shallow and repetitive but you know what? They develop for their fans and give their fans what they want.

Blizzard, Bioware, Square Enix, The company that made Penumbra/Amnesia(I know it, my mind is just drawing a blank), and Ubisoft.

I want to add SEGA on my list

And Konami

And Capcom

I would also like to mention Pandemic. They really made some kick-ass games, and EA pretty much screwed them over. I agree with Bonemonster, EA is degrading Bioware. EA is like the Siren, the show these promising development studios money and promise it to them, then toss them aside.

Rockstar
Obsidian
Bungie

BW was up there, then ME2 ruined ME for me, if I can get back into ME one day awesome, but until then not on my list.

Nobody mentioned Take-Two Interactive's 2K Games?

Come on... :clap: Clap with me... :clap: Come on... there you go, that's it... woo! :clap:

Edit: Also... The Creative Assembly... :clap:

Only one that hasn't been mentioned is Rare, of Goldeneye 007 fame. I like them for Jet Force Gemini however. It's a real shame about where they ended up. Went from developing unique games for Nintendo to making Xbox Live DLC for Microsoft.

Well, I would say Bioware, but they got bought by EA so I'm sure they will svck before long just like everything else EA touches.

Gearbox Software. Not because of the games they make, but because of the people running it. In general, Gearbox is full of cool people who are down to earth and don't take themselves to seriously. Embodied by, for instance, CEO Randy Pitchford whose interviews are usually both joyfully erratic and intelligent at the same time, as well as Mikey Neumann from the geeky but hilarious Anthony Saves The World web-series. I find it refreshing in contrast to other game developers led by people with annoying holier-than-thou attitudes, as well as the ones that just appear to me as big soul-less companies.

If Bioware would break from EA I would love them.

Midway for Mortal Kombat mainly.
Apparently its known as NetherRealm Studios now :shrug:

And Bethesda of course. I've loved every game I've played by Bethesda.