so i can't sleep and i'm a dork so who do you think makes the best vidyagames

1. Capcom (Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Mega Man, Street Fighter II, Viewtiful Joe) I love them
2. Nintendo (blasphemy they are not #1)
3. Square (falling off the map recently)

12/13/2008 4:33:22 AM

Considering Interplay released Fallout as well as Baulder's Gate, they're near the top for me...oh and they also did Earthworm Jim, Descent, and Planescape: Torment

but from start to finish, I'd put Electronic Arts #1. Regardless of how pissed some people get with them, you can't deny their catalog that goes back to the early 80's

12/13/2008 4:48:31 AM

Developers or publishers?

12/13/2008 4:58:03 AM

yea EA is great but they are just trying to sell games - I'm looking for INNOVATION

i feel games are getting unimaginative

somebody probably needs to mention Blizzard, I try to stay away from their games so I can have some sort of life

12/13/2008 5:02:27 AM

if you think EA isn't innovative, then I guess I may as well step out of this conversation now. sure they release updates to things like Madden and NCAA football every year, but this is the same company that did

Dr. J vs Larry Bird
The Bard's Tale
Populous
Need for Speed
Medal of Honor
The Sims
Battlefield 1942

just to name a few

12/13/2008 5:08:10 AM

MicroProse.

12/13/2008 5:09:04 AM

called out I do hate EA but I will acknowledge them

my favorite game from them was SSX strangely

12/13/2008 5:29:22 AM

Bungie

12/13/2008 5:35:47 AM

EA's sequelitis and monopolizing business practices are only a recent development.

Back in the day they were pretty damn awesome. Even recently, with their glut of unimaginitve rehashes, they have been pretty consistent in delivering good, if not groundbreaking, games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_arts#Game_quality

Quote :

"For 2006, the games review aggregation site Metacritic gives the average of EA games as 72.0 (out of 100); 2.5 points behind Nintendo (74.5) but ahead of the other first-party publishers Microsoft (71.6) and Sony (71.2). The closest third-party publisher is Take-Two Interactive (publishing as 2K Games and Rockstar Games) at 70.3. The remaining top 10 publishers (Sega, Konami, THQ, Ubisoft, Activision) all rate in the mid 60s. Since 2005 EA has published three games, Battlefield 2, Crysis, and Rock Band, that received Universal Acclaim (Metacritic score 90 or greater)."

As for developers, I'm gonna shout out to Black Isle (RIP), Bioware, Relic (best RTS dev IMO), and Bullfrog (RIP).

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 5:39 AM. Reason : ]

12/13/2008 5:37:08 AM

ubisoft has made some cool stuff

12/13/2008 6:14:50 AM

i guess i'm the only one with love for the Jap publishers

12/13/2008 6:26:15 AM

Blizzard, Valve, Bioware, pre-Wii Nintendo

Square and Kojima Productions get honorable mention.

12/13/2008 7:43:48 AM

my favs

1. Lucasarts
2. Valve
3. Capcom

12/13/2008 8:07:41 AM

My Top Companies:
#1 is most def. Capcom - Resident Evil and Mega Man are my favorite series
#2 is of course Nintendo (Link, Mario, Pokemon, etc.)
#3 is Rare Ltd., they are in slump now, but still great. They made Banjo, Battletoads, Conker, Diddy Kong Racing, Killer Instinct, R.C. Pro Am, Goldeneye and the best game ever...Perfect Dark.

Honorable Mentions:
Konami - (Gradius, MetalGear, Contra, Castlevania, Jackal, TMNT, and DDR)
Activision - They have been around forever, personal favorites include: Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Quake, Spider-Man, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X-Men Legends, Tony Hawk, and Vigilante 8.
Namco - Pacman, Galaga, DigDug, Soul-Calibur, TimeCrisis, Tekken.




^^ Why 'Pre-Wii'? Do you not like Twilight Princess, ExciteTruck, WarioWare, Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart, or Metroid Prime 3?

12/13/2008 8:32:15 AM

I don't like wii-era nintendo philosophy personally.

They have basically scrapped the idea of progress and decided to focus on the lowest common denominator, and market games to people who don't know what good games are.

That said, their first party games are still good.

12/13/2008 8:43:07 AM

This thread needs to learn the difference between a developer and a publisher.

Ranking developers, since they're the ones that actually MAKE the games:

1. Bioware. They consistently make the best games of every era. Even some of their more mediocre material (KotOR, Jade Empire) has been miles ahead of all other competition.
2. Blizzard. As much as they've annoyed me over the years with WoW, I can't fault their consistently high quality.
3. Valve. Consistent high quality, setting industry standards, ect.

Honorable Mention:
Eidos, for essentially beginning the stealth genre of games as we know it.
Ensemble Studios, for making the Age of Empires series, among other similar titles.

Nintendo would probably be 3rd on that list were it not for some of the lowered standards in recent years (agreed with ^).

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 10:54 AM. Reason : Oh shit I forgot about valve. How did I forget valve?]

12/13/2008 10:49:41 AM

1.) Valve
2.) Blizzard
3.) Sierra (1986-1992)

12/13/2008 10:50:46 AM

SNK

12/13/2008 11:24:23 AM

^^^ This thread is about COMPANIES. The OP never said anything regarding developer/publisher.

12/13/2008 11:45:29 AM

^Yeah, but it's a complete apples-to-oranges comparison... Worse than that, actually... it's more like comparing apples to apple trees.

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 11:49 AM. Reason : .]

12/13/2008 11:49:06 AM

PC:
1) OSI (Ultima Online, Ultima series)

Console:
1) Working Designs (Cadash, Dragon Force, Lunar series, etc.)

There are other great game companies out there (Blizzard, Epic, Sonic Team, etc.) but these 2 are were so far ahead of the pack that the others don't even come close.

12/13/2008 1:14:38 PM

ps1 era square

12/13/2008 1:33:39 PM

I definitely second Bioware. They made MDK II a while back, which is still one of the greatest games I've ever played. Also high in my rankings is KOTOR I and Bioshock.. Mass Effect was pretty good too, but it lacked some sustenance.

Guess I just switched up the Bio's, lol

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 3:10 PM. Reason : called the fuck out]

12/13/2008 3:06:29 PM

^Bioware did not make Bioshock. ...It's an understandable mistake.

Bioware's older stuff IMO is a lot better than what they've been doing this gen/last gen. You should really check out the PC RPGs.

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 3:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/13/2008 3:08:55 PM

Capcom
Nintendo
Konomi
PS1 era square i guess.

are my favz, no particular order.

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 7:20 PM. Reason : ps1]

12/13/2008 7:19:29 PM

Blizzard
Valve
iD

12/13/2008 7:33:45 PM

Can't believe I am the only one who has mentioned MicroProse. They were probably one of the most influential PC game developers.

Pirates!
Civilization
Master of Orion
Master of Magic
X-Com
Railroad Tycoon

just to name a few

12/13/2008 8:41:15 PM

Valve.

12/13/2008 8:43:37 PM

DICE

12/13/2008 9:51:10 PM

LJN

12/13/2008 9:52:08 PM

yeah blizzard deserves a mention.

Diablo II & Warcraft 3 / World of Warcraft are pretty incredible games

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

12/13/2008 9:56:26 PM

1. Nintendo (Mario, Link, Metroid, Star Fox, etc.)
2. Capcom (Street Fighter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Resident Evil)
3. Square (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, etc)
4. Konami (Castlevania, MGS, Contra)

I ♥ Japanese games

12/13/2008 10:05:15 PM

Blizzard
Valve
Bungie

These 3 seem to be the only companies that know what their fans want and deliver it.


Nintendo used to be great, but they have turned their back on gamers.

12/13/2008 11:34:13 PM

Inticreates.


Also, the line between "developers" and "publishers" is important to discern.

12/14/2008 2:39:43 AM

Namco
Bethesda
Blizzard
EA to some extent

12/14/2008 5:18:30 AM

EA sucks, if they didnt have the NFL/james bond licensing shit they would be molested.

Ubisoft, ensemble studios, RareWare (oldschool) romp ass

12/14/2008 5:36:33 AM

Quote :

"3. Square (falling off the map recently)"

I would definitely put Enix above Square. The two are a single company now, but I've always thought Enix games beat out the Square games on the consoles that I played their games on (NES, SNES . . . didn't do anything newer than that).

12/14/2008 11:51:02 AM

old-school LucasArts

TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, DotT, Sam & Max, Fate of Atlantis...

[Edited on December 14, 2008 at 1:04 PM. Reason : ]

12/14/2008 12:51:58 PM

Quote :

"Can't believe I am the only one who has mentioned MicroProse. They were probably one of the most influential PC game developers. "

Yeah, with that list of games, they have to be on the list. Also support Blizzard for their quality.

12/14/2008 1:13:10 PM

blizzard, valve, bungie not necessarily in that order. capcom too

12/14/2008 4:12:14 PM

Golden Eye. the tops

12/14/2008 5:01:43 PM

who made tecmo super bowl? they get my vote

12/14/2008 5:10:11 PM

Quote :

"who made tecmo super bowl? they get my vote"

12/14/2008 6:31:17 PM

Fucking Tecmo made Tecmo Super Bowl

12/14/2008 6:58:26 PM

lol at people not knowing Tecmo.

12/14/2008 7:12:42 PM

rofl i hope that was a joke

yea and I should have been more specific - like if you say old school Rare then you are kinda saying Nintendo since they published those games but whatever

[Edited on December 14, 2008 at 8:06 PM. Reason : .]

12/14/2008 8:05:13 PM

Konami

12/14/2008 11:48:08 PM

Blizzard
LucasArts back in the TIE Fighter/Monkey Island days.
Origin for the Ultima and Wing Commander series.

12/15/2008 12:59:28 AM

see i dont know the difference between the companies that make the game and the ones that produce them

12/15/2008 1:39:42 AM

In no particular order

Sierra (Tribes series, original Half-Life)
VALVe
Capcom
Nintendo
iD

12/15/2008 11:38:02 AM