Do you have a certain game developer, or developers, that you follow closely? Or was there one that you followed in the past, that no longer exists?

It's kind of awkward question, but I struggled with how to word it. Many of you play far more variety of games than I do, and from many different game developers, but do have a particular developer, or developers, that you watch closely as to their stability or games they produce?

I'm definitely open to games from developers whose games I've never played, especially Indie developers, but I tend to look to certain developers to see what games they're working on, or to the stability of a particular studio. When looking at the games I've played over the past 30+ years, the majority of gaming hours I've played rest on the games from certain developers. That's not to say they're my only sources of games, just my priority because I like the types of games they make. And granted, I'm an RPG fanatic, so my views are going to be different from other players.

Often times a game developer's focus will change, often based on whether the developer stays independent or bought by a larger studio, producer, or distributor. Sometimes a developer has more than one purpose, such as Valve/Steam, so forgive me if I get the exact terminology wrong.

Current game developers that I follow closely (not listed in any particular order):

Bethesda Game Studios:
I know there are "Bethesda-bashers" and "Todd Howard-haters" out there, but I've gotten thousands (if not more) hours of entertainment from their open world RPGs. And one of the things that make them even greater is the fact that they embrace the talented mod community and make modding tools accessable.

Obsidian Entertainment: These folks have had some hard luck with rushed release time in the past, but even with the rushed games, they've produced some of the best RPGs I've ever played.

Piranha Byes: Small German studio (recently purchased by THQ Nordic), that often get disrespected (a crime in my opinion), but have produced some of the best immersive RPGs I've ever played in the Gothic, Risen, & Elex games.

Larian Studios: Swen Vincke is the most passionate creative director/owner of any game developer in the world (and I say that without doubt). Larian truly cares about the quality of the RPGs it creates.

CD Projekt Red: Yeah, they had a misstep with the promotion & release of CP2077, but the studio is dedicated to correcting that, as well as advancing the Witcher games (new & remakes) which have given me many hours of immersion.

Bioware: I almost hesitated to mention them as they're in such a state of flux with EA. Design decisions and management decisions (whether EA or Bioware) have made this developer a question mark for me, but the Dragon Age & Mass Effect games have given me thousands of hours of enjoyment over the years. So I follow, and hold out hope.

Valve Software: They certainly don't make many games, but the Half-Life games were instrumental in how the FPS genre evolved.

Those are my primary current developers that I follow, do you have any, or maybe it doesn't even matter?
 
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3D Projekt
I'll fix that for you :p

Firaxis is my top dev. The Civilization and X-Com series are the Hoover or Post-it of their genres, the games with which all others are compared. Still going strong after 40 years, incl their MicroProse foundation decade+.

Westwood Studios is #2, dev of the seminal RTS franchises Command and Conquer& Red Alert. Shut down by EA nearly 20 years ago, tho some are still active at Petroglyph Games.

Crytek are #3, dev of both Far Cry and Crysis iconic open world FPS. Still going, I'm hoping the announced Crysis 4 might get back to its open world roots—even if a 4090 won't be able to run it :rolleyes:

Those are my top ones, there are a good few others who I'll always take note of:
Amplitude—Endless Legend/Space, Humankind.
Daedalic—high-quality PnC adventure games.
Ubisoft—my top AAA studio, did a great job improving Far Cry series.
Microsoft—Minesweeper! Flight Simulator, Age of Empires.
Relic—Homeworld, Warhammer, Company of Heroes.
Mohawk—Old World, Offworld Trading Company.
Stardock—Galactic Civilizations, The Political Machine.
…and more I'm forgetting.
 
Westwood was amazing. Battletech, Mars Saga and Nox *which I have on gog* I loved a ton. Actually the Mechwarrior collection came with my soundblaster/cd rom combo along with Ultima 8, and Syndicate. My god how far we've come lol

Bullfrog Games was another one. Such a sad day when I heard they were done.

Interplay was another I followed back in the day. They always had fun games. Rock and Roll racing was hilarious.

And as a side note, I know it's not pc, but Square and Enix when they were on their own.
 
My answer is no and no. What matters to me is the game and whether I like it. The rest is irrelevant to me. We all know that bad games can follow good games and vice versa. Not really interested in the reason why since I can't affect what the developer do except by buying or not buying the game.
 
Adds Rare Games to list... though their good games were on Nintendo 64 so its a long time ago.
They didn't have any bad games on N64, so they were one dev you could rely on to make good games... until Microsoft bought them.

On the oposite side of this thread, there are companies I won't buy off... EA and Deep Silver are 2 that come to mind.
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
I'll do one better than BioWare - Electronic Artists (which turned into EA) was once a buy-on-sight company back in the 80's! Archon, M.U.L.E, the Pinball Construction Set... they had some goood stuff!

I don't follow EA anymore. I do follow BioWare still, but it's a lot more wary following than the starry-eyed days of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter.

Others currently following:
  • Egosoft (though they only do the X games, so there's not all that much to follow)
  • Dandylion (watching for Troubleshooter: Banished Children and more chapters in Abandoned Children)
  • Mobius Digital (Outer Wilds)
  • Everything on @mainer's list
  • Firaxis (Civ, XCOM, maybe Midnight Suns - we'll see)
  • Harebrained (BattleTech and Shadowrun games)
  • Amplitude (Endless stuff)
  • Stardock (Gal Civ, though they are starting to fade, I'm afraid)
  • Squaresoft (Final Fantasy, though 7 Remake is the only one I've liked recently)
  • Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza)
  • Id (Doom)
  • Arkane (Dishonored, Prey, and many others)
  • Pavonis Interactive (Long War mod, now doing Terra Invicta)
  • Kojima (Death Stranding, Metal Gear)
  • Owlcat (Pathfinder games - even if I down-voted the first one, they're making unique stuff)
  • inXile (pretty mixed bag from them, but always worth a look)
  • Warhorse (Kingdom Come: Deliverance... which was only fairly good but the studio shows a ton of promise - where'd they go, anyway??)
 
I got curious about my own list of developers I "follow", meaning I've played most of their games, but it just turns into a list of companies who develop games of my favourite genres. For example, I've played all of the series created by Paradox Development Studio, but that's just because they develop the best grand strategy games.
 
I used to follow Richard Garriot but ever since he turned douchebag i stoped bothering with him. Now i just check in on Julian Golop and Warren Spector from time to time. When it comes to game studios, Larian and Creative Assembly are probably the ones i follow the most together with Obsidian.
 
I'll fix that for you :p
It is CD Projekt, or full name of CD Projekt Red.
CD PROJEKT RED - Award-winning creators of story-driven role-playing games.

Westwood was amazing.
I used to like Westwood a lot also, but it was mainly because of the Lands of Lore games.

Interplay was another I followed back in the day. They always had fun games.
Interplay as well as Black Isle Studios were two of my go to companies for RPGs back in the late 1980s & 1990s, they made some of my favorite games before things went downhill.

inXile (pretty mixed bag from them, but always worth a look)
I should have had them on my list, I haven't played many of there games, but Wasteland 2 & 3 were two of the best games I've played this year, so I'm definitely watching what they do. (I'm still on the fence as to whether to purchase The Bards Tale IV Barrows Deep).
 
Daedalic—high-quality PnC adventure games.
Makes my list of devs Im actively checking on new games. I love most of the games they bring out, while there are also a few games I would never want to play.

I choose my games mainly on suggestions I get (seems the people around me know me better than my steam account :p) and on some youtube channels I‘m following. Since my time for gaming is currently close to nothing, my list is long enough anyways.
 

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