Who are your personal top tier developers?

[DXCHASE]

I dont have a list or even a real opinion on this. I play the games that i like, whatever studio is behind it, good for them. There are some i support over others simply because they release more games i like.

I will hand it to Larian though. I play nothing by them currently and think they deserve all the accolades they get. Their game (BG3) should def. be a GOTY, a much better game choice than say Elden Ring was imo, for very good reasons. No microtransactions and a near flawless release while also remaining engaged with its community etc.. The Developer itself should receive a DOTY award from the Game Developers Choice Awards as well. Hopefully some report wont come out about how awful they are.

 

[Sarafan]

Their game (BG3) should def. be a GOTY, a much better game choice than say Elden Ring was imo, for very good reasons. No microtransactions and a near flawless release while also remaining engaged with its community etc.. The Developer itself should receive a DOTY award from the Game Developers Choice Awards as well. Hopefully some report wont come out about how awful they are.

I'm afraid there will be opposition from some corporate hard-heads, but we'll see. Probably they deserve even a developer of the decade title (and BG3 a game of the decade title as well ).

 

[Brian Boru]

If someone remembers Starcraft 1, he must be getting old

Oy! Alternatively, he might be in South Korea, with pro matches on TV, players sponsored, etc. Or simply have played the recent StarCraft Remastered. So there, kid

I also think it's time to switch the game into a f2p title

For anyone interested, StarCraft 1 & Brood War expansion, plus StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty are free from Blizzard's website.

X of the decade title

<dark humor warning>
Now that's just ageism, really hitting against those of us who may not see the end of the decade! I'm going to start a campaign for X of the Month awards soon…
<abnormal service resumes>

 

[Sarafan]

Now that's just ageism, really hitting against those of us who may not see the end of the decade! I'm going to start a campaign for X of the Month awards soon…

No one said that the title must include 2021-2030 (or 2020-2029) decade. Personally I think the game has hardly any competitor in the 2014-2023 period of time. Maybe Pillars of Eternity 1 or 2 and that's it. But PoE games are not even close to the AAA segment.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I dont have a list or even a real opinion on this. I play the games that i like, whatever studio is behind it, good for them. There are some i support over others simply because they release more games i like.

I will hand it to Larian though. I play nothing by them currently and think they deserve all the accolades they get. Their game (BG3) should def. be a GOTY, a much better game choice than say Elden Ring was imo, for very good reasons. No microtransactions and a near flawless release while also remaining engaged with its community etc.. The Developer itself should receive a DOTY award from the Game Developers Choice Awards as well. Hopefully some report wont come out about how awful they are.

Its one of those things I keep an eye on but I'm not following religiously. 11 Bit for example I have in my A tier because I loved This War Of Mine and Frostpunk. Its more like if I see or hear something about a game then look it up and find its by a dev who made something else I liked it goes higher up on my mental watchlist. Sometimes I'll wonder what a studio is up to if theyve been quiet and search what theyre working on.

You know I'm going to defend Elden Ring because I love that game, not sure if I can seperate BG3 and ER for enjoyment right now, theyre competely different games obvs. I can say for sure the BG 3 release wasn't as flawless as it might have seemed from the outside. I lost about 10 hours to a game breaking bug in act 1, and the performance in the city and a few othe rplaces is a bit choppy still now, and I have a pretty fast CPU. Some of the dialogue choices also go wrong if you make certain story choices they didnt account for.

Its very polished but not perfect. Elden Ring was in good shape at release, there weren't any game breaking bugs and just a bit of performance chop when it rained you could avoid by lowering settings a bit. Probably about the same amount of polish from my experience, and neither game has any microtranscations or other kind of secondary monetization.

Both studios released patches at a good rate to deal with issues so no complaints with either.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

For me the absolute top tier developer would be SCS.

Besides the fact that I"m a massive fan of ETS2, the thing I appreciate about them is that they try to be transparent in what they're doing, they're constantly placing blog posts of what they're working on, what's planned etc. Other than that, and this is something that should be normal but doesn't always appear to be is that when they release new content, I never have had experience with bugs in it.
Lastly, the prices they ask for their content seems justified, considering the amount of work they put in.

Also just massive respect that they managed a game that had to get through greenlight to become one of the best selling games on Steam.

 

[neogunhero]

Just based off my personal favorites.

S-Tier:
•Valve
•Rockstar
•CDPR
•Running with Scissors
•Facepunch
•Obsidian
•Arkane (pre-Redfall)
•FromSoft
•Ghost Ship
•Night Dive

A-Tier:
•Bethesda Game Studios/Zenimax Online
•Bohemia
•New World Interactive
•Volition (RIP)
•Rocksteady
•Respawn
•Eidos
•Crystal Dynamics
•Techland

B-Tier:
•Blizzard
•Xbox Game Studios
•Bungie
•343
•Capcom
•Konami
•Namco
•Sega
•Ubisoft

C-Tier:
•Obligatory but pretty much anything from EA or Activision studios

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Just based off my personal favorites.

That was the idea

Would have put Techland in my list if I'd thought about it. Liked Dying Light 1 and 2 a lot.

 

[Zloth]

I kinda want to put Warhorse Studios on the list but A) I didn't finish their only game and B) I'm not sure if they're even alive or not. It's been over 5 years since Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

 

[Brian Boru]

Warhorse Studios … I'm not sure if they're even alive or not

They're 3-4 levels down in The Embracer Group owned company pyramid. Immediate parent is Plaion—guy designing name thought guy said 'I' when he said 'Y'—which also owns Deep Silver et al.

 

[neogunhero]

That was the idea

Would have put Techland in my list if I'd thought about it. Liked Dying Light 1 and 2 a lot.

Still haven’t gotten around to Dying Light 2 yet, but 1 is my all time favorite zombie game. I’m hoping for a massive overhaul of DL2 like they did with DL1.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Still haven’t gotten around to Dying Light 2 yet, but 1 is my all time favorite zombie game. I’m hoping for a massive overhaul of DL2 like they did with DL1.

I liked 2 and finished the story and a fair amount of the extras. Never touched the co-op in either game though, hear it was great in 1.

 

[Solod_Gamer_Guy]

My favorite studios are all independent (not owned by the greedy behemoth trio of the gaming industry) and include FromSoft, Capcom, and Namco.

 

[Brian Boru]

the greedy behemoth trio of the gaming industry

Going on 2021 figures, that would be Tencent, Sony and Apple. Has that changed since, or are they still the ones you mean?

 

[DXCHASE]

Im gonna throw in Arrowhead. Helldivers 2 is the first game i played by this developer, but they have been top notch at A. Interacting with the community B. Dropping patches and updates and C. Develop a unique and great way to expand a story irl rather than just some text and videos in a game.

If anyone has been following this drama about creating a psn account you know that Arrowhead has been right there talking to everyone in its community, even going as far as rallying people to put up negative reviews to "show sony" even if sony is the publisher. Its been great. My feelings and thoughts about this whole situation aside, Arrowhead has seemingly been a good developer so far.

 

[Colif]

Arrowhead has been right there talking to everyone in its community, even going as far as rallying people to put up negative reviews to "show sony" even if sony is the publisher. Its been great.

The person on the Helldivers community that told people that, has since been fired. They realised they had crossed a line by saying some things online, and this was the price.

 

[Zloth]

Two of my B tiers have gone to Silicon Heaven, but Warhorse has jumped out of whatever cave they were hiding in and CD Projekt Red is on an upward trend again.

 

[Brian Boru]

Warhorse has jumped out of whatever cave they were hiding in

They were bought soon after their first release ~5 years ago, that might've slowed things down a bit.

 

[DXCHASE]

The person on the Helldivers community that told people that, has since been fired. They realised they had crossed a line by saying some things online, and this was the price.

I saw that, the guy that said it had said some controversial stuff in the past too but i dont think that overshadows the developer at all personally