The eight most powerful game studios in the world, decided by Gamepro

It may have "OMG!" scrawled inexplicably on its sidebar, but Gamepro can put together a pretty solid list. Today, the site rattled off its top eight most powerful videogame studios, and we mostly agree. In no particular order, Gamepro gave the nod to:

Epic Games
Bungie
Rockstar North
Maxis Software
EA Tiburon
Sony Computer Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development

Valve, Infinity Ward, and Harmonix took home runner-up ribbons.

[shadowghost752]

I would have expected Sony Computer Entertainment to be there

[nos4speed]

No doubt one of the biggest players, they do so much great stuff, amazing PSN games, amazing upcoming mmo's and even more amazing exclusives.

[Winter47th]

If this was distributed 5 years ago all of'em would be Japanese with EA looming its head among'em, guess they fell out'a the bandwagon.

[SaiyanFury]

Gee big surprise, lots of them are MS game releasing studios. I see Gamepro isn't a fan of them

/end sarcasm.

Epic Games prefers to develop games for the 360. Epic only puts games out like once every 2-3 years or so. And EA is a publisher, not a single development studio. Insomniac puts out triple A games practically every year. In the 1.5 year PS3 lifespan they have 2 triple A titles in the original Resistance and Ratchet & Clank Future. The article doesn't include Naughty Dog, a proven studio time and time again. I would say Maxis, but all they seem to do is whore out more Sims titles all the time. And let's talk total exclusivity. SCE has the most development power of all the companies put together and has the most first party exclusives. In my opinion, SCEA has the most development power. 15 total worldwide studios is better than a HALO release, singular GTA-exclusive DLC content , or another Sims game. I'm looking at numbers and statistics for the systems, not at publishers' comments for support of a single system.

[BrotherNick]

Saiyan Fury, EA has a bunch of dev studios.

Label architecture and studios

The following are the four Electronic Arts labels, with the studios that fall under each label [20]

* EA Games -- Home to the largest number of studio and development teams, this label is responsible for action-adventure, role playing, racing and combat games, marketed under the EA brand. In addition to traditional packaged-goods games, EA Games also develops massively-multiplayer online role-playing games. Led by Frank Gibeau.
o EA Redwood Shores
o EA Los Angeles
o EA Montreal
o Bioware
o DICE
o Pandemic
o Black Box
o Maxis
o Phenomic
o Criterion
o Mythic

* EA SPORTS -- Publishes all the realistic, casual, and freestyle sports-based titles from EA, including FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, Fight Night, NBA Live, NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL Hockey, Nascar and Rugby. Led by Peter Moore.
o EA Tiburon (Florida)
o EA Canada (Vancouver)
o EA Sports Big (San Francisco)

* EA Casual Entertainment -- Creates and publishes casual games for gamers and non-traditional gamers. Includes EA's Pogo online service Pogo.com (online games site, with numerous EA brand tie-ins), EA Hasbro, and EA Mobile EA Mobile (mobile phone and iPod games, previously JAMDAT). Led by Kathy Vrabeck.
o EA Redwood Shores (California)
o EA Los Angeles

* "The Sims" Label -- develops and markets life-simulation games and online communities, including those with "Sims" titles. Led by Nancy Smith.
o EA Redwood Shores (California)

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Is Insomniac. I know that they're a small business but they are still pretty beasty. Ted Price's name should've been mentioned alone haha.

[socomnick]

lol insomniac are pretty low tier. They come out with games every year and the games aren't very hyped. Its not that their games aren't good. Its just that they release the games during bad times you cant launch Res 2 against Gow 2 thats just stupid.

[Cenobia]

Why? Gears and Resistance are on 2 different consoles. There is no reason they can't be put out together. They may be competing but PS3 owners will pick up R2, and 360 owners will get Gears. If you own both you're likely to get both.

There is a significant amount of hype for R2. If you only own an xbox you may not see it, but it is there. I honestly don't see a lot of hype for Gears, but that's because I don't have an Xbox. I don't doubt its there.

R2 has a ridiculous amount of ARG's going on in multiple websites. If anything, I'm starting to worry that it will be over hyped. I agree that Microsoft usually advertises better (like on TV), but let me assure you that people are very much anticipating the release of Resistance 2.

And Insomniac makes great games, and aren't "low tier." I consider them one of the most important developers for Sony. There games are always of high quality, and consistently score high on all gaming websites.

[nbsmatambo]

woa wait what lol. Insomniac games arent very hyped =o. and yes i do think that R2 will do well against GeoW2. GeoW2 might outsell it but thats just bcuz of the 20M pple with 360's, but i think R2 will have a better attach rate and better reviews =D

[KiNg_TED_PRIZE]

it should go

insomniac
sce studios
square enix
Ea sport
activision blizzard
epic ......

[Cartesian3D]

Blizzard is the most powerful game developer on earth...

all of their titles are :

AAA
multimillion seller
GOTY in their genre or even overall

power means you can only make GEM titles like IW,insomniac,Rockstar north,Valve,noughty dog,Kojima P,Team ICO,sucker punch...

not like EPIC (just making ONE gem title,selling their engine .. etc nothin especial) or EA (they made thousands of mediocre games!) Bungie!! (for ONE TITLE ?? always same as the previous one ) ..

[KBDuB]

Uhm, you do realize that Bungie has made MORE than Halo.. right?

[dude_uk]

really?

[Cartesian3D]

I know they made some other titles (Oni nothin more than 7,myth?? was a good series but 8 at best not AAA,there is only one Myth version that was AAA on PC in 1997!) .. but their main title was HALO for many years nothin more

for example IW made CoD games(1,2 and 4).. but just compare CoD 1 and 2.. both were absolutely AAA and GOTY in their genre .. without HUGE hype like HALO series .. thats the POWER

then compare CoD4 with 1 and 2 , Whole new engine,art direction,level design,environment,gameplay(MP ) ... etc

EIDT: BTW compare Oni character with halo .. lol there is many similarities (its not a bad thing, but it means their Art designers are out of Ideas)

[KiNg_TED_PRIZE]

they have fifa license .... they just lost the uefa champions league license ..... madden .. rugby... nba.. etc... ea is massive!!

[SaiyanFury]

EA is a publisher, not a developer.

[BrotherNick]

Fail....EA owns development studios as well. They can publish from outside their studios of course.

[Atomic]

do they even know what game studio means ? they are listing big corporations.
Naughty Dog is a game studio.
Blizzard has several studios working on different projects , Nintendo as well.

[ikiru3385]

sony has most first party game development studios. they make games too.

[Chandresh Patel]

Nintendos game studios=#1
EAs game studios=#2
Sonys game studios=#3
ActiBlizzards game studios=#4
Ubisofts game studios=#5

Microsoft game studios come in around the top 20

[mikeslemonade]

I agree with this list.

[soul899er]

ditto, lol and i wouldnt be surprised if they bribed a site to say they are the most powerful

[monks]

i would also semi agree with that list apart from nintendo above sony its not a fanboy comment before i get that :-) i only say it because of the number of good first partys they have

[PoorDroids]

Some good choices, but they forgot id Software, Monolith, and UBI.

[Rayko]

Capcom should have made the list as well. One of the best studios with good quality games.

[IaMs12]

CAPCOM is good they made a lot of great games but most are mediocre...hyped up to much IMO.. other probably enjoy their games a lot more then me

Ive always like the Time Crisis games and fighting games...

and 1 thing that just gets annoying with CAPCOM is EVERY game i know of CAPCOM has a time limit in it lol its cool in some games but VERY annoying and irrating in others... they put it in some games that simply do not need the timer... kinda makes you rush through and not enjoy as much but sametime makes fun lol wish it was just a option but most arent..

[SL1M DADDY]

First off, they have a couple on the list that I can agree with. A company that stands upon the glory of a single game by no means should be on the list. The criteria here seems to be cash but if it were my list it would be cash and variety. Yeah RSN has put out a few GTA games but come on, it's one franchise that put them where they are today... Same goes for Bungie.

*puts on flame suit*

Now, the companies on the list that I can truly appreciate? Nintendo, Sony and yeah, even EA. I know EA has put out some crap games but they have put out a variety of sports games. Key word here is variety. Just because a company puts out one game then sell millions of copies does not make them special to me, it just makes them lucky. Lucky to have hit that niche market and found a good selling point.

You just have to ask yourself, what two of these companies would you want to survive a nuclear holocaust? What companies would provide the games you would want to play in the future? I would take the two most diversified companies and leave the others out.

[monks]

some nice points there to reply to your question

what two of these companies would you want to survive a nuclear holocaust?

i would persoanlly pick

EA for number of games they do and sony for the same point

my runner up companys would be Blizzard i love wow and i guess SE because i enjoy rpg even if they are not on the list

[sunnygrg]

Where is SQUARE ENIX? Surely, I am dissapointed in them these days, but they brought us KH, FF, DQs to name a few.

[KBDuB]

I personally don't believe Square-Enix should be considered one of the best in the world. They are good, yes. But, I don't consider them a top ten studio.

[Marius]

More like favourite studios. How can they take Bungie into the equation and not Square Enix?

The Final Fantasy brand alone has sold almost four times as much as the Halo series has.

And what about Capcom, Konami or Namco Bandai for that sakes? I've never even heard of Maxis Software.

[KBDuB]

You do realize that Bungie has made MORE than just Halo, right?

And, it also seems as if your listing your favorite studios. It's there opinion on who's the best.. let it be.

Heard of The Sims? That's Maxis.

[KBDuB]

Well, that list is going to piss off a lot of Sony Fanboys..

On, topic, I don't agree with half of those. But, whatever, it's there opinion.

[MaximusPrime]

Microsoft is not even listed. ha ha.

That Midtown Madness is certainly a crappiest game ever.

[yojoe26]

I agree with the people saying insomniac should be up there. i say scrap bungie. i mean it's hard to say that they are one of the greatest developers in the world when ninety-five percent of their portfoliio is nothing but halo games. insomniac is one of a few elite developers who have and can create more than just one type of game. scrap bungie and put insomniac in there. Slim daddy hit the nail on the head. too bad gamepro doesn't have smart guys like you who don't just freak out over game studios who are known for one game.

[Sitdown]

I wonder if you guys are misunderstanding what they mean by powerful.........it is hard to disagree with them when the article does not do a good job of defining their usage of power.

[Woof]

Naughty Dog?

[Kira83]

I'd like to agree with this one but thier games are too under appreciated and far between time wise.

[BaSeBaLlKiD721]

people who are saying that EA should not be up there because its a publisher... do you see that it says EA TIBURON? Tiburon is the development team thats responsible for the madden series, tiger woods PGA, etc.- http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[JoelR]

Hmmm well I would leave in

SCEI
Blizzard
EA
Nintendo
Rockstar

----------------------------- -----------------------------

I would probably drop one of the remaining to add TOSE to the list
never heard of them? Well they probably have built at least 2 of the games you played this year on any platform.

They have 6 studios, 1200 developers (majority programmers) and have developed over 1400 games as of this year (2008), Have worked with every publisher in NA. EU and Asia. They develop for PC, X360,Wii,PS3, PS2, DS, PSP, Wonderswan, and have developed 3d0, neogeo, am2 games. They have existed for 26 years and have made such classics as Space Invaders for Taito. They rarely if ever acknowledge that they did create a game for a publisher and are known for not asking for IP rights.
By 2006 they had developed 19 PSP games and 17 DS games (and have completed that many again this last year)

TOSE http://www.tose.co.jp/

http://www.1up.com/do/featu...

http://www.gamasutra.com/fe...

http://www.gamasutra.com/vi...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[zo6_lover27]

I can't believe theres no Naughty Dog.