List Of Video Game Designer Companies

This is a shared article from Gamedesigning.org

The list of quality video game companies continues to grow as the gaming industry explodes in popularity.

While countless new game design studios come to market, we'd like to highlight the very best of the best.

The game dev companies listed below are consistently voted to be the best in the world and hold a reputation to match.

The Top 50 Video Game Companies

1. Nintendo

Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan

This company is credited with the conception of handheld video games in 1979. Nintendo was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in September 1889. It is headquartered in Kyoto, Japan but has subsidiaries and offices in several other parts of the world.

Nintendo is the world's largest video game company by revenue, with a net value of over USD85 Billion.

Some of the notable video game by this company are:

Mario
Pokémon
The legend of Zelda

2. Valve Corporation

Valve Corporation
Headquarters: Bellevue, WA

It's headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and has a subsidiary in Luxembourg. It was started in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. It has total equity of over USD2.5 Billion. Some of the work produced by Valve Corporation includes:

Counter-strike series
Dota 2
Day of defeat series
Half-life series

3. Rockstar Games

Headquarters: New York City, NY

This company has its headquarters in New York, USA and is owned by Take-Two Interactive. It was founded more than 20 years ago in 1998 by Sam House, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King, and Gary Foreman.

Rockstar's notable video games, amongst many others, are:

Grand Theft Auto
Red dead
Midnight club
Bully
Max Payne

4. Electronic Arts

Headquarters: Redwood City

It's also referred to as EA Games. It was started in May 1982 by Trip Hawkins.

The company's revenue is over USD4.5 Billion. Several video games have been produced by this company, for example:

Army of Two series
Battlefield series
FIFA series
The Simpsons series
Star wars series

5. Activision Blizzard

Headquarters: Santa Monica, California

The company had revenue of over USD4.6 Billion in 2015 and is a listed company whose shares trade on NASDAQ. Company president and CEO is Robert Kotick, while the Chairman of the BOD is Brian Kelly.

Many video games have been produced by the company, among them:

Call of duty series
Crash Bandicoot series
Spyro the dragon series
Tony Hawks series

6. Sony Computer Entertainment

Headquarters: Minato, Tokyo, Japan

The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the large Sony Corporation. It was established in Tokyo, in November 1993. It has several subsidiaries in Asia, Europe, and North America. Some of the game consoles from Sony C.E include:

PlayStation
PlayStation 2
PlayStation 3
PlayStation 4
PlayStation Vita

7. Ubisoft

Ubisoft
Headquarters: Montreuil, France

The company, originally Ubisoft Entertainments S.A was founded in France, March 1986 by five siblings of the Guillemot family. It has subsidiaries in 26 countries throughout the world. It trades on Euronex as UBI and had a revenue of 1.4 Billion Euros in 2014.
Game series from Ubisoft include:

Assassin's creed series
Far cry series
Just dance series
Tom Clancy series

8. Sega Games Co. Ltd

Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan

The company was founded in 1940, in Honolulu Hawaii. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the larger group, Sega Holdings and has several offices around the world. Some of the notable and best selling game consoles from this company are:

Sonic the hedgehog
Virtua Fighter
Phantasy Star
Yakuza
Total War

9. BioWare

Headquarters: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

It's wholly owned by Electronic Arts. The company was founded by Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, who are medical doctors by profession.
Some of the products from BioWare are:

Mass Effect series
Dragon Age series
Star Wars: Knights of the Olds
Baldur's Gate series
Republic series

10. Naughty Dog Inc

Headquarters: Santa Monica, California

The company was founded in 1984 by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin. It is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment after a successful acquisition in 2001.
Products from Naughty Dog Inc include:

Crash Bandicoot
Jak and Daxter
The Last of Us
Unchartered

11. Square Enix Holdings Co. Ltd

Headquarters: Shinjuku, Toyo, Japan

The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima in September 1975. The company is public with shares listed on the Tokyo stock market. It had revenues of 155 Million Japanese Yen in 2015. Notable products from Enix are among others:

Space Invaders
Bubble Bobble

12. Capcom Company Ltd

Capcom Company Ltd
Headquarters: Chuo-Ku Osaka Japan

It is a public listed company that develops and publishes video games. It was started in May 1979. It is one of the largest game companies in terms of revenue, with reports in 2014 citing them at 25.9 Billion Japanese Yen.

Their video games include the following best sellers:

Monster Hunter
Resident Evil
Street Fighter
Mega Man

13. Bungie Inc

Headquarters: Bellevue, Washington, USA

It was established as a company by Alex Seropian who was then a student at the University of Chicago. It was later acquired by Microsoft in 2000.
Video games from Bungie Inc are among others:

Pathways into Darkness
Marathon
Myth
Halo: Combat evolved

14. Microsoft Corporation

Headquarters: Redmond Washington, USA

The company is a multinational corporation technology company, founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates. The company had revenue of over USD95 Billion reported in 2015 and is undoubtedly one of the biggest companies in the world. Its successful video game brand, Xbox has the following products game consoles:

Xbox 360
Xbox One

15. Bandai Namco Entertainment

Headquarters: Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan

It was founded in 1955 by Masaya Nakamura. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings, with operations all over the world. Some of the companies are:

Dragon Ball series
Naruto: Ultimate ninja series
Ace Combat Series
Pac Man series
Katamari series

16. Mojang

Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden

It was founded in 2009 by game programmer Markus Persson. Mojang reported revenues of 2.069Billion SEK in 2014. The company was acquired by Microsoft in 2014.
Some of the company's video games include:

Cobalt
Minecraft
Cobalt

17. Epic Games

Epic Games
Headquarters: Cary, North Carolina

Epic Games Inc was founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991. It is a private company that has subsidiaries in China, Korea, UK, and Japan and serves worldwide.
The company has produced many video games, among them:

Bullet storms
Castle of the winds
Kiloblaster
One must fall: 2097

18. Game Freak

Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and founded in April 1989 by Satoshi Tajiri. It's a privately owned company that is famed for developing the Pokemon series with:

Pokemon Red
Pokemon Blue
Pokemon Yellow

19. Insomniac Games Inc

Headquarters: Burbank, California, USA

It was founded in 1994 as Xtreme Software by Ted Price who's the CEO to date. This company has been named before as the best place to work in America by Society for Human Resource Management and one of the best video developers by IGN.
Video games developed by this company include:

Spyro Series
Ratchet and Crank series
Resistance series

20. Infinity Ward

Headquarters: Woodland Hills, LA, USA

It was founded by Vince Zampella, Grant Collier, and Jason West in 2002. The company, which is a subsidiary of Activision has had its fair share of top management issues, with some key members of the executive leaving in2009 and 2010, but has since stabilized.

Infinity ward released video games that were ranked as some of the best sellers in the gaming world:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

21. Take-Two Interactive Software Inc

Headquarters: New York City, USA, and Windsor, UK

This company was founded 23 years ago in 1993 by game developer Ryan Brant. They have development studios in Toronto, Canada and in North America. It's traded publicly in NASDAQ.
Games developed by the company include:

Grand theft Auto
Civilization
NBA 2K
Red Dead

22. Gameloft

Gameloft
Headquarters: Paris, France

The company has won accolades for developing the best video game more than 3 times. It was founded in 1999 by Michel Guillemot.
They have the following titles among their products:

Hero of Sparta
Castle of Magic
Assassin's creed

23. ZeniMax Media Inc

Headquarters: Rockville, Maryland, USA

It was founded in 1999 by Christopher Weaver and Robert A. Altman. It is a privately owned company that currently employs 600 people.
Products to note:

Doom
Quake
The Elder Scrolls
Fallout
Dishonored

24. NCSOFT

Headquarters: Seoul, South Korea

It's a publicly listed company that was founded in 1997 by T.J. Kim. They have subsidiaries in several parts of the world and have developed the following games among others:

Lineage
City of Heroes
Wild Star
Aion

25. Blizzard Entertainment Inc

Blizzard Entertainment Inc
Headquarters: Irvine, California, US

It was founded in 1991 by Michael Morhaime, Frank Peace, and Allen Adham. It has been a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard since 2008. As of 2012, the company had a workforce of 4,700.
Products:

The Lost Viking
Rock and Roll Racing
Diablo series
Overwatch

26. Zynga

Headquarters: San Francisco, California USA

The company was founded in 2007 by Marc Pincus, Justin Waldron with two others. The company develops social video games that are stand-alone as well as to run on mobile platforms. It has a workforce of 1669 and a revenue of USD 764 Million in 2015.
Notable products are:

Farm Ville
Zynga Poker
ChefVille

27. Nexon Co. Ltd

Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan

It was founded in 1994 by Kim Jung Ju and Jake Song. It had a workforce of 4,656 in 2014 and revenue of 190.263 Japanese Yen in 2015 and has offices in Germany, South Korea, and the US.
Products:

Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds
Shattered Galaxy
MapleStory

28. Konami Holdings Corporations

Konami Holdings Corporations
Headquarters: Minato, Tokyo, Japan

The company was founded in 1969 in Osaka, Japan, by Kagemasa Kozuki. By 2014, it had a total of 5,453 employees.
Products:

Scramble
Super cobra
Frogger
Dance Dance Revolution (2014 edition)

29. Bethesda Game Studios

Headquarters: Rockville Maryland, US

It is a subsidiary of Bethesda Softworks and was founded in 2002. It is a developer famed for the following video games:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Nights of the Nine
The Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim

30. Double Fine Productions Inc.

Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA.

The company was founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer. It has a workforce of 65 people. The company broke new ground when the executives used crowdfunding to raise USD 3 Million for the development of their first game, Broken Age. Their other products are Psychonauts and Brutal Legend.

31. id Software

Headquarters: Richardson, Texas, USA

The company was founded in 1991 by John and Adrian Carmack, Tom Hall and John Romero. It had over 200 employees in 2011 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ZeniMax Media.
Products:

Wolfeinstein
Doom
Quake
Rage

32. Rare

Headquarters: Twycross, Leicestershire, UK.

The company was founded in 1985 by Tim and Chris Stamper. They initially worked with Nintendo, to develop some of their most successful games such as Cameos: Effects of Power, Perfect Dark Zero and Viva Piñata. The company was acquired by Microsoft in 2002. The workforce is about 200 people.

33. Retro Studios

Headquarters: Austin, Texas, USA

The company was founded by Jeff Spangenberg in 1998 to develop video games. Presently, it is a subsidiary of Nintendo, having been successfully acquired in 2000. The company has a workforce of about 100 and the following video games:

Metroid Prime Series
Donkey Kong Country series

34. Sonic Team

Headquarters: Ota, Tokyo, Japan

It was founded by Yuji Naha, Yaoto Nahshima, Hirokazu Yasuhara, and Mahabu Kusunoki. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sega in 2000.
Popular video games:

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic Adventure
Phantasy Star Online

35. LucasArts

Headquarters: San Francisco, California

It is owned by Lucasfilms and founded by George Lucas in 1982. The company has a small intimate workforce of less than 10.
Products:

Maniac Mansion
Habitat
Worlds Away

36. Level-5 Company

Level-5 Company
Headquarters: Fukuoka, Japan

It was founded in 1998 by Akihiro Hino and his team of developers. The company has a workforce of 280 people and the following games among others:

Dark Crowd series
Professor Layton series
Ni no Kuni

37. Atari

Headquarters: California, USA

The company was established in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It has undergone several acquisitions in its years of existence, to be currently owned by Atari Interactive. Some of the games developed by this company caused some major revolution throughout the gaming industry. They are:

Pong
Atari 2600

38. Thatgamecompany LLC

Headquarters: Los Angeles California, USA.

It's a privately held company founded in 2006 by Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen, then students at the University of Southern California.
They've since developed:

Flow
Flower
Journey

39. Beenox

Headquarters: Quebec, Canada

The company was founded in 2000 by Dominique Brown, and then later in 2005 was acquired by Activision. It has about 440 employees and the following video games to its name:

Bee Movie Game
Spider-Man: Friend or Foe

40. 1C Company

Headquarters: Moscow, Russia

The company is headquartered in Moscow, Russia and has over 700 employees. It was started in 1991 and has been pre-dominant in the European video game market. Some of their famed games are:

Cliffs of Dover
Theatre of War
Hard Truck 2

41. EA Maxis

EA Maxis
Headquarters: Redwood City, California, USA

Maxis is a public company established in 1987 and ran independently until the acquisition by EA in 1997.
Some of the games developed by Maxis are:

The Sims series
Spore
Dark spore

42. Polyphony Digital

Headquarters: Fukuoka Japan

The company was founded in April 1998. The company has at least 140 employees, with an operating income of 10Million Yen. They have developed these games among others:

Gran Turismo series
Tourist Trophy

43. EA Dice

Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden

The company was founded by 1992 and ran independently until the 2006 acquisition by EA. The company employs over 560 people and has an annual revenue of over 798 Million SEK.
Notable productions:

Battlefield series
Mirrors Edge
Star Wars Battlefront

44. Intelligent Systems Co. Ltd

Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan

It's a Japanese game developer founded in 1986.
The company is a limited liability company with a workforce of 130 people and the following games in their fold:

Fire Emblem
Paper Mario
Wars

45. SCE Santa Monica Studio

Headquarters: Playa Vista, LA, USA

It's a development branch of Sony, established in 1999 in Santa Monica. They employ over 220 people and have developed the following games:

Kinetica
God of War series

46. EA Canada

Headquarters: Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

It houses the largest video game test operation in the world and employs 1300 people. The company was founded in 1983 and is a division of EA. It's best known for:

NHL Series
FIFA series
Need for Speed series

47. PopCap Games

PopCap Games
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington, USA

This company, founded in 2000 is credited for taking simple games concepts and turning them into a game that catches the eye of the seasoned gamer. With a workforce of about 400, the company has developed the following games among others:

Bejeweled
Book Worm
Zuma

48. Petroglyph Games

Headquarters: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

It is a privately owned company that was started in 2003 by Westwood studios when the latter shut down. The company has about 115 employees and has developed the following games among others:

Star Wars: Empire at War
Universe at War: Earth Assault
Grey Goo

49. Relic

Headquarters: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The company is owned by Sega and has had a very successful run with some of their earlier releases:

Home World
War Hammer: 40,000
Company of Heroes

50. Treasure Co. Ltd

Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan

The company was founded in 1992 and employs over 25 people currently. The following games have been developed here:

Wario World
Mischief Makers
Gunstar Heroes