Game Devs: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

[SubrosianDimitri]

I'm sure we all have certain game developers and studios that we admire, dislike, or even flat-out hate. This is a thread to talk about those. Also, let's be clear, we're talking developers, not publishers, so that can eliminate the need to trash talk Electronic Arts, not that there would be anything new to say about them.

Spoiler: The Good

Telltale: These guys are the masters of point-and-click adventure games, putting out tons of great titles for fans of all kinds of series. From Strong Bad to The Walking Dead and Minecraft, or even playing Poker with Sam or Max. These guys make some seriously good games and I highly recommend their stuff.

Two Tribes: They've made a decent number of simple yet fun games, mostly puzzles. Toki Tori is a wonderful time, so is EDGE. Toki Tori 2+ is good too, and RUSH looks like a lot of fun (I should really get around to playing it). RIVE looks like it'll be fun, though I've never been the biggest person on shmups.

Key: THE Visual Novel studio, creators of tons of powerful, emotional rides that will hopefully all have official translations soon enough. CLANNAD is one of the best stories I have ever read, and Planetarian is a cute ride too. The anime they've worked on are pretty good too, especially the adaptations of their VNs.

Gaijin Games: Their rhythm games are something special. BIT.TRIP is one of those experiences that just manages to captivate you with how simple yet out there it is. Lots of different gameplay styles, bright colors, and just overall fun times for everyone.

Terry Cavanagh: This guy only has 2 games (he's working on a third), and they're both hardcore challenges with incredibly simple looks and gameplay. But that's not a problem, he puts time into the stuff he makes and does his best to deliver quality stuff. Very much unlike...

Spoiler: The Bad

Scott Cawthon: He has one trick, and it's not scary. 4 games in less than 2 years, plus another game that was so rushed it got pulled from steam (and then came back after I assume he actually took some time to work on it). Even Bubsy didn't do that much in 2 years, and that's outrageously depressing.

Spoiler: The Ugly

GameLoft: I really hate these guys, they are a huge symbol of what's wrong with the mobile gaming market. I will admit that this is more of a long-time grudge from before smartphones came around, but I have only really liked one thing they came out with (The Lawyer Friendly Equines game), and I only got that once the Amazon Underground version came out (the one without microtransactions).

 

[Avering]

Oh jolly. Yeah, there are a few that can ruffle my jimmies, even if I personally don't form that much opinion on the devs themselves.

Spoiler: Good

Bethesda game studios: Well, did you expect they won't appear? Yes, the publisher certainly made some horrible games, but nowadays its developer division did nothing, but enjoyable games, no matter what people say about them wrecking Fallout or TES. They are fun and that's it. Also, Todd Howard likes to announce stuff shortly before release, so the wait is not that horrible, which is a plus point.

Frontier Development: A bit of a jack-of-all-trades studio, with all kind of crap under their name. But holy crow, the Elite series.... Dude. Also, they have a batch of really dope guys in the community, and the producer has a glorious beard. He's called Michael Brookes, if interested.

Mane6: Hehehe. Fanboyism yaay! That aside, so far they are showing us stuff instead of just talking about how awesome the game will be, which is a major plus point. Also this is their forum, it would be rude not to mention them. And they have Jay.

Spoiler: Bad

Paradox Development Studio: Now don't get me wrong, I love their games, but the sheer amount of crappy little DLCs they pump out is just ridiculous. And most of them are either stuff that should've been in the game from start, or useless little unit and/or music packs. Yeah, they do incude the important changes into the game for free, but it's still ridiculous.

Peter Molyneux: Well....... Yeah.... Take everything he promises with a pinch of salt. Or a truckload of it.

Spoiler: The Jimmy rufflers

Gaijin entertainment: A russian company, well known for their simulator games, Warthunder, russian bias, and the utter ridiculousness they handle their community. They started out humble with Warthunder. Then they smelled money. Wrecked the economy, the progression, the balance of the game (if your vehicle is german, you're going to get raped, if it's not russian you are going to lose),so people only have chance when they sink massive amount of cash into the game.
And oh my god their handling of the community. There are constant bans from the forums if they get criticised (sometimes with actual historical documents in the case of balance), there were issues about them copyright striking a prominent youtuber and threatening them because he said crap (to try to salvage it, at first they tried to make a deal of said youtuber only saying good things and getting paid for it, then they fired the perpetrator, just to save face). And what utterly killed it for the most was a recent fiasco. Another youtuber put up a video about how easy it is to use cheats in the game, for this Gaijin at first took down the video, then propped up to the community that they choose between instant youtuber ban if it's mentioned or wrecking the realistic game mode of the game, instead of actually trying to fix the problem. Yes, they threatend their own community instead of fixing the problem. I edged away from them years ago, but this was waay too much for the oldest of players (the few who remained). Now their games are just an orgy of kids and twats, the veterans qot away, meaning it's really not fun after a certain point.
And the worst of all? Their games are extremely good and it would take a really short time to fix everything, and yet they put every useful thing behind paywalls.

 

[Mane6Dev]

This thread has some big chances to go places, so we're gonna be watchin' it closely. Mind the language, no personal attacks, follow the rules, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, etc.

 

[SubrosianDimitri]

This thread has some big chances to go places, so we're gonna be watchin' it closely. Mind the language, no personal attacks, follow the rules, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, etc.

I'll take this thread down immediately if it gets out of hand.

 

[Avering]

To be honest, I don't think it will blow up. We are only giving examples, not pointing fingers. However, it will only take one person, though so far I either haven't seen one, or you are doing a good job weeding the less than likeable characters out.

 

[Rich Jammer]

I was actually like thinking for like 30 minutes about what to put here but I thought it would get out of hand so I backed off.