The Best PC Game Developers of All Time

[GameBanshee News]

ZTGameDomain has counted down what they feel are the best PC game studios of all time, and quite a few RPG developers made the list. Included among them are Westwood (Nox), Lionhead (Fable), Black Isle (Planescape: Torment), Bethesda (The Elder Scrolls), BioWare (Baldur's Gate), and Blizzard (Diablo). Here's their BIS blurb, for better or worse:

Ok well let's just get the big one out of the way, it's a little game you might of heard of, it changed RPG's forever, had an amazing setting, yada, yada, yada, it's called Fallout, the post apocalyptic black humour, open world RPG that landed in the laps of PC gamers in 1997 and blew away our concept of what was possible. Fallout was the first truly open world game that allowed one to chose how they wanted to play, allowing for people to customize their character in a million different ways, while also giving them choice, choice that would actually changed the world. This gem was followed a year later by Fallout 2 which is considered superior to its younger brother, and made people realize that when it came to RPG's, Black Isle was one of the best. I could stop there but then I would be ignoring the fact that they developed the amazing IceWind Dale, the legendary Planescape, and even helped produced a little title called Baldur's Gate. Though this studio ended on a sad note of shutting down in 2003, most of the team found a new home at Obsidian Entertainment, which of course created Knight Of The Old Republic 2, and Never-WinterNights 2.

[Ronan]

I might be a bit too young for this kind of lists and not having played all the old games that people here have. Still I think this is a good list, but I would have ranked Black Isle higher, Bethesda lower and have droped Firaxis off.

[BuckGB]

I don't know how an "all time" PC developer list like this could exclude Origin Systems or the early Electronic Arts. Throughout the 80's and even the early 90's, these two kicked out some stellar games.

[fable]

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Originally Posted by BuckGB I don't know how an "all time" PC developer list like this could exclude Origin Systems or the early Electronic Arts. Throughout the 80's and even the early 90's, these two kicked out some stellar games.

Because the kiddies who write the pieces expounding on their great knowledge only know the games that have appeared in the last few years. Origin Systems should be on there, and probably New World Computing. What about Mindscape? Microprose? SSI? The article is worthless, and the link's good for a laugh, but no more than that.

[Kipi]

Well, to me the list looks rather solid, though I would have dropped Bethesda of the list completely and placed NWC or Microprose there instead. And, well, Valve is a bit questionable, as their only real hit has been Half-Life series. Not saying it's bad series, but all the other companies have proved their worthy on that list with many, many games.

So, I would say Valve and Bethesda off from the list and two of NWC, old EA, Microprose or SSI to the list.

But it may very well be that the author of that list only knows the games that have had worthy sequel lately, so that may be the reason why such companies as SSI has been left out.

[Siberys]

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Bethesda (The Elder Scrolls)

No

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BioWare (Baldur's Gate)

No

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Lionhead (Fable)

I'm going to answer this with an absolute definite unequivocal never been so sure in my life 100% positive No.

Black and White 1 was okay, nothing else met my standards.

But then, these are my standards, and in all honesty these lists are inaccurate not because say Lionhead Studios really is a bad dev, but because not one person will ever fully agree and relate to another person, that's the power of free will and because of that these lists are a trifle.