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Curated playlist

First-party video game developers

  • Naughty DogNaughty Dog, the Santa Monica, California studio behind Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter, Uncharted and The Last of Us, began under a different name. In 1984 it was JAM Software, and JAM stood for Jason, Andy and Mike. One of those three…
  • Mojang StudiosMojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm, and it makes Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. As of 2021 the studio employed about 600 people, with further offices in London, Shanghai, Tokyo and…
  • Insomniac GamesInsomniac Games began with a nine-year-old and an Atari 2600. When that console appeared in 1977, young Ted Price decided he wanted to work in video games. Today the studio he founded is based in Burbank, California, and belongs to…
  • Xbox Game StudiosSteve Ballmer reportedly urged Bill Gates to deemphasize games in Microsoft's early years.
  • Media MoleculeMedia Molecule wanted to stay under thirty employees. By 2023, the studio had grown to 135 people.
  • Obsidian EntertainmentObsidian Entertainment, the video game developer now based in Irvine, California, once kept Three Clown Software on its shortlist of possible names. Scorched Earth was on the list too. The founders chose Obsidian instead. They found it…
  • Double FineIn February 2012, the San Francisco studio Double Fine Productions asked strangers on Kickstarter to pay for a new adventure game. The full funding goal arrived in under nine hours of a month-long drive. Within a day the project had passed…
  • Sucker Punch ProductionsSucker Punch Productions, a video game studio in Bellevue, Washington, took its name against the advice of a founder's wife. Chris Zimmerman had a list of names that his team had proposed, and failed to get approved, as project codenames…
  • Rare (company)Rare Limited is a British video game developer based in Twycross, Leicestershire, and today a studio inside Xbox Game Studios. In 1985, its founders, Tim and Chris Stamper, looked at the computer their first company depended on and called…
  • Ninja TheoryNinja Theory is a British video game developer based in Cambridge, England, and today it works as a first-party studio for Xbox Game Studios. It began in March 2000 under a different name, Just Add Monsters. Tameem Antoniades, Nina…

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