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Curated playlist

Video game companies based in Greater Los Angeles

  • SegaSega began in 1940 by supplying slot machines to American military bases in Hawaii. It later made Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • AdHoc StudioAdHoc Studio is an American video game developer, and its first original game, Dispatch, has sold more than 4 million copies. That success came after years in which its founders watched their earlier work get shut down, sold, rebooted, or…
  • ActivisionActivision began with an insult. According to programmer Larry Kaplan, Atari chief Ray Kassar, whose earlier job was at a textile company, called four of his best game designers "towel designers". Kassar also claimed that "anybody can do a…
  • 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…
  • Riot GamesThe founders of Riot Games, Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, first met as roommates at the University of Southern California. Both were studying business. In September 2006 they started a company in Southern California to…
  • Activision BlizzardActivision Blizzard began in 1979 as a third-party developer making games for the Atari Video Computer System. That small beginning grew into a holding company based in Santa Monica, California, which by 2018 was the largest game company…
  • Annapurna InteractiveAnnapurna Interactive's twenty-five-person staff resigned together in a joint letter in August 2024.
  • 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…
  • Blizzard EntertainmentBlizzard Entertainment got its name after a trademark threat forced a rename.
  • 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…

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