Curated playlist

Video game development companies

HexaDriveA Capcom programmer left to start HexaDrive in Osaka in February 2007. Its first release was Rez HD in 2008.
NeoBards EntertainmentNeoBards Entertainment Ltd. was founded on the 15th of February 2017, and within a few years its name was attached to some of the best-known horror and action franchises in games. The company is based in Hong Kong, with additional studios…
M2 (game developer)M2, known for old games, built three new Konami games for WiiWare. They were Gradius, Castlevania and Contra ReBirth.
Ubisoft TorontoUbisoft Toronto was allowed to lead its own games from day one. Most new Ubisoft studios spend years assisting Montreal.
SegaSega began in 1940 by supplying slot machines to American military bases in Hawaii. It later made Sonic the Hedgehog.
Polygon MagicPolygon Magic made a Silent Hill arcade game and a Disney basketball game. It also made a GREE fishing app.
Team SilentAn artist on Silent Hill: Homecoming says Konami broke up Team Silent to hand the games to Western developers.
DimpsTakashi Nishiyama quit SNK in 2000, and his whole team followed. They founded the game studio Dimps in Osaka.
System SacomOne System Sacom series blended sound and on-screen text, leaving a mark on sound novels and visual novels.
Double Helix GamesTwo game studios moved into one Irvine office in 2007 and promised no one would lose a job.
Sony Interactive EntertainmentThe first PlayStation began as a CD drive add-on for a Nintendo console. Sony rebuilt it as a standalone console.
Rockstar NorthRockstar North, the Edinburgh studio behind Grand Theft Auto V, began its life in Dundee under another name. By March 2024, that game had sold 200 million copies, making it the second-best-selling video game ever. It is also described as…
IO InteractiveIO Interactive A/S, known as IOI, is a Danish video game developer and publisher based in Copenhagen. As of June 2025 it employed over 500 people. Its most recent game, 007 First Light, was released in 2026. The studio is best known for…
Team NinjaTeam Ninja began as a rescue plan for a struggling company. Tecmo asked Tomonobu Itagaki to rival Virtua Fighter.
Kojima ProductionsKojima Productions was erased by Konami, then reborn under the same name.
TencentTencent's founder once said, "To copy is not evil." The Chinese tech giant began by cloning a messenger.
Remedy EntertainmentRemedy Entertainment, a Finnish video game developer, began in a basement in the Westend district of Espoo. According to creative director Sam Lake, mattresses were strewn across the floor, because team members sometimes slept there.…
Koei TecmoTecmo turned down a takeover bid and agreed to merge with Koei the same day. The Square Enix offer came in 2008.
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…
UbisoftUbisoft, the French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé, exists because a mother set two conditions for her sons. Christian, Claude, Gérard, Michel and Yves Guillemot grew up in a family business that supported farmers in…
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…
Rockstar GamesRockstar Games is an American video game publisher based in New York City, and one of its releases has sold over 220 million copies. That game is Grand Theft Auto V, which arrived in September 2013 and became the second-best-selling video…
NintendoNintendo began in 1889 as a maker of handmade playing cards. Fusajiro Yamauchi opened the shop in Kyoto.
Square (video game company)Square, maker of Final Fantasy, began in a former hairdresser's salon in Yokohama. It started in September 1983.
Bloober TeamBloober Team had to pitch against other studios to remake the game Silent Hill 2.
Screen Burn (company)A Glasgow studio finished a game jam entry with 15 seconds to spare. It now works on Silent Hill: Townfall.
Yuke'sThe wrestling game studio Yuke's took its name from a high school nickname. It began in Osaka in 1993.
BungieBungie, the video game studio now based in Bellevue, Washington, counts as its first game a Pong clone called Gnop!, which is simply Pong spelled backwards. Alex Seropian wrote it in 1990, nearly twenty years after the original. He gave…
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…
Valve CorporationValve Corporation was founded on the 24th of August 1996, the same day its co-founder Gabe Newell got married. Decades later, that company makes Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal and Dota, runs the storefront Steam, and sells handheld…
Epic GamesEpic Games lost the last of its founding products in November 2013, when a man named Paul Sweeney packed and mailed the final copy of a game called ZZT. He was the father of Tim Sweeney, who had started a small company in his parents'…
Telltale GamesTelltale Games was an American studio based in San Rafael, California, and on the 21st of September 2018 it lost almost everything in a single day. Melissa Hutchison, the voice actor behind Clementine in The Walking Dead games, was in the…
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…
Kadokawa ShotenKadokawa Shoten, the publisher behind Cowboy Bebop manga, lost its company status in 2013.
Silicon KnightsA judge once ordered the game studio Silicon Knights to destroy its own code. It had copied Epic Games' engine code.
Nihon FalcomNihon Falcom took its name from the Millennium Falcon, with one letter changed.
Square EnixIn 2022, Square Enix sold Tomb Raider and Deus Ex to Embracer Group for $300 million.
Annapurna InteractiveAnnapurna Interactive's twenty-five-person staff resigned together in a joint letter in August 2024.
Kuju (company)Kuju's name came from a Japanese dictionary. Ku and ju, nine and ten, matched the founders' initials I and J.
SNKBefore arcade cabinets held many games, each held exactly one. SNK's Neo Geo MVS changed that in 1990.
PlatinumGamesPlatinumGames is a Japanese video game developer based in Osaka, and one of its founders once drew a surprisingly hard line about who belongs there. Atsushi Inaba put it this way: "the people who are not looking for constant change are not…
CD ProjektCD Projekt began in May 1994 with only $2,000 and a friend's flat that served as a rent-free office. Two Poles, Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński, founded the Warsaw company. Both had been selling games, and neither had ever built one.…
Good Smile CompanyGood Smile Company began as an event management and talent agency. Takanori Aki founded it in May 2001.
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…
NetEaseNetEase is a Chinese internet company whose web address, 163.com, is a leftover from the dial-up era. Before broadband arrived, Chinese internet users had to dial 163 to get online. The number later became tied to the company's name. Ding…
Bethesda SoftworksBethesda Softworks started on the 28th of June 1986, at the kitchen table of a house in Bethesda, Maryland. Its founder, Christopher Weaver, treated the new company as an experiment. He wanted to learn whether the PC market was a viable…
KonamiKonami's legal team blocked Hideo Kojima from accepting his Game Awards 2015 prize. The audience booed.
Xbox Game StudiosSteve Ballmer reportedly urged Bill Gates to deemphasize games in Microsoft's early years.
NamcoNamco began with two hand-cranked rocking horses on a Yokohama rooftop. He spent his entire 300,000 yen budget.
Media MoleculeMedia Molecule wanted to stay under thirty employees. By 2023, the studio had grown to 135 people.