Top 50 Developers 2008

Game Developer Research is pleased to announce the debut of its fifth report, ‘Top 50 Developers 2008,’ an exhaustive survey of the game industry’s major developers worldwide. This is a detailed supplement to this month’s Top 50 Developers countdown in Game Developer magazine, and includes a full ranking of the top 50 developers in the areas of sales figures, releases, and average review scores, along with the full set of results from our survey of over 700 anonymous Game Developer- and Gamasutra.com-reading industry professionals. Numerical score results for each developer’s reputation are included, alongside scores given by professionals on the basis of their direct experience with each developer, covering areas such as pay and perks, professionalism and competence. Also included are all of the written comments supplied by survey respondents in both categories.

The full ‘Top 50 Developers 2008,’ report includes over 200 pages and over 20,000 words of data, statistics, charts, comments, and summaries, and should be of eminent interest to game developers, game publishers, game investors, and other business-people inside and outside the game industry. The report also includes a .PDF version of the March 2008 issue of Game Developer magazine with this year’s countdown article included in it. An overview of the basic findings is available in a Gamasutra.com news story.

Sample Data

However, the creators of the report are making available a sample from the ‘Top 50 Developers’ research report [.DOC link] showing a small subsection of the final data – the entry in the research report for major developer Ubisoft Montreal. This includes the full listing for the developer, with reputational and detailed survey comments, game listings, average review scores, and more information. [The extract doesn’t include any graphs featuring Ubisoft Montreal compared against other developers – this information is included in the complete report, however.]

Table Of Contents
The full table of contents for ‘Top 50 Developers 2008’ is as follows:

Introduction 6

Note From The Publisher 6

Methodology 6

Game Developer Top 50 Developers 2008 6

1. Nintendo 8
Releases And Review Scores 8
Reputation Survey 10

2. Infinity Ward 11
Releases And Review Scores 11
Reputation Survey 12
Detailed Survey 13

3. Blizzard Entertainment 15
Releases And Review Scores 15
Reputation Survey 16
Detailed Survey 17

4. EA Canada 18
Releases And Review Scores 18
Reputation Survey 20

5. Valve 21
Releases And Review Scores 21
Reputation Survey 22

6. Konami Japan Studio 24
Releases And Review Scores 24
Reputation Survey 26
Detailed Survey 26

7. Insomniac Games 27
Releases And Review Scores 27
Reputation Survey 28
Detailed Survey 29

8. Capcom Osaka 31
Releases And Review Scores 31
Reputation Survey 32

9. EA Tiburon 34
Releases And Review Scores 34
Reputation Survey 35
Detailed Survey 36

10. Bioware Edmonton 37
Releases And Review Scores 37
Reputation Survey 38
Detailed Survey 39

11. Bungie 40
Releases And Review Scores 40
Reputation Survey 41

12. Ubisoft Montreal 43
Releases And Review Scores 43
Reputation Survey 44

13. 2K Boston / 2K Australia 46
Releases And Review Scores 46
Reputation Survey 47
Detailed Survey 48

14. Harmonix 49
Releases And Review Scores 49
Reputation Survey 50
Detailed Survey 51

15. Bandai Namco Games 52
Releases And Review Scores 52
Reputation Survey 54

16. Square Enix 55
Releases And Review Scores 55
Reputation Survey 56

17. Game Freak 58
Releases And Review Scores 58

18. Epic Games 60
Releases And Review Scores 60
Reputation Survey 61
Detailed Survey 62

19. Hudson Soft 63
Releases And Review Scores 63

20. Neversoft Entertainment 65
Releases And Review Scores 65
Reputation Survey 66
Detailed Survey 67

21. EA Redwood Shores 68
Releases And Review Scores 68
Reputation Survey 69
Detailed Survey 70

22. Crytek 71
Releases And Review Scores 71
Reputation Survey 72
Detailed Survey 73

23. Nintendo EAD Tokyo 74
Releases And Review Scores 74
Reputation Survey 75

24. EA Los Angeles 76
Releases And Review Scores 76
Reputation Survey 77
Detailed Survey 78

25. Realtime Worlds 79
Releases And Review Scores 79
Reputation Survey 80
Detailed Survey 81

26. Bethesda Softworks 82
Releases And Review Scores 82
Reputation Survey 83
Detailed Survey 84

27. Naughty Dog 85
Releases And Review Scores 85
Detailed Survey 87

28. SCE Studios Santa Monica 88
Releases And Review Scores 88
Reputation Survey 89
Detailed Survey 90

29. EA Black Box 91
Releases And Review Scores 91
Reputation Survey 92
Detailed Survey 93

30. Turn 10 Studios 94
Releases And Review Scores 94
Reputation Survey 95

31. Traveller’s Tales 96
Releases And Review Scores 96
Reputation Survey 97
Detailed Survey 98

32. Relic Entertainment 99
Releases And Review Scores 99
Reputation Survey 100
Detailed Survey 101

33. Beenox 102
Releases And Review Scores 102
Reputation Survey 103
Detailed Survey 104

34. Level 5 105
Releases And Review Scores 105
Reputation Survey 106

35. Tose 107
Releases And Review Scores 107

36. Codemasters 109
Releases And Review Scores 109
Reputation Survey 110
Detailed Survey 111

37. Maxis 112
Releases And Review Scores 112
Reputation Survey 113
Detailed Survey 114

38. Pawapuro Production 115
Releases And Review Scores 115

39. EA UK Studio 117
Releases And Review Scores 117
Reputation Survey 118
Detailed Survey 119

40. Firaxis 120
Releases And Review Scores 120
Reputation Survey 121
Detailed Survey 122

41. Amaze Entertainment 123
Releases And Review Scores 123
Reputation Survey 124
Detailed Survey 125

42. Massive Entertainment 126
Releases And Review Scores 126
Reputation Survey 127
Detailed Survey 128

43. Retro Studios 129
Releases And Review Scores 129
Reputation Survey 130

44. Sega of Japan 131
Releases And Review Scores 131
Reputation Survey 132

45. Sports Interactive 133
Releases And Review Scores 133

46. Tecmo 135
Releases And Review Scores 135
Reputation Survey 136

47. Sumo Digital 137
Releases And Review Scores 137
Reputation Survey 138
Detailed Survey 139

48. Crystal Dynamics 140
Releases And Review Scores 140
Reputation Survey 141
Detailed Survey 142

49. Obsidian Entertainment 143
Releases And Review Scores 143
Reputation Survey 144
Detailed Survey 145

50. Big Huge Games 146
Releases And Review Scores 146
Reputation Survey 147
Detailed Survey 148

Overview Of Developers Outside The Top 50 149

Additional Reputation Survey Comments 161

Additional Detailed Survey Comments 169

Comparisons Across Top 50 Developers 177

Sales Chart Score Data 184

Sales Chart Score Data, Per Game 189

Availability
‘Top 50 Developers’ survey is now available for paid digital download for a price of US $2,995. Any questions about payment (you can also invoice us for this report), delivery methods, or further licensing of the data can be directed to Game Developer Research at research@gdmag.com.