Who is the most universally respected video game developer right now?

[Trap Jesus]

Seems like the bigger a developer becomes, people start giving them more and more shit (see developers such as Ubisoft or Bethesda).

Who are some developers that come to mind that seem to be universally respected in the video game community? First ones to come to mind for me are Naughty Dog, CD Projekt Red, and FromSoftware.

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[syz]

Arc System Works or FromSoft.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Rockstar in terms of actual games and obviously less so with how their employees are treated. Naughty Dog seems like a good bet.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

That's a tough question. The most popular ones also get **** on a lot, so I can't say to be sure. They're small, but I think Subset Games would have to be considered, as they've only produced gold so far. Granted, only two titles. CD Projekt Red might be the frontrunner among the bigger studios, and Obsidian should be considered as well. And you can't beat Nintendo's built in goodwill or depth of library

If you extended the conversation to publishers as well, I'd think that Devolver might take the cake. Devolver isn't one of the big dogs, but I think they get a fairly enormous amount of positive fan and media attention for their quality of titles and from their marketing, so I'd raise them as possibly having the best ratio of goodwill to ill-will.

 

[SniperHF]

I was crapping on Bethesda long before it was cool


MachineGames, the developers of the nuWolftenstein games seem to have a good reputation. They probably aren't well known enough to be "universally" well respected though.

 

[HanSolo]

CDPR. Employee crunch aside, their craftsmanship and business+pr practices put most of the industry to shame these days. There is good reason why Cyberpunk has the kind of hype it has behind it and it's not just that it looks cool.

Put it this way. Imagine Cyberpunk were actually being developed by EA. Do you think people would be as excited or would most be cautiously optimistic at best?

Naughty Dog is a close second.

HM to Panic Button for their masterful Switch ports.

Rockstar in terms of actual games and obviously less so with how their employees are treated. Naughty Dog seems like a good bet.

Rockstar took a pretty heavy hit with how they monetized and handled GTA online though. Especially with how GTA online basically replaced any story DLC like gta 4 had.

Also people are starting to realize the flaws behind Rockstar's presentation of its AAA titles.

 

[Leafs at Knight]

Depends on what you mean by respected. There's companies like CDPR, Naughty Dog, and Rockstar who realase quality products again and again but all have major issues with crunch.

There's companies like FROM who quality games but don't sell as well because their games are more niche.

As for Ubisoft, the hate they get now is super outdated and came from when they were releasing Asssasins Creed games annually, and from downgrades like Watch Dogs. Most of their products nowadays are usually pretty good but never outstanding. They also do a lot of work to correct their games like Siege, Division or For Honor post release.

I mean it's probably Nintendo Entertainment and Development.

 

[Shareefruck]

I generally dislike Rockstar and NaughtyDog games, personally, so I'll go with Nintendo.

 

[Beau Knows]

Yeah I'd say CD Projekt Red right now.

Bethesda lacks quality control and is always trying to push microtransactions.

Rockstar has slightly annoying business practices with their focus on their money-printing multiplayer mode and double dipping with delayed PC releases. But their games are consistently well made.

Ubisoft/EA: Mostly crummy games loaded with microtransactions.

Nintendo: Gets by a bit too much on remaking 30+ year old games over and over for me personally. Some times this results in brillant new renditions of old ideas like BoTW, other times it's another meh Mario game like Mario 3D World or the New Super Mario Bros games. A bit of a mixed bag, there's great stuff in there amongst a lot of filler. Their games have a great level of polish, you don't expect to see many bugs in their work.

Naughty Dog/FromSoftware: Consistently high quality games, but a level below Rockstar and CDPR's output.

 

[Juve]

EA hands down!!!!

 

[Knave]

Activision.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Yeah I'd say CD Projekt Red right now.

Bethesda lacks quality control and is always trying to push microtransactions.

Rockstar has slightly annoying business practices with their focus on their money-printing multiplayer mode and double dipping with delayed PC releases. But their games are consistently well made.

Ubisoft/EA: Mostly crummy games loaded with microtransactions.

Nintendo: Gets by a bit too much on remaking 30+ year old games over and over for me personally. Some times this results in brillant new renditions of old ideas like BoTW, other times it's another meh Mario game like Mario 3D World or the New Super Mario Bros games. A bit of a mixed bag, there's great stuff in there amongst a lot of filler. Their games have a great level of polish, you don't expect to see many bugs in their work.

Naughty Dog/FromSoftware: Consistently high quality games, but a level below Rockstar and CDPR's output.

I don't understand how this is applied to Nintendo who has a stable of very different franchises and not Rockstar who has been putting out GTA 3 with successively better graphics and GTA 3 with horses for close to 20 years.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Arc System Works or FromSoft.

ASW made half of the new Blazblue roster paid DLC. Yuck.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Valve (when they actually make games), Nintendo, CD Projekt Red, and FromSoftware.
Blizzard, Insomniac, and RockSteady Studios are great too.


There are also quite a few indie developers that are consistent with the quality of their games (Playdead, Subset Games, Super Giant Games, Jonathan Blow, etc.).

 

[Emperoreddy]

Nintendo.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Probably FROM honestly.

I despise their fanboys but everything they make is very well received and anytime combat in any game isn't like Dark Souls combat, tons of people want it to be. Sekiro was their first game I actually enjoyed, I was not a fan at all of Souls and Bloodborne.

CDPR is taking a ton flak from the social justice crowd. I think that honeymoon is over: Eurogamer and Vice recently made hit pieces against CDPR, that usually is a good indication of how the tide has shifted.

 

[Thread The Needle]

Shout out to Larian Studios who made two of my favourite games of all time (both divinity original sins). They really listen to their customers. They're a smaller developer though so I'm not sure if they fit under "universally respected".

 

[Supermassive]

Nintendo, by miles.

 

[HanSolo]

If we're talking smaller dev teams, Chucklefish is well on their way too. Stardew Valley was a smash success and Wargroove was a great release for those more interested in Advanced Wars style TBC.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I don't understand how this is applied to Nintendo who has a stable of very different franchises and not Rockstar who has been putting out GTA 3 with successively better graphics and GTA 3 with horses for close to 20 years.

Because a lot of the people who claim Nintendo rehashes don't actually play the games. They see Mario and assume all Mario games play the same.

Nintendo is the true hardcore gamer's dream: it is all about gameplay, all the time. Most people conflate good production values with overral quality, those who don't usually love a few Nintendo franchises.

 

[Beau Knows]

Because a lot of the people who claim Nintendo rehashes don't actually play the games. They see Mario and assume all Mario games play the same.

If you want to claim the New Super Mario Bros. series is a fresh take on the franchise and are great games go ahead. But the levels are extremely bland, it has the same old art style and music and yes it's a rehash of games they made decades ago but it's not even as good as those were.

Like I said some of these sequels are great like Super Mario Galaxy, some of them are lazy like New Super Mario Bros.

 

[Leafs at Knight]

If we're talking smaller dev teams, Chucklefish is well on their way too. Stardew Valley was a smash success and Wargroove was a great release for those more interested in Advanced Wars style TBC.

Stardew Valley was published not developed by Chuckle fish although I'm looking forward to their wizard game.

 

[Moskau]

If you want to claim the New Super Mario Bros. series is a fresh take on the franchise and are great games go ahead. But the levels are extremely bland, it has the same old art style and music and yes it's a rehash of games they made decades ago but it's not even as good as those were.

Like I said some of these sequels are great like Super Mario Galaxy, some of them are lazy like New Super Mario Bros.

It says NEW right in the title. What more proof do you need that it's not a rehash!?!

 

[Do Make Say Think]

If you want to claim the New Super Mario Bros. series is a fresh take on the franchise and are great games go ahead. But the levels are extremely bland, it has the same old art style and music and yes it's a rehash of games they made decades ago but it's not even as good as those were.

Like I said some of these sequels are great like Super Mario Galaxy, some of them are lazy like New Super Mario Bros.

So you think NSMB is a remake of the original SMB?

Think carefully on how you answer that.

 

[syz]

Only thing with Nintendo is that they still inevitably run into trouble whenever they try to do anything involving the internet.