Sunday, March 9, 2008

Top 50 Devs of 2007 Announced.

Game Developer magazine has released it's list of the top 50 game developers of 2007. You need to get the magazine in order to look @ 30-50, but I have noticed a trend here.

For one, the notable games from each of the top 20, all of the developers have some sort of sequel in their repertoire with the exception of 3 (Boston 2K with Bioshock, Harmonix with Rock Band, and Nintendo Kyoto with Brain Age and WiiPlay). While this in and of itself may not directly effect the quality of a given game, it does shine a light on the how many quality studios are picking up unique games. Some people out there may have great ideas, but lack the means to get make a quality game themselves or the means to get in touch with the people who make decisions within developers. A successful developer may throw some of these original ideas by the wayside to instead develop a spin-off of FFVII or Ratchet & Clank just to make a quick buck. Also, a few of the studio's "notable games" solely consist of yearly releases (EA Tiburon with Madden and NASCAR, Neversoft with Guitar Hero 3 and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, and EA Canada with FIFA Soccer and NBA Street: Homecourt) Again, this demonstrates developers fear of stepping away from well developed franchises.

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