We recognize Colossal Order as a standout developer of the year not just because it made a great city management game, but because it did so with less than 20 people, one-upping entrenched market leader SimCity in the process.
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Colossal Orderįinnish indie studio Colossal Order has been steadily producing rich, complex simulation games for years, but in 2015 it leapt into the spotlight thanks to the breakout success of Paradox-published Cities: Skylines. This year alone saw the company release a new entry in its core RTS franchise, Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void, even as it reached into a new genre to launch an approachable, free-to-play MOBA in Heroes of the Storm, and began beta-testing Overwatch, which is likely to be a major player among the “hero shooter” games that will flood the market next year.īlizzard continues to experiment with new ideas and embrace popular shifts in the market while supporting its venerable franchises (and the developers who work on them), and for that we recognize it as a top developer of the year. Last year the company made waves by debuting (among other things) a remarkably successful F2P card game designed by a comparatively small team, then rode that success to remarkable revenue gains in 2015 even as the subscriber base of cash cow World of Warcraft continues to decline.īut beyond its market savvy, Blizzard deserves to be recognized for cultivating an environment where developers can work on a variety of projects with different scales, stakes, and design challenges. The success of Blizzard in 2015 showcases how a developer can survive and thrive while embracing change. Overall, it was a stellar year for the studio, proving its worth in terms of art and business, and its ability to coordinate the two for big critical and commercial success. And the studio also launched a free-to-play mobile app (its first ever, developed in part by Behaviour Interactive) that became so popular that even Bethesda seemed caught off guard. It’s easy to forget that Fallout 4 was announced in June, with a release date of November, making the game’s launch about as Beyoncé as triple-A games get. Notable too is Bethesda’s marketing prowess. Bethesda-style RPGs already are inclined to provide emergent gameplay and personalized experiences, but throw in user-generated content, and launch it on multiple platforms that allow for easy game streaming, you get a thoroughly shareable game that finally feels like it’s at home. What’s notable about Bethesda Game Studios is its execution in open world RPG design of Fallout 4, and the foresight it must have taken for the studio to create something that is not just sprawling and massive, but an experience that defines the modern game market. The game is inescapable its popularity hitting a kind of critical mass that has outdone most other, if not all, triple-A games this year.īut of course, “game is popular” isn’t quite enough to get on our top developers list. People, across all different tastes and backgrounds are still talking about Fallout 4, and likely will be for the foreseeable future. We noticed the same thing a couple weeks after launch…and we continue to notice it a month later.
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We noticed something about Fallout 4 after it launched. But also, these are the developers and studios that left their mark on this year in a meaningful way, shaping the year in the art and business of making games.īelow in alphabetical order are the 10 individual developers and studios, selected by Gamasutra's writers, that exceeded our expectations and pushed creative, commercial and cultural boundaries. The developers below didn't just ride the trends of the modern video game market, but they helped set those trends.Īs in previous years, recognition on this list isn't necessarily just about who made a good game in 2015, although that does help. We've seen such a variety of new talent emerge, and we've also seen more established organizations show exactly why they've been around for so long.