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Ryuu96 on 19 November 2022
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EspadaGrim said:

That Callisto Protocol launch trailer is amazing, really exciting to see what all these new AAA studios will put out this gen.

People like to talk about gaming becoming a monopoly but we are seeing more big companies entering the AAA gaming space this generation with Nexon, Krafton, NCSoft, Cygames, Tencent, and NetEase.

Also really interesting that all the ones I mentioned are Asian companies many of which are either buying western studios or funding/opening new ones.

People worry about this too much, it has happened since the beginning of gaming, a studio is bought out, veterans of that studio leave, they form a new studio, they receive backing because they're veterans of a successful studio, if they eventually sell that studio, new veterans leave and form more new studios. There has never been this much investment in gaming so it's ripe for people to do that too.

I'll list some examples.

  • Ascendant Studios - Formed by Bret Robbins (Creative Director of Call of Duty & Dead Space) - AAA.
  • Avalanche Studios - Established Studio - AAA.
  • Build A Rocket Boy - Lezlie Benzies (President of Rockstar North: GTA 3 - GTA V) - AAA.
  • Bokeh Games Studio - Keiichiro Toyama (Director of Silent Hill, Siren, Gravity Rush). 
  • Blackbird Interactive - Established Studio - AAA.
  • Certain Affinity - Established Studio - AAA.
  • Dark Passenger - Talent from CD Projekt RED.
  • Deviation Games - Talent from Treyarch, Dice, etc. - AAA.
  • Eyes Out - Cory Davis (Spec Ops: The Line Creative Director) - AAA.
  • Embark Studios - Patrick Soderlund (Former DICE Boss).
  • Elemental Games - Linus & Viktor Bloomberg (Avalanche Studios Co-Founders).
  • Frost Giant Studios - Tim Morten (Starcraft 2 Production Director) & Tim Campbell (Wasteland 3 Game Director).
  • Gravity Well Games - Drew McCoy (Senior Producer on Titanfall 2) & Jon Shiring (Lead Programmer on Titanfall 2) - AAA.
  • Gunzilla Games - Talent from Ubisoft, EA, WB, etc. - AAA.
  • Humanoid Studios - Casey Hudson (Mass Effect & KOTOR Director) - AAA.
  • Interior Night - Caroline Marchal (Game Designer at Quantic Dream).
  • IO Interactive - Established Studio - AAA.
  • Kojima Productions - Established Studio - AAA.
  • Liquid Swords - Christofer Sundberg (Co-Founder of Avalanche Studios) - AAA.
  • Lost Lake Games - James Phinney (Lead Game Designer at Blizzard).
  • Mountain Top Studios - Nate Mitchell (Co-Founder of Oculus) - AAA.
  • Oxide Games - Established Studio.
  • Probably Monster's Cauldron Studios - Harold Ryan (President of Bungie), Dave Matthews (Art Director at Bungie & Monolith Productions) - AAA.
  • Probably Monster's Firewalk Studios - Harold Ryan (President of Bungie), Tony Hsu (Senior Vice President on Destiny) - AAA.
  • Probably Monster's Third Studio - Harold Ryan (President of Bungie).
  • Possibility Space - Jeff Strain (Studio Head of Undead Labs).
  • Rebel Wolves - Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (The Witcher 3 Game Director) - AAA.
  • Remedy - Established Studio - AAA.
  • Something Wicked Games - Jeff Gardiner (Project Lead & Lead Producer at Bethesda). - AAA.
  • Stoic Studio - Established Studio.
  • That's No Moon - Taylor Kurosaki (Narrative Director of Infinity Ward, Narrative Design Lead of Naughty Dog) & Jacob Minkoff (Design Director at Infinity Ward, Lead Game Designer on The Last of Us). - AAA.
  • Unseen Inc - Ikumi Nakamura
  • Wizards of the Coast's Archetype Entertainment - James Ohlen (Lead Designer on Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, Dragon Age Origins) - AAA.
  • Wizards of the Coast's Invoke Studios - Talent from Ubisoft, Obsidian, etc. - AAA.
  • Wizards of the Coast's Atomic Arcade - Talent from Eidos, Epic, Bethesda, etc. - AAA.
  • Wizards of the Coast's Skeleton Key - Talent from BioWare and Blizzard - AAA.
  • WolfEye Studios - Raphael Colantonio (Founder & Creative Director at Arkane).
  • Yellow Brick Games - Mike Laidlaw (Creative Director on Dragon Age).

This is not even listing all the currently independent studios as well, or that they're opening new studios in new locations, or the new smaller publishers being formed all the time, someone will eventually fill the gap left by Bethesda and then Activision-Blizzard and those independent studios being acquired.

Edit - Added some already established studios to the list that I can remember of the top of my head.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 19 November 2022