What's the best video game developer that's sadly no longer in business?

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Wait... I need to make a hugely honorable mention:

Headfist Productions.

A family enterprise, a studio so beloved by its employees that they all kept coming back to finish the PC version of "Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth" even as the company had gone bankrupt during production and despite knowing full-well that they weren't gonna be paid for their work, past or present.

They worked tirelessly around the clock as their offices were (literally) being shutdown around them. And the craziest part? They did a splendid job of it, converting the Xbox version to PC while troubleshooting and debugging it along the way. Yes, it was a rough port (and yes, there was a game-breaking glitch in there as well)... But honestly? It was a billion times more polished and playable than half the multi-million garbage released today.

Kudos to them!

 

[Stare best girl]

Not technically dead, but Treasure hasn't put out a new game in over 10 years.

and... Sin and Punishment Star Succesor was its last large-scale game...

 

[kuroro]

I think they technically still exist, but as a Tenchu fan I gotta say:

They were just so damn innovative.

 

[Clippy]

For something much more obscure - Soleau Software. People who went from doing ballet (I think? It may have been figure skating) to developing games. They made some amazing brain teasers. In hindsight it's obvious they were never going to move past DOS/Win95 shareware stuff so their demise was pretty much certain from day 1. I wonder if they could make it as a mobile game dev nowadays.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

Tango Gameworks is what came to mind.

 

[Muftie2809]

As someone who grew up with Sega Genesis games (both in physical and emulation), I miss Technopop. While I only know them from Zero Tolerance, I still miss them regardless, specially that they left Beyond Zero Tolerance unreleased (though still downloadable in some way).

 

[Carlnshake]

As someone who grew up with Sega Genesis games (both in ohysical and emulation), I miss Technopop. While I only know them from Zero Tolerance, I still miss them regardless, specially that they left Beyond Zero Tolerance unreleased (though still downloadable in some way).

There's a steam re-release of Zero Tolerance I keep contemplating pulling the trigger on

 

[Viviana Santos]

Sony should go fuck themselves for closing Japan Studio.

 

[Clippy]

View attachment 85329 Sony should go fuck themselves for closing Japan Studio.

Has Sony done anything of note since moving the Playstation HQ to California?

 

[Carlnshake]

Has Sony done anything of note since moving the Playstation HQ to California?

:(

 

[Viviana Santos]

Has Sony done anything of note since moving the Playstation HQ to California?

I don't know, there's Concord which flopped, then lol, Japan Studio died for this.

 

[Super Funky Piece]

Looking Glass Studios, responsible for very innovative and influential games like Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Thief. and also having some much less widespread titles in between that would keep putting them on verge of bankruptcy between bigger hits until finally going under in 2000 just after Thief 2. They certainly seemed to have had a passion and laissez-faire approach that really embodied game development of the time but ultimately it wasn't sustainable. A fair chunk of their staff did get picked up to continue Thief at least... under Ion Storm.

 

[Dyne]

Squaresoft.

SqureEnix just isn't the same.

 

[Viviana Santos]

Black Isle Studios made some of my favorite games of all time, but unfortunately the company died in 2003.

 

[Muftie2809]

There's a steam re-release of Zero Tolerance I keep contemplating pulling the trigger on

Sadly, the Steam version is just merely a porting from the original version. I have tried it few years ago, and I don't really like it as it doesn't add anything at the slightest, except it's have slightly worse control.

 

[Carlnshake]

Sadly, the Steam version is just merely a porting from the original version. I have tried it few years ago, and I don't really like it as it doesn't add anything at the slightest, except it's have slightly worse control.

Good to know!

 

[Viviana Santos]

I'm not exactly a big fan of Lionhead, but they've made some good games, but what happened to them is simply tragic, I'm not gonna lie.

 

[csanjuro]

Looking Glass Studios

 

[bjork]

I was going to say Eden Games, because Kya: Dark Lineage never got its sequel and the Test Drive Unlimited games were good, but apparently they still exist. I had no idea.

 

[RageBurner]

It's much sadder when a studio still exists, but is just corpse walking. You long for what it used to be, and will never be again.

 

[flamming_python]

Maxis, developers of SimCity, SimEarth, The Sims and basically responsible for a lot of my wasted childhood on my mum's Mac and then my own iMac. Well I think everyone knows them well enough as is.

And I tie them with..

Lobotomy Software, developers of Exhumed for the Saturn & PS1, and responsible for some really unique ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake to the Sega Saturn too. I had both Exhumed and Quake for the Saturn. It was pure wizardry what they accomplished. And let me be straightforward - they were very much a product of their time and I can't see what's basically a porting house that specialized in adapting hit games to much weaker hardware surviving to the present day anyway, now that computer and console architectures are largely unified. But they did go out too soon, I would have loved for them to come up with a couple more releases for the Saturn and survive into the Dreamcast/PS2 era at least.

 

[RageBurner]

Lobotomy could really squeeze a lot of performance out of the Saturn thanks to having the good sense of making a custom engine that played to its strengths. You'd think that would be gamedev 101, but a lot of ports end up shoddy because there's no time/resources/interest in doing that.

 

[Stare best girl]

Lobotomy Software, developers of Exhumed for the Saturn & PS1, and responsible for some really unique ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake to the Sega Saturn too. I had both Exhumed and Quake for the Saturn. It was pure wizardry what they accomplished. And let me be straightforward - they were very much a product of their time and I can't see what's basically a porting house that specialized in adapting hit games to much weaker hardware surviving to the present day anyway, now that computer and console architectures are largely unified. But they did go out too soon, I would have loved for them to come up with a couple more releases for the Saturn and survive into the Dreamcast/PS2 era at least.

Imagine if Lobotomy was contracted to do Quake II for Saturn...

if Quake II on PS1 was already impressive now imagine how would be a Saturn port by Lobotomy considering that the console was already more powerful than PS1

 

[Combo]

It has to be Square and Love-de-Lic for me. Though most of the talents from those two companies went on and started making their own games, pre and post-Enix merge, Love-de-Lic being one of them.

 

[Jill_Sandwich969]

Human entertainment