Who is your favourite game developer? Tell us who and why for $5!

Making video games is a collaborative enterprise, with the biggest games requiring teams of hundreds to make. Some achieve more renown than others, whether deservedly as the most talented or influential, or perhaps just because they're good at self-promotion.

We're calling on you, the Just About Video Games community, to cut through the noise and let us know who is your favourite game developer. Perhaps they were the director of your favourite games - that'd be an obvious place to start - or perhaps they're an artist, composer, or actor who turns in consistently memorable performances every time. Or maybe you have an even better reason to admire them?

Write us a couple of short paragraphs or record a short video - a minimum of 50 words or 30 seconds of footage - telling us who your favourite dev is and explaining why. The best entries get $5 each!

Task: Share your favourite video game developer

Format: Written or video

How to submit a written entry:

Hit the 'submit to this bounty' button just below this description - do not use the reply button unless you just want to comment on the thread, as replies will not be counted as entries!
Add a written response and feel free to include images.

How to submit a video entry:

Create your video and post it to your connected TikTok, YouTube or Instagram account.
In your post description, please tag us! We're @JustAbout__ on YouTube, @justaboutcommunity on Instagram, and @justaboutcommunity on TikTok. We'd also love it if you included #JustAbout.
Hit the 'submit to this bounty' button just below this description - do not use the reply button unless you just want to comment on the thread, as replies will not be counted as entries!
Share a link to your post in the box that appears, then expand it so we can view the video on Just About.

Once the deadline closes, we’ll pick 7 submissions, award $5 to each of the winners, and may share them as curated content.

Disclaimer: Geographical and age restrictions apply. Please see our Terms of Use for more information on how bounties are created and rewarded on Just About. One reward available per member.

Take care not to breach copyright. Check our copyright policy before submitting.
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Created at 6:18pm, 9th January, 2024. Page last updated at 2:43pm, 16th May, 2024.
Deadline at 11:30pm, 16th January, 2024.

Submissions (9)

avrona1/13/2024

Right now for me the obvious choice is CDPR. The Witcher series and now Cyberpunk were games that were literally unlike anything else with their attention to detail. They nail the charm and atmosphere and worldbuilding in their games, in a way that no one else on the market does right now. With the state of gaming in general in the last few years and the many bad decisions other big devs are doing, their games remained consistently solid. And I'm not bias just because they're from my home country...

Samuel1/13/2024

Oh boy do I truly love Indie passion projects.

I'm pretty sure we know what's coming next

Shoutout to Zeekerss!

Never have I ever, seen an indie game take the Steam world by storm, and Zeekers pulling ~12 million copies soldon their latest game, Lethal Company just goes to show how true love and passion into a game goes a lot longer than thousands of people making a game for money (Looking at you Activision)

Lethal Company is still only in early-access, and Zeekerss is not showing any signs of slowing down. He actively listens to the community on their needs and wants for the game, show love and care for every aspect of it, and even implements the best support for modding! And to consider that this game is made by only a single developer who went from Roblox games to multi-millionaire best seller...

The game is cheap. The game is loved. The game is most of all, the most fun ever.

And that can only happen with a great, solo developer. Zeekerss!

Max Grauer1/11/2024

Won$5

Ubisoft and their Assassin's Creed developers. While they do have trouble with the polish of their games, the worlds they build are amazing and super accurate. There aren't many games where you can play in Renaissance Italy and climb to the top of the Colossuem or climb up to the top of the spire at Notre Dame during the French Revolution.

Lanah Tyra1/10/2024

Won$5

Probably you are all expecting me to say Yoshi-P, director and producer of FFXIV, and you wouldn't be wrong. He brought back FFXIV from the failed 1.0 and made it a success running since 10 years, said it's his life's work and he has plans at least for the next 10 years for the game. He is totally one of my favourite developers, and I could sing his praises for hours.

Yet today I'ld like to tell you a story about my other favourite, who is celebrating his 49th birthday today: FFXIV's composer, Masayoshi Soken.

Please listen to this song first, and then read on:

It's the soundtrack of one of the most epic boss fights from the Shadowbringers expansion (if not the whole game) it's on my top 5 best boss fights list. Soken wrote this track in his hospital bed while receiving chemotherapy. He begged Yoshi-P to let him work, to let him finish this song in time for the patch release, not just because he knew how excited we all were for this part of the story, but for himself as well, to have something to hold on to while battling his illness, so Square Enix CEO arranged for kit to be brought into the hospital for him, so he could keep on working.

And knowing the story behind the creation of this song, the lyrics make so much more sense. The boss fight itself is a fight for life, it starts with a healer check, dropping everyone to 1 HP with limited time to heal the party up, and it has the most difficult Active Time Event in the game, where no matter how fast you smash the buttons on your keyboard or controller, you'll only finish it a couple of seconds before the time limit. And if anyone fails it from the part, it's a wipe.

Here is Soken's speech from the 2021 Fan Festival (which was a digital edition due to Covid) where he first talks about his illness (there is live translation to English)

Soken and Yoshi-P are the heart and soul of FFXIV, and I can't wait to see where the game will take us in the next expansion.

Paul Younger1/10/2024

This is a really tough question but if I think about the games I have spent the most time in over the years it would have to be Blizzard for Diablo and the now gone Westwood Studios for the C&C franchise.

Both developers nailed it when it came to creating a complete experience around the games whether it was story, audio, gameplay moments, or even multiplayer. With that in mind, you have to tip the hat to the likes of David Brevik. Eric Schaefer, and Louis Castle. There are probably too many to name in each of the teams that made these franchises timeless.