In the gaming industry, because of the hardworking online game developers, online games, which gamers play through the internet, has become popular these days. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and span many genres, including first-person shooters, strategy games and massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The rivalry between online game developers is intense and they have been developing more and more advanced online games. The revenue in online game segment has reached 16.9 Billion USD in 2019 and it is surely going to grow in the coming years because of Covid-19 and people have to spend their time mostly at home to stop the rapid spread of Covid-19.
The online game developers have successfully made their gaming industry to become a multi-billion industry. Games have become an integral part of human culture from ancient board games to virtual reality. And the online games of online game developers have potential to become one of the most profitable industries on the planet. The early online game developers started creating online games rapidly and become more and more popular because of the increasing ability of internet. The online games becomes more attractive when some online game developers developed digital storefront Steam in which the online game developers allow gamers to buy and review games online in 2013.
In 2004, online game developers developed World of Warcraft and it becomes the first massively multiplayer online (MMO) game to eclipse 10 million active subscriptions. Then when smart phones becomes popular, the online game developers managed to invent to shift their online games to mobile. Some of the online game developers launched Minecraft and it has become one of the bestselling video games in history with 176 copies sold. The history becomes vital when Apple announces In-app Purchase feature for iPhone applications.
In 2015, the online game developers could manage to entertain 1.5 billion people worldwide. The mobile games have become an important part of human lives. Then, in 2016, online game developers of Niantic developed augmented reality game “Pokemon Go” generating the most revenue grossed by any mobile game in its first month. And in 2019, the game developers of Google releases stadia, a cloud gaming service that allows the games to play without a console. And in 2019, the online games by the online game developers have become a market worth 196 billion USD.
Online games become a fundamental thing when there is Covid-19 causing a global interruption of the lives of people. The social distancing guidelines have forced many places to close and many people to go into isolation. Online games becomes a friend for many people during their isolation. And the online game developers have been doing well for their isolated customers. For many people, the lockdowns quickly increased the number of hours spent in front of screens. Without going to school or office, a son and a father can enjoy their online games developed by online game developers.
Here are the world’s best ten online game developers who had developed great online games.
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Riot Games
Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher, and e-sports tournament organizer based in West Los Angeles, California. The early online game developers of Riot Games are Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, roommates at University of Southern California. In the early times, these online game developers tried to seek to create a company that continuously improves on an already released game, instead of commencing development on a new one. In February, 2011, another online game developer named Tencent acquired majority of Riot Games then they fully acquired all in December, 2015. Riot Games has over 2500 staff members with 24 offices around the world.
This online game developer is well-known for their flagship product, League of Legends. The game was firstly released in October, 2009 and subsequently became the game with the highest active player count by 2013. Riot Games are also an online game developer who operates e-sports tournaments for the game including League of Legends World Championship, the Championship Series, the European Championship, and the Mid-Season Invitational.
League of Legends is originally inspired by Defense of the Ancients or Dota. LOL has followed a freemium model since its release on October 27, 2009. League of Legends is often cited as the world’s largest e-sport with an international competitive scene. The 2019 League of Legends World Championship had over 100 million unique viewers, peaking at a concurrent viewership of 44 million, with a minimum prize pool of 2.5 million USD.
Valve
Valve Corporation is an American online game developer headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded this giant online game developer in 1996. Valve is the online game developer of the software distribution platform Steam and Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Dota Series, especially Dota 2. Their debut product, the PC first-person shooter Half-Life, was released in 1998 to critical acclaim and commercial success, after which Harrington left the company.
2003 was the start of a successful online game developer when they created and launched steam, which accounted for half of digital PC game sales by 2011. Following the success of Steam, Valve employed nearly 250 people and the online game developer was worth over 3 Billion USD, and that record makes them to be the most profitable company per employee in the United States. In 2010, Valve began developing hardware such as the Steam Machine (a brand of gaming PCs) and the HTC Vive and Valve Index virtual reality headsets.
Dota 2 is currently one of the best online battle arena created as a sequel to Defense of the Ancients or Dota. Dota 2 Generated revenue of 406 million USD in 2017. Moreover, Dota 2 has a large esports scene, with teams from around the world playing in various professional leagues and tournaments. Valve has also developed Dota Underlords which is available in both PC and mobile.
Then the online games developed by Valve includes Counter-Strike, a series of multiplayer first-person shooter video games.
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment is an American online game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. It is a subsidiary of a giant online game developer, Activision Blizzard. This great company has been in online game development industry since February 8, 1991. Before beginning their own development of software in 1993 with games like Rock n’Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings, the company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports. Then, this online game developer released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Then, Blizzard Entertainment started developing several other online games, including Warcraft sequels, the Diablo series, the StarCraft series, and in 2004, their great masterpiece, World of Warcraft or WoW. It is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. World of Warcraft was the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game by player count of nearly 10 million in 2009. By 2014, this online game have a total of over a hundred million registered accounts by 2014. By 2017, this online game had grossed over 9.23 Billion USD in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time.
Moreover, this online game developer has achieved over 200 awards and accolades from various award shows, publications and presentations. Blizzard has received 17 awards for excellent workplace conditions. And the three founders, Morhaime, Pearce and Adham, received the Award of Merit: Lifetime Achievement from IGN.
Square Enix
Square Enix is a Japanese online game developer and its famous online games are Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts role-playing video game franchises. Several of those online games have been sold over 10 million copies while this online game developer has sold 144 million copies of their masterpiece Final Fantasy franchise alone, the Dragon Quest franchise selling 78 million and the Kingdom Hearts franchise selling 30 million. The Square Enix is well known for not only online game development, this online game developer has also been in the business of merchandise, amusement and publication of manga.
Square Enix is a company formed by the merging of two companies named Square and Enix. And at that time, 80 percent of Square Enix staff come from Square. This online game developer has been working separating two business; corporate business and video game operations since October 2008. The corporate business company is called Square Enix Holdings and the one operating game development is called Square Enix. And that online game developer has become one of the most famous online game developers. Beside its flagship subsidiary, Square Enix Holdings owns the arcade gaming corporation Taito, known for games such as Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, and Darius.
Like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV is also a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) directed and produced by Naoki Yoshida of Square Enix. Square Enix released worldwide for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 3 in August 2013. This game was so much successful that they had to continue releasing PlayStation 4 and OS X.
Krafton
Krafton is a South Korean online game developer based in Seongnam. It was founded by Bluehole on 5th November 2018 to better align itself and its subsidiaries under a unified brand. Its mother company, Bluehole, was founded in Seoul in March 2007 by Chang Byung-Gyu. The subsidiaries of Krafton includes Bluehole, Pnix, En Masse Entertainment, Delusion Studio and PUBG Studio.
Among them, the most famous is PUBG Studio, formerly Ginno Games and PUBG Corporation, in an internal studio of Bluehole’s that developed one of the establishing Battle Royale Games, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), based on user mods in other games. The game is inspired by the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, and expanded into a standalone game under Greene’s creative direction. In the game, up to 100 players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed themselves. The available safe area of the game’s map decreases in size over time, directing surviving players into tighter areas to force encounters. And the last player or team standing wins the battle.
PUBG was first released by PUBG Corporation for Microsoft windows via Steam’s early access with beta program in March, 2017 and with a full release in December, 2017. Then, the game was released for the Xbox One in September, 2018. A free-to-play mobile game version for Android and iOS was released in 2018, in addition to a port for the PlayStation 4. Since then, PUBG has become one of the best-selling and most-played video games of all time.
Behavior Interactive
Behaviour Interactive is a Canadian online game developer specializing in the production of 2D and 3D action and adventure games for home video game consoles, handheld game consoles and personal computers. In 1992, this online game developer was founded in Quebec City as Megatoon. Two years later, Racine co-founded a Montreal-based Multimedia Interactive MMI to develop interactive entertainment software for CD-ROM. Both companies were sold to Malofilm Communications in 1996 and a year later, they were merged into Behaviour Interactive. In 1999, Racine and some investors bought the studio back, changing the name into Artificial Mind and Movement Inc.
In 2008, the online game developer acquired Wanako Games based in Santiago from Activision Blizzard. By 2010, the studio name was reverted to Behavior Interactive. Behavior Interactive have successfully produced many online games including Dead by Daylight, Game of Thrones. Among those online games, Dead by Daylight is the most popular one that Behavior Interactive has made.
Dead by Daylight is asymmetric survival horror online game. Dead by Daylight was released for Microsoft Windows in June 2016, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2017 and for Nintendo Switch on 24th September, 2019. Behavior Interactive then released mobile versions on April 17, 2020. And this online game developer has plans to release Xbox Series versions in late 2020. The game consists of five online multiplayers where one is the savage killer and the others have to play as survivors.
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American online game developer headquartered in Redwood City, California. It is the second-largest gaming company in the Americas and Europe by revenue and market capitalization after Activision Blizzard.
Founded and incorporated on May 27, 1982, by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for its games. EA published numerous games and productivity software for personal computers and later experimented on techniques to internally develop games, leading to the 1987 release of Skate or Die! The company would later decide in favor of abandoning their original principles and acquiring smaller companies that they see profitable, as well as annually releasing franchises to stay profitable.
Currently, EA develops and publishes games of established franchises, including Battlefield, Need for Speed, the Sims, Medal of Honor, Command and Conquer, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two, Titanfall and Star Wars as well as the EA Sports titles FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL and EA Sports UFC. Their desktop titles appear on self-developed Origin, an online gaming digital distribution platform for PCs and a direct competitor to Valve’s Steam and Epic Game’s Store. EA also owns and operates major gaming studios such as EA Tiburon in Orlando, EA Vancouver in Burnaby, DICE in Sweden and Los Angeles, BioWare in Edmonton and Austin, and Respawn Entertainment in Los Angeles.
Among those games, it includes Battlefield, a series of first-person shooter online game developed by American company EA Dice and published by EA. The PC games in the series are mainly focused on online multiplayer. The Battlefield series are so much successful that there were more than 50 million players worldwide in 2012.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft is a French video game company headquartered in Montreuil with several development studios across the world. It publishes games for several video game franchises, including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rayman, Raving Rabbids, and Tom Clancy’s. As of March 2018, Ubisoft is the fourth largest publicly traded game company in the Americas and Europe in terms of revenue and market capitalization, after Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two Interactive. Ubisoft makes wide open games and even some pretty cool applications. The smooth play on their games is incredible.
Among the Ubisoft’s products, Rainbow Six Siege is a popular online game. It focuses on teamwork and tactical thinking, and its slower class-based brand of shooting has drawn a committed community. Operators feel unique, and Ubisoft is expanding its rooster constantly. So, you can often get your gadgets on your hand. You can have all kinds of fun trying out the various classes with tools like deployable walls, battering rams, and drones. Squad-based PvP is Siege’s bread and butter, and there is also the co-op Terrorist Hunt mode, which is a staple of the Rainbow Six Series.
Activision
Activision is an American online game developer based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and top online game developer in America.
Activision has published many online games, and among them, Call of Duty franchise is very popular among gamers. They start publishing that game series on 2003 while the games set in World War II. Then, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold War, futuristic worlds, and outer space. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then also by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. The game is so much popular that you can play it on Microsoft Windows, OS X, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Wii, Xbox, iOS, Android and BlackBerry.
Konami
Konami is a Japanese entertainment and gambling conglomerate also one of the best online game developers. It operates as a product distributor (which produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, pachinko machines, and arcade cabinets), video game developer and publisher company. Besides those, it has casinos around the world and also operates health and physical fitness clubs across Japan.
Konami’s video games include Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Contra, Frogger, Gradius, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Suikoden and Pro Evolution Soccer. Additionally, Konami also owns Bemani, known for Dance Dance Revolution and Beatmania, as well as the assets of former game developer Hudson Soft, known for Bomberman, Adventure Island, Bonk, Bloody Roar and Star Soldier. Konami is the twentieth-largest game company in the world by revenue.
The company originated in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business in Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan by Kagemasa Kozuki, who remains the company’s chairman. The name Konami is a portmanteau of the names Kagemasa Kozuki, Yoshinobu Nakama, and Tatsuo Miyasako.
Konami is currently headquartered in Tokyo. In the United States, Konami manages its video game business form offices in El Segundo, California and its casino gaming business form offices in Paradise, Nevada. Its Australian gaming operations are located in Sydney. As of March, 2019, it owns 22 consolidated subsidiaries around the world.
The most popular masterpiece of Konami is Pro Evolution Soccer or PES games. You can play this game on PlayStation, Android and iOS. You can also play PESCM or Pro Evolution Soccer Club Manager on mobiles. PESCM is the most popular manager game in the world. While rivaling with FIFA Games Series, PES is one of the most popular online games in the world.
