Best Gaming Studios in the World

CEO & Founder at RetroStyle Games | Dec 21, 2023

Let’s be honest – we all love video games here. Though some of us may argue that the gaming industry is in a bad shape now, that trends are getting worse, same as the quality of games, etc. But we still get masterpieces or just very high-quality games like Baldur’s Gate 3. In this article, let’s discuss some of the best gaming studios in the world.

Before we start, let's define what a gaming studio is. A gaming studio is a studio that makes games! That was a bit too obvious.

But quite often it happens that there may be a huge company that publishes dozens of games but doesn’t develop them on their own – they just own a lot of smaller developers.

Criteria for the Best Gaming Studios

Unfortunately, we live in a cruel and capitalistic world. Thus, the one and only criteria that can be as objective as possible to define the best gaming studio in the world is the company’s revenue. What is the revenue? Basically, it is a “how much money did the company get in a year?”. It is also easily calculated – as an average price for a unit times by a number of units sold. In our case “units” are mostly games and/or gaming attributes.

And the last thing to say here – in this article we will talk about Gaming revenue only. Because, for example, Epic Games makes revenue from both their store and their games. Only game revenue will be accounted for.

All the statistics in this article were taken from open sources, those being official companies’ reports or reputable sources like Forbes, Statista, etc.

Top Gaming Studios Across Continents

For your comfort and ease of reading we will divide the best gaming studios in the world based on continents. Those being North America, Asia and Europe. Why did we not include other continents? Mostly because their impact on the gaming industry is simply too small. Like, do you know any of the best game developers from South America or Australia? This, of course, may change drastically in the future!

North America

Let’s start with something a bit obvious – North America. Because the USA is the most “gaming” country in the world, being a top 1 with about 270,000 employees and about 2360 gaming studios.

Microsoft (Xbox Games Studios)

Yes, that was too obvious. Don’t you laugh, because Microsoft is about to acquire Laughing in 2025 in a $100500 billion deal.

Jokes aside, Microsoft is an absolute Titan of gaming industry, one of the top gaming studious worldwide, and Microsoft-Blizzard $68 billion deal, closed on 13th October 2023, confirms it. No, Microsoft is totally not a monopoly. It may just seem so.

Revenue	$15.47 billion
Games	about 200
Popular Games	The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Forza, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Halo, The Gears of War, etc.
Headquarters	Redmond, USA
Owner	None, shares are publicly traded. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the largest shareholder (8.3%). Has a CEO – Satya Nadella, and a President – Bradford L. Smith.
Founded	1975

Games to look forward to in 2024-2025: Fable, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Clockwork Revolution, and many others.

Creative Process Insights: Microsoft uses design thinking as a framework for innovation. Design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that emphasizes empathy, collaboration, and iteration.

Microsoft believes that design thinking can help to democratize the benefits of technology. By focusing on human needs, Microsoft aims to create technology that is accessible and useful to everyone. This approach makes them one of the most successful game developers.

Electronic Arts

EA Games – Challenge Everything! If you played some of the old EA games, like the original Battlefield 2, you most probably heard those words. If you loved sports simulators, then you most probably heard their legendary phrase “EA Games – It’s in the game”. Those were good times for this popular game development company.

But now EA faces quite a lot of hate from their fans, and in absolute most of the cases all this hate is fair. EA makes some of the most predatory cash shops and microtransaction systems in the modern game dev landscape, competing only with mobile games developers. Nevertheless, people still buy, so the wheel keeps spinning.

Revenue	$7.4 billion
Games	about 150-200
Popular Games	Battlefield, Burnout, Dead Space, Dragon Age, FIFA / FC, Sim City, The Sims, etc.
Headquarters	Redwood City, USA
Owner	Andrew Wilson, CEO
Founded	1982

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Immortals of Aveum, Madden 24, EA Sports FC.

Creative Process Insights: EA aims to make their games more accessible. For example, by using their unique light-sensitivity analyzing program IRIS. Also, EA aims to promote “destruction artists” – people who draw and/or program destruction scenes in video games. Interested in how these spectacular effects are created?

Dive into our in-depth exploration of this art form in our Game VFX Destruction Effects blog post, where the chaos of battlefields and the complexity of damage effects are transformed into stunning content.

Epic Games

You may not like Epic Games Store…but you must probably have an account there just to grab some free games from time to time. Mostly they’re not too interesting, but sometimes you can get games like GTA 5 or Witcher 3 for free.

Though Epic Games is famous for two other reasons – Unreal Engine development tool and… Fortnite.

A lot of people don’t like Fortnite because it’s too “cartoonish” or “childish”, but it’s definitely one of the most popular and one of the biggest games in history, period.

Revenue	$5.7 billion
Games	around 40
Popular Games	Fortnite, Battle Breakers, Bulletstorm, Unreal Tournament, etc.
Headquarters	Cary, North Carolina, USA
Owner	Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO
Founded	1991 (Originally – Potomac Computer Systems)

Games to Look Forward to in 2024: None. Probably some big Fortnite updates.

Creative Process Insights: Two things come to mind. Free games by Epic Games Store, and unending collaborations by Fortnite and other popular franchises. Fortnite + Transformers? Done. Fortnite + The Invincible? Done. Fortnite + The Boys? Done. Fortnite + LEGO? Sure!

Europe

Let’s now dive somewhere else. Because the gaming industry is very strong in Europe, with some of the most popular games being published and some of the most anticipated games to release in the near future. Though “numbers” won’t be as big here, mostly because every company listed above has a rich presence in Europe as well. And no, unfortunately you won’t see our beloved Gabe Newell and Valve Co. in this list, because most of Valve’s income comes from selling games, not making them.

Ubisoft

This studio, one of the most famous game development companies, used to spark joy. Making some of the most beloved games of their period, like Assassin’s Creed 2, The Settlers, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and others. And now…well, now Ubisoft makes some of the worst and least interesting games, parasyting on their extensive and sometimes fanatical fanbase. Nonetheless, Ubisoft makes money. Quite a lot of money. Investors love money, they love seeing big stonks and lines going up. So most probably the games will continue to be exceptionally poor story- and gameplay-wise. Nonetheless, Ubisoft boasts some of the most experienced game developers in the entire industry.

Revenue	$2 billion
Games	More than 20 titles, about 100-150 games
Popular Games	Tom Clancy’s series, Just Dance, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, Anno, Asphalt, etc.
Headquarters	Saint-Mandé, France
Owner	The Guillemot family, Tencent
Founded	1986

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Invincible: Guarding the Globe, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Skull and Bones, Star Wars Outlaws, and an endless stream of Assassin’s Creed games, because it is too hard to stop the conveyor.

Creative Process Insights: Despite all the hate towards Ubisoft, they deserve some credits – their games are usually of high quality due to extensive beta testing (not everyone want to be like Todd Howard), and their games are being kept alive for quite a lot of time. Like, Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag is a 2013 game, with servers still active, and last updated in 2023.

Supercell

Another notable game studio, Supercell is the first solely mobile game developer and publisher in our list. And that’s not a surprise, the mobile gaming market is well known for its ridiculous monetization and use of the worst microtransaction strategies known to mankind.

Revenue	$1.87 billion (2022)
Games	20 (most have been canceled at various stages of development)
Popular Games	Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Hay Day, Boom Beach, Brawl Stars, etc.
Headquarters	Helsinki, Finland
Owner	Ilkka Paananen – CEO, Tencent – parent company
Founded	2010

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Mo.co

Creative Process Insights: Credit where credit is due – their games are of very high quality, visually appealing and cohesive. One of the main strategies – to make their games understandable for children, their main market.

CD Projekt Red

We’re finally getting some high-quality content here! They absolutely banged the gaming industry in 2015, making their best game – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, making them the most prominent video game studio in Europe…for some time, at least. This game changed a lot. This game is still loved and used as an example.

This game is simply one of the best RPG experiences in gaming history, alongside such legends as Dragon Age: Origins, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and many others. Also, they’re famous for Cyberpunk 2077. One of the buggiest releases in history. Probably buggier than Fallout New Vegas. History of this game is somewhat similar to No Man’s Sky – it was released, hated, and had “Mostly Negative” reviews on Steam. Then the game got fixed and now has “Mostly Positive” reviews. The game itself is actually a very good story and gameplay-wise, but nowhere near to The Witcher 3. Though the company’s revenue is small, compared to others in this list, the success of their latest releases makes CDPR a major game developer.

Revenue	$213 million (2022)
Games	11
Popular Games	The Witcher series, Cyberpunk 2077
Headquarters	Warsaw, Poland
Owner	Adam Kiciński – President and CEO
Founded	1994

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Project Canis Majoris (original Witcher remake), Project Sirius (New game in The Witcher universe).

Creative Process Insights: CDPR’s strongest side is their story making and storytelling. Take The Witcher 1 as an example. The game is very old, very ugly, and very clunky. But it has a good story, alongside good storytelling. The Witcher 2 – Jaskier was used as a storyteller, and the game itself, for most of it, was a resemblance of what happened before Geralt was captured, thus mixing a few different story-narrating mechanics together.

Asia

In the traditional sense, the Asian gaming market is…weird. From the perspective of an American or European player. Prevalent trends in Asia almost always differ from those in the rest of the world. Just look at popular Asian MMOs and popular gaming studios – you’ll get the general idea. But, of course, it is not always like that. And there are many leading game development companies which make games that are absolute bangers, like Dark Souls, creating its own genre of hardcore stamina based games, or Death Stranding…a gorgeous-looking walking simulator. And many others!

Sony Interactive

Though Sony’s main focus is electronics (like PlayStation, yay!), it has a game development team and owns some other companies. They also make a lot of other stuff, like movies, phones, TVs, etc. But they are truly pioneers of the gaming industry with some of the most known and beloved titles in their possession, boasting top video game producers, multi-million budgets and an ever-evolving infrastructure.

Revenue	$25 billion
Games	200-300
Popular Games	The Last of Us, God of War: Ragnarök, Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel’s Spider Man, Bloodborne, Demon’s Souls Remake, etc.
Headquarters	Tokyo, Japan
Owner	None, shares are publicly traded, biggest shareholder – The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd. (17.9% shares), CEO – Kenichiro Yoshida.
Founded	1946

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Dragon’s Dogma 2, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, and others.

Creative Process Insights: Most notable aspect of games developed by Sony is their absolute quality. Compared to most other games, their games come bug-free and well-polished from the Day 1 launch, not after weeks or months.

Tencent Games

There is a chance that you have never heard of this company. But it owns a lot. A lot of smaller companies, developers and publishers. Tencent’s story is so long, as well as it’s worth mentioning how many companies does Tencent own. But nonetheless, they don’t just buy other companies, they develop games on their own. And they do that quite well. Mostly aiming at the Asian market.

Revenue	$13.9 billion
Games	over 140
Popular Games	PUBG: Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, FIFA Online 3, Monster Hunter, etc.
Headquarters	Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Owner	Mǎ Huàténg – CEO
Founded	1998

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Honor of Fight and Ash Echoes, alongside major updates to their biggest games like Honor of Kings, Arena Breakout, Moonlight Blade, etc.

Creative Process Insights: Tencent has some major strategies. Namely – buying out everything Microsoft-style, adding ridiculous amounts of microtransactions to their games, aiming at the Asian gaming market. Most of their games look quite the same. But they are high-quality. Mostly they do not make anything creative or original. They copy something successful, or buy a company that made a successful game. Though they are still one of the top game publishers worldwide, considering their revenue.

Nintendo Co., Ltd.

This company, like no other, deserves a separate article. Just telling you about its history will take hours of reading.

No joking – the company was founded in 1889, making it the oldest gaming company in existence, as well as one of the top game production companies. But how could they make consoles or video games in 1889? They didn’t!

Nintendo began as a small family business, creating and selling hand-made hanafuda cards (hanafuda is a traditional Japanese card game). With a history of more than a century, Nintendo affected the gaming industry in so many ways, it is simply impossible to describe it.

Revenue	$13.8 billion
Games	exceeding 5000
Popular Games	Donkey Kong, Super Mario, Balloon Fight, Baseball, Duck Hunt, Pokemon, etc.
Headquarters	Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan
Owner	Shuntaro Furukawo – President
Founded	1889

Games to Look Forward to in 2024-2025: Princess Peach: Showtime! Take to the stage, Splatoon 3: Expansion Pass. Side Order, etc.

Creative Process Insights: Nintendo is known as one of the top game makers that makes children-friendly and family-oriented games. That is their main philosophy.

Trends Shaping the Future of Gaming Studios

Gaming market is one of the fastest evolving in the world. Trends are constantly changing. Games that had hundreds of thousands of people online may now be dead. Let’s now spare a few minutes to discuss what exactly shapes the future of gaming or simply affects industry so much that it is worth mentioning.

Roblox

We bet you didn’t expect that. Why Roblox, you may ask? It’s just a silly child’s game! Yes, it may seem so. But credit where credit is due – this “silly child game” is something unique.

Basically, Roblox is not just a game. It’s a platform with some actually powerful tools to create your own games, based on Roblox engine (Roblox Studio). Roblox was founded in 2004 by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel. Baszucki, a former engineer at Autodesk, envisioned a platform that would empower users to create their own online “experiences”. Cassel, a tech entrepreneur, provided the business acumen and strategic vision to bring Baszucki’s vision to life. Today, Roblox boasts a large and talented team of engineers, designers, and creative professionals who are constantly working to improve the platform and expand its capabilities.

Roblox player count is about 215 million active monthly users, with over 40 MILLION games developed on its engine since public launch. Quality of games (they are also called “experiences”), greatly varies. Starting at “what in the name of god is this, it looks awful” and ends at “Jesus Christ, who could create such a masterpiece??”. The situation here is pretty much similar to popular games with modding tools attached, like Fallout 4 or RimWorld – some mods are absolutely outstanding, some are terrible.

Next interesting feature is – you can earn real money in the game. How is this possible? Well, here’s a short list of some general steps:

You must be of age 13 or older (hard requirement) to create your game.
Create your game.
Monetize it the way you see fit (without violating Roblox’s Terms of Use or other existing rules!). In order to be able to engage in Robux and/or real money operations – you must be over 18 (also a hard requirement).
If your game is successful – you can earn Robux – premium currency used in Roblox.
Once you have a certain amount of Robux deposited on your Creator Account (30,000+), you can convert them to real money using the Developer Exchange Program (DevEx).
You can also create new assets for the game and sell them, new plugins, avatar items, etc. If you are a talented person – you will find limitless possibilities to earn real money in Roblox.

This game is so complex, that what we just told you – is not even a tip of the iceberg. You haven’t even seen the iceberg so far! In fact, Roblox was (and actually still is)so successful that cryptobros stole the idea of the game and created its “better” version – something called The Sandbox. In short, it’s worse than Roblox in every possible way and you should never play it. Roblox is also widely considered to be the most successful Metaverse so far.

Early Access Games

You probably already understand where this is going. Early Access is a double-edged sword. For smaller companies and indie / solo devs it’s a perfect way to collect enough money to polish and release the game. But for many others it’s a way to scam people. How, you may ask? Pretty easy: you create a game, promise golden piles, to make The Game of the Games, then you deliver pretty much nothing. If your promises weren’t stated anywhere officially, then there’s nothing legally obliging you to deliver what was promised.

Some games can also waste years in Early Access, still nowhere close to release. Sometimes it’s not an actual problem, as long as the game itself is good, sometimes it may frustrate the audience. All in all, early access is good for smaller developers or even big companies which need extensive testing for their game. But it is also an opportunity for scammers.

The Metaverse

No, we’re not talking about Zukerberg’s multi-billion epic fail. And also we’re not talking about trash web-3 crypto-metaverses that accumulated billions of investors’ funds with a close to absent playerbase. We’re talking about actual games, with actual gameplay, and with something close to being a heart and soul. Such games include Ultima Online (1997), Second Life(2003), Roblox(2004), and some others. All these projects are old, as you can see. And they are all still active!

Back then, when these projects were developed, Social Networks like Twitter or Facebook weren’t a thing. People barely had any opportunities to meet new people online. That’s where metaverses came into play.

But what is the metaverse, exactly? Well, it depends on the course of information. Generally saying, The Metaverse – is a virtual world that users can explore, interact with, and create various kinds of content. It is not necessarily something that resembles our real world and / or planet Earth. It may be any world, any setting, whatever floats the boat of the developer. But right now Metaverse projects are being brought back to life mostly by cryptobros, who try to collect as much money and deliver as little as possible. Unfortunately, this trend is going to stick for a while.

Cloud Gaming

What is cloud gaming? Basically, it’s when you play the game remotely on a dedicated server with top or close to top processors, video cards, etc., and the process is streamed to your monitor. Why is this a thing? Mostly because not everyone can buy the latest processors and video cards to play latest and future game releases. You pay for the time (a certain amount of money for an hour), or buy access for weeks / months, etc. It’s a good example of the gaming as a service (GaaS) model.

Cloud Gaming is becoming more and more popular mostly because cloud technologies have stepped forward and are now so cheap that they can be used to generate profit for the regular public. In the long term (2+ years), it will be a better idea to build a gaming PC. But if you don’t play regularly and don’t want to spend a few thousand dollars on it – cloud gaming is your perfect option.

Rising Stars in the Gaming Industry

People like Success Stories. Especially if all the success belongs to good people with good intentions. And looking at the current game dev landscape, with all the awful releases…let’s just say – glory to indie / small / independent devs! They are mostly the only ones who actually contribute something to the industry.

BattleBit Remastered Studio (unofficial name)

Hey, do you still remember the Battlefield 2042 epic fail? Do you still remember that utter disappointment? We do. That’s why we brought you some high quality content here! Meet BattleBit Remastered – the game that was developed by 3 people and absolutely wrecked a multi-billion company.

BattleBit Remastered in an MMOFPS (same genre as Battlefield 2042 for example). It was developed by 3 talented and passionate people:

SgtOkiDoki. A skilled programmer with experience in modding for various games.
Vilaskis. A talented artist and designer known for their contributions to Roblox mods.
TheLiquidHorse. A passionate developer with extensive experience in game design and community management.

The journey began in December 2016 when SgtOkiDoki, Vilaskis, and TheLiquidHorse, who were friends and fellow modders, decided to start their first original project together. They envisioned a low-poly, fast-paced MMOFPS with a focus on accessibility and replayability.

With their combined skills and shared passion, the trio started developing BattleBit under the name “BattleBit Remastered” on Steam Greenlight. They actively engaged with the community, gathering feedback and suggestions to shape the game’s features and direction. This open communication and dedication to player input played a significant role in building a strong community around the game.

In June 2023, BattleBit Remastered launched on Steam Early Access. What started as a small indie project quickly gained traction, attracting thousands of players within months. Its simple controls, low-system requirements, and nostalgic voxel-style graphics resonated with a wide audience, including players who enjoyed classic FPS titles like Battlefield.

In fact, the game got its popularity mostly because of the absolute failure of Battlefield 2042. When it came out and people saw how bad this game was…they wanted something better. And there was a better option! BattleBit player count skyrocketed to 86500 all-time peak, with about 10000 active daily players nowadays. For an MMO these results are absolutely brilliant. And though Battlefield 2042 player count is bigger now (about 15000 daily players), BattleBit has way better reviews – Overwhelmingly Positive (90%+) versus Mixed (44%). All the data was collected from Steam.

Endnight Games Ltd.

Have you ever dreamt of being chased by naked people around the forest at night? If so, then The Forest is the perfect game for you! The Forest is a first-person, survival horror sandbox.

The project was created with a team of just 4 people. It was released as Alpha on Steam in 2014, then fully released in 2018. The gaming process is basically as follows – you start to survive, you get better and better gear, you unlock the mystery of the island. Sounds dull, but actually is an incredibly fun experience, especially with friends (the game supports co-op with up to 4 players).

Steam reviews are Overwhelmingly Positive (95%+) with 435,000 player votes. Daily active players – about 20,000 with an all time peak of 76,000. Another brilliant result by a small, but passionate team.

Supergiant Games

Time to get to bigger numbers. Supergiant Games is an independent studio from San-Francisco, founded in 2008, active employee count – 24 (as of 2024). This studio’s biggest success was (and still is) Hades. On its launch this game wrecked all charts, becoming popular in no time. Why did it happen? Because the game was developed with love and passion, by a small and experienced team, and not by a multi-billion company which cares about money and nothing else.

Hades is a rogue-like dungeon-crawl game with a unique plot. Its most distinctive feature – unique art style, which is a visit-card of the studio. Game was launched to early access in 2018, with full release in 2020.

The reviews are overwhelmingly positive (98%+), with about 220,000 votes, making it one of the best roguelike games on Steam. All-time player peak was rather low – about 37,000. But the game still has an active player base of about 6,000 active players every day – which is a result of a rather good and still active MMO. If you want a game with similar art style but a very interesting plot – you should check The Banner Saga. The game was never popular, but it is truly a hidden gem. Supergiant Games is probably one of the most innovative gaming companies in the world.

Summary of Key Findings

Shortly saying – gaming industry is doomed! Well, that was probably a bit exaggerated. If being serious – Big Names like Ubisoft, EA, Xbox Game Studious, etc, used to be the best game developers. But now they just continue to disappoint with their unoriginal, uninspired, overprice games with microtransactions and other atrocities.

Many video game influencers on YouTube, for example, agree that the future belongs to small / independent / indie studios. Because they mostly deliver something truly unique and interesting. So what is the gaming of the future? From where we stand it seems rather dark, in terms of high-quality content. Sales will continue going up, of course, like they did during last years.

FAQ

Who is the number 1 gaming studio in the world?

According to solely gaming revenue – Sony is the top gaming studio, with a 25 billion dollars result.

What are the top 5 biggest game studios in the world?

Here’s a list of 5 biggest game studios based on their gaming revenue:

Sony Interactive – $25 billion.
Microsoft (Xbox Games Studio) – $15.47 billion.
Tencent Games – $13.9 billion.
Nintendo Co., Ltd. – $13.8 billion.
Electronic Arts – $7.4 billion.

What are the top video game companies in the US?

US top video games companies, based on revenue, are – Microsoft (Xbox Games Studio), Electronic Arts, and Epic Games.