Gaming

sierra ❤️

also bill pogue

Sierra entertainment! I was a big fan of the kings quest games, and Sierra online was my first experience with online gaming.

Westwood studios. Command and conquer tiberian sun was my very first computer game, which I loved dearly (and still have on my computer since it’s freeware now and has been fan patched for modern systems)

Well and then came EA.

Origin "We create worlds". They definitely did with the Wing Commander series. Played a lot of WC 3, 4 as well as Privateer.

I don't think anyone mentioned Lionhead Studios. Black and White was fun. Sadly it's in copyright limbo if I'm not mistaken.

Also played a lot of Civilization 1 from Microprose back in the day.

Westwood I had fun with Red Alert 1 & 2 for a long time. Super casual player though.

Lucas Arts

Apogee Software for Rise of the Triad, Blue Sky Productions for Última Underworld and Bullfrog Productions for Syndicate.

Valve.

Not new management, but they definitely changed direction. From Portal 2 to Half-Life Alyx was a dark age of live service titles and hardware. Fortunately, it seems like they're finally getting back to their old selves?

Alyx was supposedly their re-entry into releasing games (hopeful that HLX is good), the Steam Deck caused them to go back and fix several of their titles (plus do the huge Half-Life update we just got), and while they're not exactly making their games as open as they used to, they're letting the community handle things like TF2 events and L4D2 patches.

So, I dunno, cautiously optimistic for their future. At least as long as Gabe is running the company.

Blizzard. Without Activision.

Interplay's Black Isle Studios, now Obsidian.

Hard to pick but early to mid 90s era Maxis, Bullfrog, Bungie (Pathways/Marathon/Myth era), Blizzard, and SEGA all come to mind. All either gone or changed.

Electronic Arts :(

Infocom.

Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide, Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>

Infocom hands down. Pure escapism

Maxis was the one that came to mind for me, too! I played everything of theirs that I could get my hands on. Still playing The Sims after all these years!

Neversoft. THPS2 had a banger soundtrack.

Sierra On-Line

King's Quest is still one of my favorite series ever and the one they put out a few years ago was a great retelling. I cried at the end.

Westwood, but not for Command & Conquer or Dune 2. I still remember them fondly for their Kyrandia games. I loved the art design, the music and the jokes.
Kyrandia 2 being one of my all time favorite adventure games, Zanthia was an awesome protagonist. Especially for her time.

It’s nice that their strategy games picked up the way they did, but part of me wishes they stuck with their fantasy games.

Bullfrog for Populous and Dungeon Keeper (ruined by EA).

Troika for Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (ruined by Activision).

Blizzard, boy was I fucking wrong.

Neversoft, Rareware, Sega, Activision, EA, and Bethesda created a lot of great memories from my childhood. Neversoft is defunct, Sega still makes some decent stuff but nowhere near what they did in the 90s, EA is EA, and the rest are now owned by Microsoft... so...

Blizzard and Westwood studios. It's unfortunate what happened to them.

Frontier for Elite
Psygnosis for Lemmings and a bunch of other fun games on the Amiga.

Rainbow Arts (Turrican on Amiga), Maxis (SimCity) and Digital Illusions (because of their pinball games)

All of them gone except Digital Illusions which became DICE.

Humongous entertainment

Red Storm of OG Rainbow 6

Acclaim of N64 era, Turrok in particular

Squaresoft, Bioware, and Bethesda are three companies whose logos I once considered a seal of quality. None of the three really exist anymore, although there are new much larger companies using their names.

Aspyr! I was a Mac user in an era that was 95% Windows, and Aspyr brought quality games over to our side of the pond. I remember they ported Alpha Centauri in particular, but there were lots of other ones too.

Also Bungie back in that era—they were Mac-exclusive and putting out the amazing Marathon series. I was heartbroken when I saw the trailer for the new “Marathon” game that looks nothing like the originals.

ID tech

The 3 Bs, baby. Blizzard, Bioware, and Bethesda.

Blizzards dead to me, Bioware fell off after dragon age 1, and Bethesda refuses to take its limiters off anymore (no drugs)

Interplay, Microprobe, Sierra On-Line, Bullfrog, Dynamix, Origin, all long gone.

Activision is still around, but it's something completely different. Same with Atari (although theres a nostalgia brand now, so maybe back).

Of them all, I think is have to say I'm most nostalgic for Sierra On-Line, although Origin gives them a run for most nostalgic.

Looking Glass Studios.

LK Avalon.

PopTop. Railroad Tycoon 2&3 and Tropico 1&2. They got bought by 2K, which eventually killed the studio. The Railroad Tycoon series is dead. Tropico is still around, but I'm not excited about the latest interation. Some of the guys tried to kickstart a new Railroad Tycoon but it didn't fund. Phil Steinmeyer was an underrated developer, though I believe he's retired today.

It's too bad it worked out that way. I think they could have been on the level with Paradox as far as strategy games are concerned, but focusing more on economic games, city builders, and the like. On Steinmeyer's blog he said he didn't think there was demand for heavier games anymore about mid 00s. That might have been true then, but so many games out now prove that wrong.

Novalogic - Loved the earlier Delta Force games, and Tachyon: The Fringe

Fighting Fantasy books

Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin... basically any studio that EA bought and destroyed.