Gaming

Looking Glass Studios.

Team17

Dice with the OG Battlefield 2 on PC. That's what I mostly played. Now I haven't touched a BF game in years. None have lived up to that game yet.

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.

Valve is the only one of mine that's still around as more than just a brand name used by EA.

Bioware, Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, and more... All gobbled up and turned into shit by Electronic Farts.

Others that just died on their own include Black Isle and Interplay, Sierra and LucasArts. Some of these might be around in some capacity, though afaik they're just used for the names.

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.

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

Level 5, I still go back to play dark cloud 1 and 2 every couple years. Now if they'd just make the third one I stead of another professor Layton or yokai watch that'd be great!

Fighting Fantasy books

Mastertronic on the C64.

I grew up with tony hawks pro skater 2, need for speed 2 se, and prince of persia sands of time. So no.

I dont remember the name of it, but you flew around in a blue spaceshit type thing. I think the story involved you being in some futuristic scifi navy/army. One word I can remember being said a lot (i think your wingman or something said it sometimes when you got a kill) is "Casbah".

Its not a lot but I was very very young, and played it on my uncle's PC over a summer while I was visiting my relatives abroad. If anyone has even remotely any idea what Im blabbering about please tell me 😂. Ive been occasionally thinking about it for years.

Camelot

They made the Shining Force and Golden Sun games, both of which I loved, but these days they have been relegated to making the Mario Golf and Tennis games. Which are still pretty good quality, but I miss them making rpgs.

ID tech

Some I haven’t seen mentioned yet are Interplay and MECC.

WildTangent and FATE specifically lol i never got past like level ten

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.

Red Storm of OG Rainbow 6

Acclaim of N64 era, Turrok in particular

Psygnosis simply for Drakan. I recently replayed it and it holds up pretty well, even if the melee combat as Rynn is a little clunky.

Another one, who is still around and very successful in their niche, is Egosoft. X4 at release was a little so-so, but mostly due to performance issues and me being spoiled from years and years worth of mods for the previous games (but also, without any of the really good DLCs, only three of the six or so factions are in the game).

LK Avalon.

GoD Games