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<p>American video game developers list includes some of the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/notable-game-designer_s)/reference?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">top game designers</a> in the US. These are video game developers currently headquartered in the United States. Video game development is a specialized type of software development focusing on games. These games can be for any type of computer whether it be game consoles such as Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo, mobile platforms such as the iPhone or iPad, or traditional computers such as PC and Macintosh. </p>Who are the top American game developers? What companies have the best game developers? Developers often further specialize into a specific type of genre, whether it be RPG's, FPS's, or RTS's. Unlike regular software development, game development can also trek into the territory of Hollywood, requiring work from writers, artists, and actors to complete their projects.

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Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games is a multinational video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of British video game publisher BMG Interactive. The publisher is known for the Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, L.A. Noire, The Warriors, Bully, Manhunt, Midnight Club and Red Dead games, as well as the use of open world, free roaming settings in their games. It comprises studios that have been acquired and renamed as well as others that have been created internally. While many of the studios Take-Two Interactive has acquired have been merged into the Rockstar brand, several other recent ones have retained their previous identities and have become part of the company's 2K Games division. The Rockstar Games label was founded in New York City in 1998 by the British video game producers Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman.
The main headquarters of Rockstar Games is located on Broadway in the SoHo neighbourhood of New York City, part of the Take-Two Interactive offices. It is home to the marketing, public relations and product development departments.

Insomniac Games

Insomniac Games, Inc. is an American video game developer with the corporate headquarters located in Burbank, California. Founded in 1994, Insomniac Games has released titles for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and Xbox 360 video game consoles. The company has also just released the Xbox One Exclusive, Sunset Overdrive. As of 2012 the developer had sold a total of thirty-five million units of software on the PlayStation platform. Insomniac Games has also won 13 "Best Workplace" awards at the national, state, and local level.
Insomniac Games developed Disruptor, the Spyro series, the Ratchet & Clank series, and the Resistance series. Insomniac mostly developed games on PlayStation platforms until it released Fuse which was their first multiplatform game. The studio developed an Xbox One exclusive game called Sunset Overdrive, which was released on October 28, 2014.

Sony Computer Entertainment America

Sony Computer Entertainment America is a video game publisher that was founded in 1994.

Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984 as an independent developer, the studio was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001. Gavin and Rubin produced a sequence of progressively more successful games, including Rings of Power for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Way of the Warrior for the 3DO. The latter — a very low-budget but still plausible offering — prompted Universal Interactive Studios to sign the duo to a three-title deal and fund the expansion of the company.
Mark Cerny, who was an assistant programmer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega, convinced Naughty Dog to focus its new resources on creating a character-based platform game that would fully exploit the 3D capabilities of the new systems. Ultimately, this led to the release of Crash Bandicoot for the PlayStation on August 31, 1996. Naughty Dog developed three Crash Bandicoot sequels over the next several years. In January 2001, it was announced Sony would acquire Naughty Dog. After developing Crash Team Racing, the company began working on Jak and Daxter for the PlayStation 2.

Valve Corporation

Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, United States. Its European-based office opened in 2012 in Luxembourg. Founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, Valve developed critically acclaimed video game series Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. It has also developed and maintains the Source engine for which most of its games run on, and the software distribution platform Steam, which has led to the Steam Machine, a line of pre-built gaming computers running SteamOS.

Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian Entertainment is an American role-playing video game developer founded in 2003 after the disestablishment of Interplay Productions' Black Isle Studios. Although it has created original intellectual property, Obsidian has mostly developed sequels to existing games, and many of their games are based on licensed properties. Obsidian continues to operate under the management of its founding officers: Feargus Urquhart, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, Chris Avellone and Chris Jones.

id Software

Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack. Business manager Jay Wilbur was also involved.
Id made important technological developments in video game technologies for the PC, including work done for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake franchises. Id's work was particularly important in 3D computer graphics technology and in game engines that are heavily used throughout the video game industry.
The company was also heavily involved in the creation of the first-person shooter genre. Wolfenstein 3D is often considered as the first true FPS, Doom was a game that popularized the genre and PC gaming in general, and Quake is the first shooter to have online multi-player, which is an essential feature of a shooter today.
On June 24, 2009, ZeniMax Media acquired the company.

Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce, and is currently a subsidiary of American company Activision Blizzard. Based in Irvine, California, the company originally concentrated primarily on the creation of game ports for other studios before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with the development of games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1994 the company became Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. before being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates and later by Vivendi. Shortly thereafter, Blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Blizzard went on to create several successful video games, including the Warcraft sequels, StarCraft, and Diablo series, and the MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Take Two Interactive

Three Rings Design

Three Rings Design, Inc. is an online game developer that was founded on March 30, 2001 by Daniel James and Michael Bayne. The company is named after the Three Rings of the Elves in Tolkien mythology, and the names of the Three Rings show up in various places throughout Puzzle Pirates such as in the name of the developer flag, Narya. As of November 17, 2011, the company is part of SEGA Holdings U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings. The company's first and primary product is Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, an MMOG in which the player plays a pirate on one of multiple oceans.
The company's second product, released December 1, 2006, is a western-themed Tactical Multi Player game named Bang! Howdy.

Sega

Sega, and usually styled as SEGA, is a Japanese multinational video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. Sega developed and manufactured numerous home video game consoles from 1983 to 2001, but the financial losses incurred from their Dreamcast console caused the company to restructure itself in 2001, and focus on providing software as a third-party developer, exiting console manufacturing completely. However, arcade development would continue unaffected. Sega is the world's most prolific arcade producer with 530 games as 73 franchises on 23 different arcade system boards since 1981, as of 2010
Sega, along with their many software studios, are known for multi-million-selling game franchises including Sonic the Hedgehog, Virtua Fighter, Phantasy Star, Yakuza, and Total War. Sega's head offices are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan. Sega's European division, Sega Europe Ltd., is headquartered in the Brentford area of London in the United Kingdom. Sega's North American division, Sega of America Inc., is headquartered in San Francisco, having moved there from Redwood City, California in 1999.

Atari

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA. The original Atari, Inc. founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
In 1984, the original Atari Inc. was split due to its role in the video game crash of 1983, and the arcade division was turned into Atari Games Inc. Atari Games received the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text "Games" on arcade games, as well as rights to the original 1972–1984 arcade hardware properties. The Atari Consumer Electronics Division properties were in turn sold to Jack Tramiel's Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation. In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse-merged with disk-drive manufacturer JT Storage, becoming a division within the company.

WB Games

Sucker Punch Productions

Sucker Punch is an American production company founded in 1997 and based in Bellevue, Washington. It was an independent company until August 2011, but has worked exclusively with Sony Computer Entertainment since 2000. Sony acquired Sucker Punch on August 2, 2011.

Bungie

Bungie, Inc. is an American video game developer located in Bellevue, Washington, U.S. The company was established in May 1991 as Bungie Software Products Corporation by University of Chicago undergraduate student Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones' game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. Originally based in Chicago, Illinois, the company concentrated primarily on Macintosh games during its early years and created two very successful video game franchises called Marathon and Myth. A West Coast offshoot produced the PC and console title Oni.
Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000; the project it was working on was repurposed into a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox console, called Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo became the Xbox's "killer application", selling millions of copies and spawning a billion dollar franchise. On October 5, 2007, Bungie announced that it had split from Microsoft and become a privately held independent company, Bungie LLC.
Among Bungie's side projects are Bungie.net, the company's official website, which includes company information, forums, and statistics-tracking and integration with many of its games.

Infinity Ward

Infinity Ward is an American video game developer. It created the video game Call of Duty and five other installments in the Call of Duty franchise. Vince Zampella and Grant Collier established Infinity Ward along with Jason West in 2002 after working at 2015, Inc. previously. All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault while at 2015, Inc. Activision helped fund Infinity Ward in its early days, buying up 30 percent of the company. The studio's first game, World War II shooter Call of Duty, was released on the PC in 2003. The day after the game was released, Activision snapped up the rest of Infinity Ward, signing employees to long term contracts. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and has recently released the tenth installment to the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Ghosts. Co-founder Collier has since left the company in early 2009 to join the parent company Activision.

Epic Games

Epic Games, Inc., also known as Epic and formerly Epic MegaGames, is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina, now associate of Chinese Tencent Holdings. They are well known for their Unreal Engine technology, which has powered their popular in-house Unreal series of first-person shooters, and the Gears of War series for the Xbox 360.
It is the parent company of game developers Chair Entertainment and People Can Fly. It has also set up studios in Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo. Key developers at Epic Games include chairman, CEO and technical director Tim Sweeney, and lead programmer Steve Polge. Jerry O'Flaherty was the studio art director from 2003 to 2007. Chris Perna has been the art director since O'Flaherty's departure from the company. Cliff Bleszinski, Epic's design director, announced his departure on October 3, 2012.

THQ Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher. Founded in 1989 in Agoura Hills, California, the company developed products for video game consoles, handheld game consoles, as well as for personal computers and wireless devices. Its name derives from "Toy Head-Quarters" during the time when the company was a toy manufacturer in the early 1990s. THQ had offices in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
The company published both internally created and externally licensed content in its product portfolio. THQ's internally created games included the Saints Row series, the Red Faction series, MX vs. ATV, Company of Heroes, and the Dawn of War series, among others. The company also held exclusive, long-term licensing agreements with leading sports and entertainment content creators such as WWE, Nickelodeon, Disney and Pixar.
After several years of financial struggles and an increasing amount of debt, THQ declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2012 and began liquidating its assets the following month, with several properties either being acquired by third parties or auctioned off to other developers. In addition, most of the remaining staff were laid off.

Gearbox Software

Gearbox Software, LLC is an independent American video game development company based in Plano, Texas. The developer is best known for the Borderlands franchise. The company is also the owner of the intellectual property of Duke Nukem and Homeworld.

Visceral Games

Visceral Games is an American video game development studio internally owned by Electronic Arts. They are perhaps best known for the critically acclaimed Dead Space series. Visceral Games is currently working on Battlefield Hardline, a new entry for the Battlefield series launched on March 17, 2015.

Maxis Software

Activision

Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market. Activision is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2007 in the United States. On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group.
Its current CEO is Robert A. Kotick, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, Inc. since February 1991 until Activision and Vivendi Games merged on July 9, 2008 to create the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard. On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from owner Vivendi, valuing US$2.34 billion. As a result, Activision Blizzard became an independent company.

Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard, Inc. is the American holding company for Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and Sierra Entertainment, headquartered in Santa Monica, California, United States. In 2009, Activision Blizzard was the world's second-largest gaming company by revenue after Nintendo.

Neatherrealm Studios

Volition, Inc.

American video game developers list includes some of the top game designers in the US. These are video game developers currently headquartered in the United ...