Bethesda: Their games just make you play on and on and on.

Creative Assembly: Their Total War series are the best strategy games I’ve -ever- encountered.

And then there’s Taleworlds from Mount & Blade.

And Mythos Games

X-Com
Laser Squad
Chaos

Looking Glass Studios

Ultima: Underworld
Thief
System Shock

Need I say more?

@ IceBrain:

Oh yeah! I forgot the ID. Thats also awesome company.

@ IceBrain:

Heh.. Oddworld was a trip! I loved these games. Also, when I looked at the second picture you linked, I heard Abe’s meditation sound in my head. :)

I don’t really see the the Avatar connection though.

I’ve never thought about that, but I guess I can name two that made a lot of games I like:

SNK: Metal Slug, Samurai Showdown, King of Fighters, Puzzle Bobble, Puyo Pop, all great games imho.

Id: do I have to mention them? Doom, Wolf3D and Quake were the pioneers of the FPSs. They’ve also published and ported to Linux one of my favorite games, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

Oh, another is Oddworld Inhabitants, at least the two Abe’s are fantastic games.

Wait, now that I think of it, is Oddworld the inspiration for Avatar?!
They have the same type of body, they also use natural powers and they also fight the guys with the machines!

Valve. I own almost all of their games and the steam platform is awesome.

Runic games is also great company. Runic has created the Torchlight.

@ Craig A. Betts:

Interesting – I didn’t even consider Bungie because they don’t really do anything other than Halo nowadays. I never played Myst, but the games were pretty big back in the day so I guess they do deserve some kudos for that. And of course the original Halo was somewhat enjoyable – I just never really played any other installment.

Good point about Blizzard. Most people associate them with WoW and nothing but WoW these days, but that’s not all they did.

@ Aleriel:

Wow, true. Flashback and Lost vikings – ah, the memories. :)

@ lessigfan:

Nintendo is pretty consistent, isn’t it. I was just never a big fan of their games or consoles. :P

@ Zel:

Oh man, those are classics!

Btw, I still have to play the Witcher. Quite possibly this will be my next game – as soon as I get bored with Psycho Bitch Sheppard – the Renegade Chick in Mass Effect 2. :P

My favorite video game companies are alas long dead. My thanks to:

Black Isle for Fallout and Planescape : Torment.
Troika for Arcanum and Vampires : Bloodlines.
Bullfrog for Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital/Park

Among the living, I like CD Projekt for their work on The Witcher, and their Good Old Games platform. If Maxis ever decided to go back and make another “real” Sim City, I would probably get it as well.

Obsidian Entertainment has a lot of good people and can produce good game like Neverwinter Nights 2 : Mask of the Betrayer or Knights of the Old Republic 2. They also seem to have good ideas for their upcoming games (Alpha Protocol and a Fallout 3 add-on). I expect a lot from these folks.

For consistency, honestly, I really like nintendo. The zelda games have been pretty fun, the mario games likewise. Of course independent studios sometimes put out killer games – like okami – but there’s no one independent studio I can point to.

Also iD. Every Doom game has been nothing short of revolutionary. I couldn’t finish Doom 3 for almost 2 years, it terrified me.