Companies long gone that you miss...

[likalaruku]

Can't say Black Isle Studios, because they're back. But they haven't released anything yet.

Cyan Worlds never went away, but they only make iPod games, so they might as well be a whole different company.

Max Design & Sunflowers, creators of the Anno series & ParaWorld. Fortunately Blue Byte still makes Anno games.

Ensemble Studios, creators of Age of Empires & Age of Mythology.

LucasArts. It should have sold everything to Telltale.

Sierra Entertainment made awesome P&C games.

Square Soft, because Square Enix really isn't the same thing.

Accolade, because I actually enjoyed Bubsy. & they didn't themselves develop the awful 3D game.

Brownie Brown: Mother/Earthbound 3, Magical Starsign, Heroes of Mana.

Borderbund: Carmen Sandiego.

Any company that made more than 1 good drop-down RPG that isn't still around today.

 

[acolyte]

THQ...i think Homefront sucked...but i liked the Warhammer 40k franchise...still it isn't a total dissapointment since The Creative Assembly is now working on it together with Games Workshop.

Also i would say Apple...but that would be mean...and a lie...i never liked them.

 

[Kayevcee]

Commodore. That Amiga 500 served me well for many a year, and coders squeezed a hell of a lot of performance out of that 1Mb ram and 8MHz processor.

-Nick

 

[an annoyed writer]

I too, miss a car company, the venerable Pontiac. It was killed by the horrible mismanagement that GM had under CEO Bob Lutz. Way before then though, it made my favorite Muscle Car of all time, the Pontiac GTO:

Spoiler

Big, gorgeous car, and it had this distinctively loud V8. My dad had one. I would've loved to see a modern revival, in the vein of the 5th-gen Chevrolet Camaro, but noap, GM had to fuck it up.

 

[Ironbat92]

I miss Pandemic. They made some of my favorite games on the PS2 and Xbox. Star Wars Battlefront, Destroy All Humans. But E.A bought them and all of the companies games under preformed to the point where E.A shut them down. Sad, I would of Loved them to make a proper Destroy All Humans games and Battlefront 3.

 

[excalipoor]

Troika Games for giving me Bloodlines, and Squaresoft for just generally being swell.

 

[Adventurer2626]

Definitely Westwood. I miss my RTS fix

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Apex/Thalamus. Mostly due to Creatures 1 and 2 and Mayhem in Monsterland. Those were my favorite games ever on the C64.
Bullfrog - Bought an Amiga just because Syndicate looked awesome.

Tower Records - Loved this store, the one on Piccadilly Circus was great. So much choice, found so many new bands through this store.

 

[Xdeser2]

*sniff*....so sad :,(

 

[triggrhappy94]

THQ. Sure, they were idiots, but they were idiots with some really good IP and rarely pissed anyone off.

 

[krazykidd]

Capcom, Rare and Square Soft would be my top choices.

While some might argue that these still exist because an entity happens to be using the name, Calling myself Elvis Presley doesn't mean he's alive and well right now.

This. Golden eye and perfect dark are still my game of the year of every year

 

[Callate]

do you guys actually miss companies?
because if anything, i tend to miss good products some company happened to make and really couldn't give a fuck about the company that made it. And, as some people here love to point out whenever companies screw over their customers, their one and only purpose is to make money, so why would you just miss another bunch of guys making money?

Saying a company only exists to make money is like saying a human being exists only to eat food. All humans need to eat food to survive, but the ones that truly exist only for that purpose and that purpose alone aren't exactly the sterling exemplars of the species, are they?

The company Troika provided me with the game Arcanum, and the company GOG can provide me with that same game today. But they aren't exactly alike for providing the same product, and while I'm glad GOG exists, I'm sorry that Troika no longer does because they aren't going to make more games like it.

...Back on subject-

There have already been a ton of good examples; Origin, Bullfrog, Troika, SSI, Commodore (though I understand the company was getting pretty evil by the end there). Babbages. Borders, B. Dalton, Waldenbooks... Damn, I miss having a decent book store in every shopping mall; I feel like I spent half my childhood in such places. The Bon Marche- I didn't do a lot of shopping there, but they always seemed a little classier that your typical department store. And their mints were excellent.

 

[TallanKhan]

There are a lot of dead gaming studios that I miss,

Origin

Bullfrog

Westwood

Mythic

Maxis

R.I.P

Last year I heard that Bioware was seriously assaulted by the same serial killer and is now on life support, but no one seems to want to do anything about him

From what I understand the perpetrator of these crimes has poor Bioware tied up in a basement somewhere being subjected to Saw-esk torture, a couple of cops went to investigate but they never reported in...

 

[IrateDonnie]

Cool choice.

In the spirit of cars, I'd have to say Bantam for myself (American Bantam Motors). I believe Bantam had only 12 employees when there was a call for vehicle prototypes at the start of WWII. They made a working 4WD prototype in just 45 days, which would later go on to become the Jeep we know today. It had reversible headlamps for blackout conditions and rims that were built in halves and bolted together so tires could be changed in the field. Their design was taken and given to larger manufacturers for the war effort unfortunately. Not bad for a little company from Pennsylvania.

I never would have thought I would have been ninja'd on this one. I guess I'll have to go with AMC then. BTW have you seen the Modern Marvels episode on the Jeep? It's worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

 

[mattttherman3]

I miss Rare Ltd. Oh they still exist, but not as what they once were. Now they kinda just suck.

 

[DarklordKyo]

Versus Books, one of the best strategy guide companies out there. Very accurate info, entertaining to read, as compact as the typical rack magazine despite said detail. It's sad that lesser tomes like Brady and Prima are still around, yet this great brand is long gone.

 

[Quazimofo]

THQ...i think Homefront sucked...but i liked the Warhammer 40k franchise...still it isn't a total dissapointment since The Creative Assembly is now working on it together with Games Workshop.

Also i would say Apple...but that would be mean...and a lie...i never liked them.

The Creative Assembly is working on a warhammer fantasy battle game. Not 40k. total war games wouldn't really fit the 40k franchise well though. Yeah the scale is there, but the total war style battle map doesn't work with the faster paced nature of future warfare. You really need a more COH style or starcraft or Command and Conquer or something; and i'm pretty sure relic still has access or at least is renegotiating the rights to make 40k games.

As for me, Borders probably, and Marshal Fields (the historic chicago department store. Got sold and turned into a Macy's like 4 years ago). In addition to a number of the aforementioned studios.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

KB Toys (Damn you Mitt Romney!)

...explain please. (I also miss Tower Records...FYE + Spencers + Great lighting)

---

Rare. I really, really miss Rare and the sad thing is, I didn't even realize how great they were until very recently when I finally gave Banjo-Kazooie a chance.

I think Square and Enix never should have teamed up. They should have remained separate since rivalry and competition breed really great innovations. SE have done some good...Square and Enix...who knows what we've missed out on.

My childhood says Dic, Orion Pictures and, Amblin Entertainment.

 

[drthmik]

I also Miss Troika, Bloodlines was Awesome and I doubt there will be a sequel

I would say Lucasarts but I'll be honest that they haven't done anything worthwhile recently

I miss Borders Though I used B&N far more both on and offline

There are probably more but I can't think of them now