Third-party developer
In the
video game industry, a
third-party developer Is a development studio that creates titles that are published by another company. Example;
Liquid Entertainment stuido and
Stormfront Studios-both of which have created titles publishes by
AtariMany third parties publish the games they develop, such as
Electronic Arts and
Ubisoft, while others only develop games to be published under other companies, such as
BioWare (2nd party Xbox and 3rd party PC) and
Raven Software. Furthermore, third party developers can be owned by larger third parties, such as the relationship between
Neversoft (creators of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series) and
Activision. Because of this, much larger third parties that also publish their own games are typically referred to as publishing houses and not third party developers even though they do develop many of their own games internally.
Another example is a developer that is a separate legal entity from the software being used, usually providing an external software tool that helps organize or use information for the primary software product. Such tools could be a
database,
VoIP, or add-in interface software, among others.
Publishers (and subsidiaries)
*
Activision:*
Infinity Ward:*
Neversoft:*
Raven Software:*
Shaba Games:*
Vicarious Visions*
Atari — formerly a
first-party developer:*
Paradigm Entertainment:*
Shiny Entertainment*
Atlus*
Capcom*
Electronic Arts — the largest third party developer
*
Konami*
LucasArts*
Namco*
O~3 Entertainment*
Sega — formerly a
first-party developer*
Square-Enix*
Take-Two Interactive*
Ubisoft*
Vivendi Universal Games:*
Blizzard Entertainment:*
High Moon Studios:*
Radical EntertainmentIndependent Developers
*
Backbone Entertainment*
Big Huge Games*
Bioware and
Pandemic Studios*
Epic Games*
Factor 5*
Foundation 9 Entertainment*
Gamer Studioz Inc.*
Pi Studios*
Secret Level*
Stormfront Studios*
Valve Corporation*
first-party developer*
second-party developer
