Ryan Easby- Supergiant Games
Beyond making an absolutely incredible game in Hades, Supergiant games are the antithesis to everything wrong in the game industry. The studio forces mandatory leave onto its workers to avoid burnout and explicitly implements systems to avoid crunch culture. In a year where Naughty Dog and CD Projekt Red have been (rightly) called out for their abusive practices to workers, and in which horror stories have come out about how crunch can break a person, Supergiant proves that it is possible to be a better studio, without crunch, and still release incredible games.
Pashtrik Maloki – Bluepoint Games, Inc.
I’m not gonna lie, it was a close call between Bluepoint and Supergiant, but I had to go with Bluepoint in the end. The studio has made a name for itself with some really high profile remasters over the years. Come 2018 and they wowed everyone with a ground-up remake of Shadow of the Colossus, a wonderfully faithful update to a beloved classic. And then this year, they outdid themselves with an update to another beloved classic, Demon’s Souls. From the moment you boot up the game, all the way to the final cutscene, you are amazed by the amount of love and dedication the team at Bluepoint has put in the remake. It manages to trick your brain into thinking that yes, this is the way the game looked like when you played it for the first time, all those years ago. Bluepoint Games, Inc. is one to watch, I’m looking forward to seeing what they get to work on next.
Honorable mentions: Supergiant Games, Sucker Punch Productions, id Software