The best gaming computer companies

What it does: A year veteran, this major player is one of the most recognizable names in gaming. What it does: DoubleDown Interactive makes classic casino games—everything from blackjack and slots to poker and roulette—for social and mobile platforms. The International District-based company is all in on employee perks, too, including on-site massage therapy and trips to Mariners games. What it does: Most famous perhaps for massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft , Activision Blizzard also scores highly in digital collectible card games Hearthstone , first-person shooters Overwatch and other genres.

What it does: Befitting its location at the movie mecca of Culver City, Jam City has produced game adaptations of massively popular tentpole franchises, including Harry Potter and Marvel Avengers titles.

They also recently inked a multi-year deal with Disney to develop games that will feature Pixar and Disney characters. The developer — which counts the creators of MySpace and a former 20th Century Fox executive among its co-founders — has proven to be a major leader, particularly in the free-to-play social and mobile categories.

What it does: Glu Mobile has created some of the most popular interactive mobile games of the last decade. Case in point: the impressively complex first-person shooter Battleborn. What it does: As the monoculture continues to fragment, we may never see another Pac-Man -style capital-P phenomenon, but the long-tail success of Fortnite has come awfully close. What it does: Portalarium produces online games, products and services that capture the attention of social media audiences and mobile gamers.

The company is staffed with artists, level designers, character developers, animators, UX designers, VFX artists, developers and more, all bringing unique talents to the team with a goal of uniting players in a sense of adventure, exploration and fellowship.

And in recent years, it has notably lent assistance to fellow Activision partners Treyarch and Infinity Ward on Call of Duty entries. What it does: Another leading mobile-gaming company with strong ties to Hollywood, Scopely works with in-house developers and external studios from around the world. The fast-growing company, which is responsible for hits like Star Trek Fleet Command and Looney Tunes World of Mayhem , prides itself for its diversity of approaches, moving beyond casual gaming into role-playing and strategy games.

What it does: This Hasbro-owned developer specializes in approachable, family-friendly, free-to-play mobile fare, most notably their much-loved multi-toucher Paper Toss. Backflip Studios ' deal with Hasbro means plenty of opportunity to grow popular titles like Transformers into the next casually addictive hit.

What it does: This on-the-rise mobile gaming developer prioritizes easy-to-grasp gameplay, colorful graphics, fit-for-all-ages narratives and just-so degrees of familiarity—think puzzles and platforms.

Groundspeak has also nurtured a robust network of forums, events and even environmental outreach, encouraging responsible play. What it does: Naughty Dog started in a garage in the late s and eventually grew to become one of the premier American gaming companies, thanks to watershed series like Crash Bandicoot , Jak and Daxter and Uncharted.

The company emphasizes cross-studio collaboration between programmers, developers and designers, retaining an indie-style culture while producing award-winning blue chip titles. What it does: Zynga has produced many of the most popular social mobile games of all time, with titles including " Words With Friends ," " Farmville" and " Tiny Royale.

Zynga's games have been played by more than one billion people globally since its founding ten years ago. What it does: Co-founded by music industry veterans, including neo-soul favorite Raphael Saadiq of Tony!

The company takes strides to maintain an independent spirit even as it continues to grow, and it carefully plans projects with an eye toward the long term, according to top brass. What it does: Led by their ever-popular and evergreen Nancy Drew series that has connected across multiple generations, Her Interactive makes games for girls with budding inner sleuths.

Her helped shatter the canard that computer games were just for boys, and has carried the loyalty it's developed over the decades into the contemporary gaming environment, expanding beyond the desktop. What it does: Famous in the casual games market, PopCap made its mark with the once-ubiquitous tile-matching Bejeweled series — which, according to its makers , once racked up a sale every 4.

After a post- Plants vs. Zombies acquisition by EA, the developer which began inside a modest Seattle apartment remains focused on breezy, grab-and-play fun. The company has expanded into just about every other genre since then, including sports games, strategy games, shooters and beyond. What it does: Founded more than 20 years ago by a pair of former Microsoft employees, Valve catapulted to acclaim and popularity with its very first title, the first-person shooter turning point Half-Life.

In recent years, it has looked forward to hardware, particularly virtual reality. Meanwhile, the well-known crowdfunding success for Pillars of Eternity revealed that Obsidian is adept at maneuvering the long falls that can be endemic to the quicksilver gaming industry. The company also pioneered the shareware distribution model. In the span of just a few years, Bungie left Microsoft, then split from a subsequent Activision partnership and returned to its independent roots.

What it does: Holding some of the most prime IP this side of Marvel under its umbrella has proven a sound business strategy for this major entertainment company. The game division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. Expect upcoming Harry Potter and Game of Thrones titles to carry on the conquest. Think beat-the-clock, puzzle, hidden object and tile-match games—like the plenty popular Gummy Drop!

What it does: The developer and its marquee series, Call of Duty , remain key revenue generators, now as an Activision subsidiary. The company was launched back in by a , Inc. More recently, they appear to be breaking further into cross-platform-play territory. What it does: Started by a trio of former Blizzard programmers, this long-running outfit is known for massively-multiplayer-online successes like Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2.

It's also known for incorporating the increasingly popular episodic-update model. What it does: Two decades into the gaming game, this venerable studio still looks like a visionary. What it does: This publisher seeks out and shines a light on games from all over the planet, usually ones with a firmly offbeat sensibility. From pick-up-and-play casual mobile games to geocache hunting to bleeding-edge virtual reality, these innovative upstarts and trusted veterans are why video gaming continues to lap all entertainment competitors.

Stephen Gossett. July 26, Updated: January 2, View Profile. We are hiring. Mythical Games. Electronic Arts EA. Take-Two Interactive Software. Activision Blizzard. Jam City. Glu Mobile acquired by Electronic Arts in April Gearbox Software. Epic Games. Owlchemy Labs. Get Alerted for Jobs from Owlchemy Labs. Get Alerted for Jobs from Portalarium. Bonfire Studios. Get Alerted for Jobs from Bonfire Studios. Raven Software. Get Alerted for Jobs from Raven Software. Get Alerted for Jobs from Scopely.

Backflip Studios. Get Alerted for Jobs from Backflip Studios. Get Alerted for Jobs from PlayQ. Get Alerted for Jobs from Geocaching. Naughty Dog. Get Alerted for Jobs from Naughty Dog.

Get Alerted for Jobs from Zynga. Get Alerted for Jobs from IllFonic. Her Interactive. Get Alerted for Jobs from Her Interactive. Insomniac Games. Get Alerted for Jobs from Insomniac Games. PopCap Games. Bethesda Softworks. Get Alerted for Jobs from Bethesda Softworks. Valve Corporation. Get Alerted for Jobs from Valve Corporation.

Obsidian Entertainment. Get Alerted for Jobs from Obsidian Learning. Get Alerted for Jobs from id Software. Firmware Design Engineer - Software Application Development Engineer - Intern. Partnership Marketing Specialist. Content Strategist Lenovo Legion. Affiliate Program Manager North America.

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General Manager, Lenovo Education Solutions. Global Project Manager. Baseband Electrical Engineer. Supply Chain Technical Analyst. System and Software Optimization Engineer. Manager Software Development Cloud Architect Expert. Memory FW Design Engineer. Hi Brent. Lo0oks like nobody on your list is giving a good price. Everything else is no mark up.

Take cyberpower off this list. Is there a reason why Velocity Micro is not on this list? I am willing to build my own PC and I have finalized few things like which motherboard to go for and what processor to buy.

But Apart from that I wonder what other peripherals I should buy that suits the motherboard-processor combination I am willing to buy. Sir, can you please guide me on this?

Happy to ready such a detailed article from you. Thank you very much! I suggest looking at very different NZXT reviews. Reviews on the NZXT website are nearly all five stars. The independent review site can I say their name? The mobo gets power but nothing else has power. Brent, great list! It would be helpful to have the locations of those that are listed.

I have found that one has to pay a premium to have work done in certain regions and it would save me some time to not have to go through the list to find where they are headquartered.

I have never seen any difference in pricing because of your location. If you are within the states, there will not be a difference in pricing. Only in taxes, based on your state. But you can probably take the 3 minutes needed to find out yourself. Custom jobs are nice, but over priced….

A whole lot of assumption going on here. Last, for you, go to Best Buy. You just need one that will do what YOU are going to use it for. Figure out what you need. Buy The parts. Read the docs very carefully. Put it together. Note: Today, it is almost plug-n-play. Understand what each part is for and do not force any part. For example for what I do I have zero interest in lights, glass sides, etc. Same with me. I appreciate your time spent to put it together. Upon examination by a local IT guy it was discovered a mobo power cable had been installed incorrectly and apparently shorted the system, killing the board and processor.

They also used substandard parts and straight up lied to me about the manuf. This article lost all cred to me when I saw them on that list. Next incarnation try looking through customer reviews and comments, not hard to find horror stories about them. I totally agree with this. CyberPower is shady AF! They refused to allow me to speak with a manager or provide me with any instructions on how to file a complaint. Then they told me that the only way they would lift the hold on my account would be if I made a direct payment to their account via wire transfer.

I called my bank to ask them about this and my bank strongly discouraged me from doing so because it is very fishy for an internet company to be asking for wire payments and that there is a high chance for fraud. I would steer-clear of CyberPower! I was looking at Cyberpower, but have read way too many posts on the Power supplies in their products causing major damage when they fail, sometimes a few days after the PC is received. This apparently has been an issue for years with that company.

Planning on buying another one soon. Ive never gone through a building site before, and AVA definitely has the widest range of parts ive seen.