Purely from a game design standpoint and ignoring all corporate and sales considerations, Valve.
Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Half-Life: Alyx are literally three separate Citizen Kanes of video games. All took immense steps forward in the direction of removing the layers of abstraction between video games and human experience.
From a meta perspective that considers things like the process of game development and the accessibility of video games on PC, also Valve. Steam has done wonders in the way of unifying (to the best of Valve’s ability) the user experience of DRM into a very manageable interface. Proton has taken the barriers to entry into the realm of video games down to the fucking studs. The Steam Deck is laying the foundation for eliminating the dominance of any one video game hardware manufacturer.
I’d be hard-pressed to say any other development studio has been more fundamental to the gaming industry period, let alone PC gaming.
Purely from a game design standpoint and ignoring all corporate and sales considerations, Valve.
Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Half-Life: Alyx are literally three separate Citizen Kanes of video games. All took immense steps forward in the direction of removing the layers of abstraction between video games and human experience.
From a meta perspective that considers things like the process of game development and the accessibility of video games on PC, also Valve. Steam has done wonders in the way of unifying (to the best of Valve’s ability) the user experience of DRM into a very manageable interface. Proton has taken the barriers to entry into the realm of video games down to the fucking studs. The Steam Deck is laying the foundation for eliminating the dominance of any one video game hardware manufacturer.
I’d be hard-pressed to say any other development studio has been more fundamental to the gaming industry period, let alone PC gaming.