Developer

From GameWiki

A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game system, such as the Sony PlayStation 3, the Microsoft Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.

Some developers also specialize in certain types of games, such as RPGs or FPSs, an example of which would be Square-Enix who are mainly associated with the RPG genre. Some focus on porting games from one system to another. Some focus on translating games from one language to another, especially from Japanese to English. An unusual few do other kinds of software development work in addition to games.

Most video game publishers, such as Electronic Arts, Activision, and Sony, also maintain development studios. However, since publishing is still their primary activity, they are generally described as "publishers", rather than "developers".

Outside of publishers, there are well over 1,000 video game development companies today. Many are tiny 1- or 2-person operations creating Flash games for the web, or games for cell phones. Others are large companies with studios in multiple locations, with hundreds of employees. As a rule, developers are privately held companies; only a very few non-publishing developers have ever been publicly traded companies.