"Typecast" Developers/Publishers

[Moonface]

I was just reading an article about how Team 17 have only had 8% of their revenue for this year come from games they published this year, and a good number of comments were saying how Team 17 as a name makes them think of Worms rather than any of the numerous other projects they've been publishing since the last Worms game was developed and released. I'm in the same boat on the first half of that remark, where I don't view Team 17 as anything but the Worms developers, and that thought had me draw parallels to how actors will sometimes end up typecast as a particular role/character.

Now I know that a developer/publisher being typecast isn't the same approach plus it depends on individual views for some things; Rockstar could be viewed/typecast as "the GTA devs" by one person while another person might think of their other games too like RDR and so that wouldn't be a typecast style view. So what developers/publishers do you associate as being "just the x people", whether because they simply are or, like my view is of Team 17, because they just have one game heavily associated with their name?

[Maniakkid25]

Bioware are kind of the definitive "Western RPG" devs, which makes Anthem an even bigger fumble in retrospect. Same with Bethesda once the Elder Scrolls really kicked off. While Rockstar aren't necessarily "the GTA guys", I would say they ARE the "Sandbox" guys. GTA, RDR, Bully, L.A. Noire (even though they only published it).

Sort of relatedly, Obsidian before ~2013 are known as "Bug-sidian" for the multitude of glitches their games had. It famously lead to them missing their Metacritic score goal for Fallout New Vegas by 1 point, denying them bonuses that would have let them keep a good chunk of their staff. Before Alpha Protocol, if you were jumping into the game fresh and new, you were in for a... interesting time. ...Didn't stop them from being REALLY good stories, though.

[ShiraNoMai]

I can't help but think practically *all* developers are typecast once they make at least two of the same "type" of a game. Supergiant? Isometric narrative driven games. Rockstar? Ambitious open world sandboxes. Nintendo EAD? Quality family-friendly titles. Like, I'd argue it'd be harder to find a known developer not typecast, ya know?

[Kyng]

Mojang.

They've made some other games - but, let's face it: they're only known for Minecraft .

[queenzelda]

Squarenix is type cast for making Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games.

[Mr EliteL]

Tekken for Namco in my mind. I know Namco have other things, one namely being Pacman but I have to stop and think about them instead of instantly being Tekken and not be bothered to think any more than that. And yes, even for Pacman despite being one of the, er...forefathers of the gaming industry. Although I can agree Namco not actually being under this typecast term.

Idea Factory for the Neptunia series.

Arguably Nau--wait I'll stop myself there as I thought of another thing I'd associate them with immediately. Perhaps genre instead. Naughty Dog Action, Adventure, Platformer....ahh that's too many so nope then.

[Moonface]

I can't help but think practically *all* developers are typecast once they make at least two of the same "type" of a game. Supergiant? Isometric narrative driven games. Rockstar? Ambitious open world sandboxes. Nintendo EAD? Quality family-friendly titles. Like, I'd argue it'd be harder to find a known developer not typecast, ya know?

If you view it that way then definitely, but that's why in my initial post I mention viewing Team 17 as the Worms developers even though they've done other things. Or how I suspect most will view FromSoft as the Souls developers yet they recently released a new Armored Core game. 

Seeing you mention them though, Nintendo might be one of the few if only developers that can't be typecast because their games don't typically attach a particular development team to them. Whether it be Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Splatoon, etc. they're all usually just attributed to Nintendo.

@Mr EliteL: I agree with you on Namco being synonymous with Tekken in my mind. Especially because I don't really think I own many if any games developed by Namco that aren't Tekken.

[Maniakkid25]

The thing about FromSoft is they were the Armored Core guys BEFORE becoming the Soulsbourne guys. But, because Dark Souls became FAR more famous than Armored Core, people retroactively think they are only the Soulsbourne people. Though, weirdly enough, before they cracked the Mecha genre, they were releasing First Person Dungeon Crawlers (the King's Field series), so you could argue they were fantasy before Sci-fi.

I'm surprised a name hasn't come up yet in this topic: LJN. LJN was a publisher of games that, more often than not, were trash. They're the equivalent of publishers like GameMill nowadays. AVGN has a long-running history of with their games, and they were finally put out of their misery in 1994, though Acclaim did revive the name in 2000 for one last game (Spirit of Speed 1937).

[Moonface]

The thing about FromSoft is they were the Armored Core guys BEFORE becoming the Soulsbourne guys. But, because Dark Souls became FAR more famous than Armored Core, people retroactively think they are only the Soulsbourne people. Though, weirdly enough, before they cracked the Mecha genre, they were releasing First Person Dungeon Crawlers (the King's Field series), so you could argue they were fantasy before Sci-fi.

Oh of course, and it's developers like that I find the most interesting in relation to this topic because the answers can be wildly different depending on what of their games you like most or heard about the developer because of first. Like if I think of Atlus, I immediately think of Persona yet I'm certain there is probably other games they've done that will come to others minds first.