This year the IGDA again asked which developer or publisher people in the game industry would most like to work for. The question was asked to 1186 respondents in the 2016 Developer Satisfaction Survey, 427 of whom responded with valid answers. In total, 123 unique responses were gathered, 68 of which were only mentioned once. You can find the complete list below.
For the third year in a row, Valve came out on top, with 12% of the vote (50 votes). They were followed closely by Blizzard Entertainment with 44 votes. BioWare and 'My own company' tied for 3rd spot with 23 votes each.
Eyeing the podium were Bethesda and Nintendo who tied for 4th with 18 votes, followed by Ubisoft (17 votes), Naughty Dog (16 votes), Riot Games (14 votes), and Double Fine Productions (10 votes).
Compared to the previous lists (see full posts below), Valve, Blizzard, BioWare and 'my own company' have consistently maintained top 5 spots. Nintendo and Bethseda are new to the top 5 while Ubisoft returns after dropping out of the top 5 last year. Riot Games did not maintain its top 5 spot in 2016, but was a close 7th.
As in previous years, for the purpose of this list different geographical studios for a company are compiled under the main parent company label (Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Halifax both counted as Ubisoft).
Not included in the list below are the 5 people who said that they didn't want to work for any development studios or publishers, the 4 people who said they wanted to work at the current studio, and the person who wanted to work directly for Yasumi Matsuno.
| Ranking | Response | Votes | Valid Percent |
| 1 | Valve | 50 | 11.7 |
| 2 | Blizzard | 44 | 10.3 |
| 3 | BioWare & 'My own company' | 23 | 5.4 |
| 4 | Bethesda & Nintendo | 18 | 4.2 |
| 5 | Ubisoft | 17 | 4.0 |
| 6 | Naughty Dog | 16 | 3.8 |
| 7 | Riot Games | 14 | 3.3 |
| 8 | Double Fine Productions | 10 | 2.3 |
| 9 | Bungie & Insomniac | 8 | 1.9 |
| 10 | CD Projekt Red & Electronic Arts | 7 | 1.6 |
| 11 | Firaxis | 6 | 1.4 |
| 12 | Square Enix & DICE & Obsidian Entertainment & Supercell & Microsoft | 5 | 1.2 |
| 13 | NC Games & Epic Games | 4 | 0.9 |
| 14 | Telltale & Rockstar & Sony & Fullbright & Eidos Montreal & Devolver Digital & CCP Games | 3 | 0.7 |
| 15 | That Game Company & Supergiant & Tripwire Interactive & Playstation & Paradox Interactive & Media Molecule & Google & Funomera & Disney Interactive & Colossal Order & Capcom & Atlus & Activision & Failbetter Games | 2 | 0.5 |
| 16 | Amazon & Amplitude Studios & Arkanem & Arrowhead Game Studios & Avalanche Software & Beamdog & Campo Santo & Criterion Games & Drinkbox Studios & Etermax & Facepunch Studios & Fire Monkeys & Game Freak & Game Trust & Gearbox & Flu & Good Old Games & Grasshopper Manufacture & GREE & Guerrilla Games & Harebrained Schemes & Idea Factory & ILMxlab & Inkle Studios & inXile Entertainment & Ion Game Design & Iron Galaxy Games & King & Konami & Lazy Eight Studios & Lurtis Rules & Mighty Games & NetherRealm Studios & Next Level Games & Oculus & Otherside & Panic Button LLC & Pieces Interactive & Piranja Bytes & Playdek & Popcap & Rare Ltd & Raw Fury & Ready at Dawn Studios & Red Thread Games & Remedy & Robot Entertainment & Rocket Games & Rocksteady & Sierra Entertainment & Take Two Interactive & The Chinese Room & The Void & Theckla Inc & TinyBuild & Toca Boca & Trion Worlds & Two Bit Circus & Vanillaware & Volition & Wargaming & Wayforward & XSEED & Zynga | 1 | 0.2 |