Bethesda and Nintendo are two of the major publishers that have managed to top Metacritic‘s 8th Annual Game Publisher Rankings. Metacritic deems “major publishers” to be companies who have released 12 or more distinct titles in that year.
The rankings have been evaluated based solely on critic reviews as indicated by each game’s Metascore. Sales figures and user reviews do not factor into the rankings. Four factors determine the ranking of the game publishers, including average Metascore for all games released in 2017, the percentage of games with a Metascore of at least 75, the percentage of games with a Metascore of 49 or lower, as well as the number of games with a Metascore of at least 90.
Bethesda takes the top spot this year, thanks to an abundance of well-received titles like Wolfenstein 2, Prey and The Evil Within 2. It also achieved the best rating of any publisher in 2017, with 91 percent of its games receiving positive reviews. However, it has to be pointed out that Bethesda did not release any new IP last year, consisting mostly of sequels, remasters and a reboot.
It’s no surprise that Nintendo managed to grab the second spot in Metacritic’s rankings, considering that 2017 was probably one of its best years in a while. Thanks to the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo became the only publisher to achieve a score of higher than 90 for three titles. These games include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. In other news, Breath of The Wild was also recently crowned Game of The Year at the DICE Awards.
Additionally, Sega grabbed the third spot thanks to Bayonetta for the PC and Sonic Mania while Activision Blizzard, Capcom, and Ubisoft managed to land the fourth, fifth and sixth spot. Despite having quite a great year throughout 2017 with the release of Horizon Zero Dawn and Uncharted Lost Legacy amongst others, Sony has fallen to seventh place after previously grabbing fourth place in 2016’s rankings.
Finally, Square Enix landed at eighth place, followed by Bandai Namco Entertainment, Koei Tecmo Games, NIS America and Telltale Games. There’s also a list of ‘mid-size’ publishers that Metacritic has ranked, which includes the likes of EA and THQ Nordic. Head on over to the site here for more details on the rankings.
