Metacritic Names Take Two the Best Publisher of 2010

[Scott Bullock]

Metacritic Names Take Two the Best Publisher of 2010

Sure, Take Two is number 1, but who's the best of the rest? Metacritic buckled down and compiled a list of the highest, and lowest, rated game publishers of 2010.

Whenever a new game comes out, Metacritic listens to what the professional reviewers have to say, then creates an aggregate score for the game, creating a relatively unbiased way of telling good games from bad. Metacritic decided to apply a similar technique to the people who publish the games

By averaging all the scores of all the games published by all the large and medium-sized publishers last year, Metacritic has produced the 2010 Game Publisher Rankings, a list of who consistently publishes good games, and who, well ... doesn't.

The top 5 big publishers (those who published 15 or more titles last year) and their best games were:

[ol][li]Take Two Interactive, with an average rating of 77.1. Highest rated game: Red Dead Redemption - 95[/li]
[li]Nintendo, with an average rating of 76.1. Highest rated game: Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 97[/li]
[li]Capcom, with an average rating of 74.5. Highest rated game: Super Street Fighter 4 - 92[/li]
[li]Microsoft, with an average rating of 73.4. Highest rated game: Halo: Reach - 91[/li]
[li]Electronic Arts, with an average rating of 72.6. Highest rated game: Mass Effect 2 - 96[/li]
[/ol]

The highest rated of the smaller publishers (those who published between 7 and 14 titles) were:

[ol][li]Telltale Games, with an average rating of 78.4. Highest rated game: PSN release of Tales of Monkey Island - 86[/li]
[li]Aksys Games, with an average rating of 73.5. Highest rated game: BlazBlue: Continuum Shift - 87[/li]
[li]Atlus Co., with an average rating of 72.4. Highest rated game: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable - 91[/li]
[li]Disney Interactive Studios, with an average rating of 72.4. Highest rated game: Toy Story 3 - 78[/li]
[li]Xseed Games, with an average rating of 70.3. Highest rated game: Korg DS-10 Plus - 81[/li]
[/ol]

I'm really not at all surprised that Take Two took the top spot, what with the of critical successes it had with
Red Dead Redemption and the string of DLC that followed it. The other names in the top 5 are equally predictable.

I also find it rather laudable that Metacritic took the time to give the smaller guys their own category, and recognized the difference in resources they have compared to powerhouses like Microsoft.

To check out the full list and why they received the scores they did, check out the article. [http://features.metacritic.com/features/2011/game-publisher-rankings-for-2010-releases/]


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[elexis]

Interesting they separated "smaller" publishers, especially since overall 2 of them are in the top 5 and Telltale is no.1

 

[RonHiler]

Why are we rating publishers? You realize they have little to do with actual game development, right? It would be like rating baseball team owners. Who cares? It's the developers that should be rated. Those are the guys in the trenches.

 

[Chamale]

I personally would have chosen Nintendo, but Take Two was also very deserving this year.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Why are we rating publishers? You realize they have little to do with actual game development, right? It would be like rating baseball team owners. Who cares? It's the developers that should be rated. Those are the guys in the trenches.

And without these guys, their efforts would stay in the trenches. Big name games that can't find publishers tend to die.

Self-publisher may be viable indie titles, but for developments costs for bigger titles, you need the marketing and hype that a publisher provides.

This are awards showing the publishers with the best rated "investments", since each game really is an investment. Even the low-risk, high-reward titles like Halo and CoD.

 

[Mehall]

Why are we rating publishers? You realize they have little to do with actual game development, right? It would be like rating baseball team owners. Who cares? It's the developers that should be rated. Those are the guys in the trenches.

Publishers are the people who fund the developers. For most "big" game releases, the publishers spends up front, then gets it back off the sales. Why you rate publishers is to see if they're funding the right games.

 

[BobisOnlyBob]

Respect to Aksys Games and Atlus Co! The others are all good too, but those two in particular rock.

 

[RA92]

When Atlus Co gets to be in the category of the big publishers, you would know something is right in the world.

But it isn't, so it ain't.

 

[Beach_Sided]

Take Two published "15 or more" games last year????

 

[Therumancer]

Why are we rating publishers? You realize they have little to do with actual game development, right? It would be like rating baseball team owners. Who cares? It's the developers that should be rated. Those are the guys in the trenches.

Well actually a lot of people care about team owners due to guys like George Steinbrenner and the massive effect they had on their team and the game.

A generous owner is going to make sure he has and keeps good people, and provides well for them so they both want to stick around, and perform well. A not so good owner is going to trade away any worthwhile talent when it becomes too expensive, skimp on his team's equipment, and constantly be generating internal drama with no positive aspects.

Steinbrenner for example did some really massive things for the Yankees, but he also got into a lot of nasty feuds with some of his best players. Questions about where you'd rank him in terms of great team owners are big topics of baseball discussion.

I'm hardly a baseball fan though.


For software publishers and the like, it comes down to people like say Bobby Kotick who have their hands on the purse strings, and decide which products get greenlit, who gets paid, and when to send thugs to eject employees. That can seriously affect morale and how a game turns out. Big publishers like EA, and Activision Blizzard generate a lot of drama with their products, aquisitions, and projects for that reason. In a lot of cases whether everything came together for a project can have a lot to do with who was ultimatly producing it.

 

[RonHiler]

Why are we rating publishers? You realize they have little to do with actual game development, right? It would be like rating baseball team owners. Who cares? It's the developers that should be rated. Those are the guys in the trenches.

Publishers are the people who fund the developers. For most "big" game releases, the publishers spends up front, then gets it back off the sales. Why you rate publishers is to see if they're funding the right games.

Yes, I know that (I know how the system works better than most, believe me). And? They are the money guys, and the distributors. Big deal. They're suits. How does what they do translate into some sort of rating based on how good the games are? They have little, if anything, to do with the making of the games (and if they do, it's usually negative, as in "this game will go out the door in 2 months ready or not", and "Oh, gee, I know we sold 18 batrillion copies of the game, but according to our fake books we haven't made enough to give you any royalties yet, too bad"). There are exceptions, but none of the ones on this list are among them.

I don't really see how they deserve to be rated. Do we rate the bankers on the success of the small businesses they fund? No. Do we rate the baseball team owners on the success of the players? No. Giving ratings to publishers is just as silly. Rate the developers. Those are the guys that deserve the accolades.

 

[Andronicus]

Notice how Activision isn't included. Ahahaha!

This is pure genius, another 'fact' for the Anti-Activision side!

Well, it's not as if they just "weren't included"; they came sixth, just missing out on a space in the top 5.

However, after taking a closer look at the article, I can't figure out why. ActiBlizz' average metascore is 69.3, but Sony and Square-Enix, who took seventh and eighth place respectively under ActiBlizz have metascores of 70.9 and 70.8. I would have thought they would be ranked according to their average metascore only, as that would have made the most sense, but I guess they decided the ratings of the actual games should have some impact on the rankings as well.

 

[Aphroditty]

Do we rate the bankers on the success of the small businesses they fund? No. Do we rate the baseball team owners on the success of the players? No.

Yes to both. If a bank funds small businesses that tend to fail, then that bank will lose investors, will lose money, will fail. That is why banks demand business plans, credit checks, etc. before they give out loans.

Similarly, if an owner spends 100 million dollars to bring in a player who is unproven, and then provides no benefit at all to his team, that owner will be judged.

Publishers are in similar situations. They provide money; they evaluate developers' progress. They provide the context in which a video game can either succeed or fail. What games publishers choose to or not to fund is important to understanding them; contrast Activision and EA over the past couple of years, for instance.

A publisher can, and should be[/I], held responsible for those games that it releases to the consumer. Not only developers, who are so often at the whim of a publisher. By that principle we should excoriate those publishers whose practices are reprehensible (Activision) and laud those whose practices are appropriate; more than that, because any company is likely to have a diversity of endeavors, we should support those practices that are laudable and criticize those which are not.

By your standard, it would be impossible to criticize a publisher, despite their tangible contribution to the video game industry, and only possible to engage with developers. To be fair, this doesn't mean the best way to go about that is through compiling a list through Metacritic, but I'm defending the principle rather than the particular execution.

 

[Super Toast]

EA really picked up its game this year.

 

[Nouw]

I hope Relic get's a mention sometime >.>

Good to see that list!

 

[Just_A_Glitch]

While I am still upset at the continued love the Red Dead Redemption is getting, I am very pleased with the love that Aksys is getting for Blazblue.

Overall, I am more pleased than displeased with this list.

Kudos Metacritic.

 

[antipunt]

Atlus and Persona 3 made me smile

 

[Baldr]

Ubisoft releases a ton of games, from AAA to almost unheard of games, most of their games are aimed at kids for the DS, they make a ton of money doing it, but the metacritic ratings are horrible.