The World's Most Consistent Developer

[Keane Ng]

The World's Most Consistent Developer

Following up on the research that determined Ubisoft to be the world's least consistent videogame publisher, GameQuarry has put together a similar survey for developers. Who they figured out is the world's most consistent developer might surprise you.

As with the publisher survey, GameQuarrry used a points system deducted from Metacritic scores. Games with scores from 90-100 got two points, scores in the 80s got one, and scores in the 70s no points at all. Anything in the 60s was worth -1, and everything else was -2.

The world's most consistent developer had 45 points total, with 10 A-rank games, 40 B-ranks and only a handful of games in the C-F range. No, it wasn't Nintendo. The world's most consistent developer is Visual Concepts, the studio primarily responsible for Take Two's 2K Sports games. Coming up second with 43 points was EA Tiburon, the home of the Madden series. Nintendo nabs third place, with 42 points.

Rounding out the top five are EA Sports and Neversoft, while other notables in the top ten include Harmonix at seven and Valve at ten. The rest of the top twenty is populated by Rockstar North, BioWare, Bethesda, Infinity Ward and Epic Games, among plenty of other notables.

I guess it makes sense that a company that puts out games of similar (apparently high) quality on such a regular basis should earn the trophy for most consistent. As long as they keep putting out the same game that's at the same level, people will keep liking it. That explains the presence of EA Sports and Neversoft, who produce Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero games. So it's less like winning the spelling bee than it is earning the perfect attendance award, if you think about it that way.

[Via GI.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/visual-concepts-most-consistent-developer]]


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[Nunka]

I totally would've earned the perfect attendance award in elementary school. But my parents forced me to miss two days of school in the 6th grade for a reason I don't care to remember.

Assholes.

I really don't see the point of figuring out the world's most consistent game developer, because it doesn't have direct ties to the world's "best" or most profitable developer, but oh well... to each silly data aggregator his own, I suppose.

 

[versusterminus7]

He who has the most titles when Jesus comes back with a tommy gun will be spared and placed along side the Holy Father. Amen.

*crosses self*

Agreement with Nunka: number of titles does not equate to good games. But if you're looking for some names, try D3 Publisher (hailing from Japan). I do believe they have near a triple digit amount of games, albeit many of them are short.

 

[Avatar Roku]

This strikes me as an inefficient way to gauge consistency. Wouldn't it make more sense to average the points? I mean, Valve's games have always been consistently high rated, but because they only have a few they're out of the running?

 

[t.tocs]

This strikes me as an inefficient way to gauge consistency. Wouldn't it make more sense to average the points? I mean, Valve's games have always been consistently high rated, but because they only have a few they're out of the running?

Very well said. When I read this forum title, I thought it was going to be about Valve. I'd say this is something people are just going to have opinions about and something that cannot be figured out on paper.

 

[Unknower]

Well, "Most Consistent Developer" certainly wouldn't be my first pick if I could choose an award for my company.

I totally would've earned the perfect attendance award in elementary school. But my parents forced me to miss two days of school in the 6th grade for a reason I don't care to remember.

That was because you were doing it wrong!

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

Wouldn't developers like People Can Fly count as the most consistent game developers (yes there is plural here, because more than one company have only made 1 game, I'm sure), as they only have one title?

 

[zoozilla]

I think it should be "Most Consistently Good Developer", rather than simply "Most Consistent".

I'm sure there are many game developers who crank out consistently horrible pieces of trash.

 

[oliveira8]

well, at least it is not ea...

EA has two spots in the top 5.

 

[roblikestoskate]

Wouldn't developers like People Can Fly count as the most consistent game developers (yes there is plural here, because more than one company have only made 1 game, I'm sure), as they only have one title?

A single data point is considered to be statistically insignificant as there is no temporal behavior by which to predict future outcomes. Plus, their method doesn't involve a mean or standard deviation.

I think it should be "Most Consistently Good Developer", rather than simply "Most Consistent".

I'm sure there are many game developers who crank out consistently horrible pieces of trash.

I agree. Consistency only implies that the developer's games' scores have a low standard deviation. If all a company's games had the exact same score, they would be the most consistent, whether that score was 50 or 90. "Consistently good" would imply a low standard deviation and a high mean. But since they used a weighted cummulative method to assess consistency and the weights have a zero mean, their method of calculation rewards a company for producing more games, but doesn't completely capture the deviation of game scores associated with that company. It's a tradeoff that was probably used to avoid what SuperMse is asking about.

Unfortunately, as a gamer who doesn't entirely appreciate sports games, these numbers are kinda useless anyway. I feel like sports games often have an easier time getting a good score, since the underlying mechanics of the sport being represented are well-loved and well-understood by their respective audiences. If this bias were taken into account (which wouldn't be easy) I'd be more interested in the results.

Personally, I think that ATLUS is one of the most consistent developers in terms of quality. They tend to put out games that embrace genre tropes, yet attempt to subvert at least one or two tropes in order to make a fresh gaming experience.