Media score aggregate site Metacritic has unveiled some new statistics this week, revealing its list of publishers that performed the best in 2017.
To calculate this, it's taken all of a publisher's games released last year and averaged their scores, and figured out the percentage of games that have received what Metacritic considers a good score, and the percentage of games with a bad score. According to these metrics, Bethesda Softworks comes out on top, with an average metascore of 79.9 across all of its 2017 releases.
Here's the order of major publishers according to Metacritic, along with their overall average score for 2017:
- Bethesda Softworks - 79.9
- Nintendo - 78
- SEGA - 75.5
- Activision Blizzard - 75.7
- Capcom - 76.6
- Ubisoft - 75.4
- Sony Interactive Entertainment - 74.9
- Square Enix - 73.6
- Bandai Namco Entertainment - 73
- Koei Tecmo Games - 69.7
- NIS America - 68.2
- Telltale Games - 70.9
Sony is sitting right in the middle of the list, although it did have the highest rated new IP for 2017 in Horizon: Zero Dawn, with WipEout Omega Collection taking the highest user score for a Sony title.
It's important to remember that each publisher's overall ranking in this list takes more than just the overall average metascore into account, and it makes for some interesting reading. You can view Metacritic's ranking through here, and it goes into more detail about how the publishers were put into this order. It's all pretty meaningless at the end of the day, but it's still worth a look.
What do you make of Metacritic's publisher ranking? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
[source metacritic.com]
Comments 22
Cool. Now go buy Evil Within 2 everyone. I want a third.
@kyleforrester87 I tried the first one but couldn't click with it. I think I expected a Resident Evil style game but it was a different beast all together!
But this was on my Xbox One. Might have to re-invest.
@ZeD it is a RE kind of game.. 4 onwards anyway haha
It probably helped to re-release Skyrim. Nevertheless, they had some good new titles as well.
Hmm the scoring is a little off though there is a logic behind it. Not surprised at Nintendo but then I am surprised at Sony being that low considering they released some great games. That said, seeing things like Drawn to Death being included did drag the score down.
@kyleforrester87 Thinking about it, I feel the controls put me off. Its cheap as chips now so might have to try it again
@ZeD The second game has much more "normal" controls. You do get used to em, though. If I'm honest I'm not a huge fan of the first game anyway.
Critically perhaps but unfortunately I personally dont have any interest in any of their non single player Elder Scrolls or Fallout games, the rest is guff for me.
@Catseyez EA didn't qualify for this list as they released less than 12 games and came under a different category (those who released 6-11 new games). There 'score' was 73.2 but where that would have left them, who knows as the scores don't seem to be ordered - you have Sega on 75.5 ahead of Activision 75.7 and Capcom in 5th with 76.6. More weight is given to certain categories. EA were number 1 last year but because of a reduced slate and failure of games like SW:BF2 and NFS: Payback have dropped considerably.
Shame the brilliant Prey, Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein sold like crap.
Loved wolfenstein new order but I have a serious backlog to clear before colossus!!
Just got Wolfenstein 2 but have little time to play as I've got too many games to get through but the little I have played so far was very good. I'm also curious about The Evil Within 2 but was never a big fan of the first
Metacritic is such a terrible source though, just look at these this reviews of Kingdom Come Deliverance, the keyword being 'helpful':
18 out of 36 people thought this was helpful: '***************************DREAM came true. Thank You Warhorse Studios ************************************ ' [10/10]
23 out of 35 people thought this was helpful: 'This is an amazing game, some different from the interactive movies from Sony' [10/10].
10 out of 18 thought this was helpful: 'You just should try yourself and then you'll understand how great this is it. ' [10/10].
These are the more sane ones.
I mean, how much credibily should you award these people?
@kyleforrester87 Tried the first game and promptly sold it. If you kill the first chainsaw guy at the beginning of the game, another one which wasn't there before will spawn right behind your character and automatically kill him. Then there was the generic hooded villain. And the terrible stealth gameplay. It's like someone took RE4 and found a bunch of ways to make it unfun.
I'd like all reviews to move to a model similar to Eurogamer: remove scores and just have three or four conclusions that summarises the reviewer's opinion.
Like, what exactly does a 7 out of 10 mean? Does a game have 7 of 'something', but is missing 3 of them? How exactly is an 87% game better than an 86% game? Do you have to look at all the scores of games you've given since the 1980's when giving your score? God forbid you decide to give an old game a score today, do base your score on what you expect now?
Surely the words of the review are what's important? Try aggregating that, stupid internet.
@Ralizah The stealth gameplay is pretty great in EW to be honest. Laying traps was pretty great. I also liked the jankyness, it was like a low budget horror movie. Again, the second one is better. They are good games, much better than Resi 6 and as solo experiences they stomp all over Resi 5. At their best they are as good as Resi 4, too. And since Dead Space we don't really get many games like this.
@kyleforrester87 Does the sequel have horribly, janky stealth mechanics like the original? I've heard it's more of an open sort of game, like Silent Hill, which is appealing.
@Ralizah yeah it has stealth mechanics, I don't think they are horrible though. Neither are the first games. Once you get used to the systems, how the enemies behave, what you can get away with without alerting them, how to use your inventory and environment etc you can have a lot of fun with it. I wouldn't ever say your opinion is invalid but honestly if you didn't play it much you probably didn't play it enough to "get it". I know I was really disorientated when I played through the first few sections - my guns felt useless and I didn't know how I should approach the enemies. Once you get your head round the controls and the systems (and upgrade your skills a bit) it all falls into place quite nicely. You don't need to burn enemies in number 2 with matches after you've killed them, which I like. Didn't really enjoy this feature in the first one.
The second one has open world type sections. Not huge but just a small town you can roam around and go into houses and complete a few basic quests. Plus you'll sometimes trigger pretty cool events by visiting certain locations.
Throw in some great music, set pieces, cool enemy character designs and environments, and a high powered shotgun and you got yourself a brill Friday night in.
Evil within 2 is one of the 20 best games ever.word up son
@Bread-Not-Toast I actually read somewhere that wolfenstein 2 sold well but yeah it's sucks the other two sold poorly because they were amazing games
@carlos82 I liked evil within well enough but 2 is better in every way a truly great game
@dark_knightmare2 I've seen a few say something similar and as it's quite cheap now I'll probably give it a go
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