Metacritic's 12th Annual Game Publisher Rankings

We reveal the past year's best and worst videogame publishers (based on their 2021 releases) in the 12th edition of our Game Publisher Rankings.

[Obscure_Observer]

Congratulations Phil and the Team Xbox!

#1 Xbox Game Studios
#2 Sony Interactive Entertainment
#3 Humble Games
#4 Activision Blizzard
#5 Bethesda Softworks
#6 Capcom
#7 Bandai Namco
#8 Sega
#9 Electronic Arts
#10 505 Games

Hopefuly, future holds even more greatness.

[sparky77]

Crazy how 1, 4 and 5 are all Xbox or soon to be Xbox studios.

They absolutely dominated in 2021, they might not be number 1 in 2022 but 2023 onwards I can't see anyone coming close.

[MadLad]

That's why you see so much anger towards Microsoft in the short term.
The fanboys are scared of Microsoft in the long term.

They've done a great job making the Xbox brand strong again.

Last gen was an embarrassment.

[neutralgamer1992]

Ted

Why would people be mad about Xbox being good man? Finally it took them 2 decades but they finally understood what Sony and Nintendo have known since day one

Who knew a console needs games to be considered great 😜

I know this i got a series X which I wasn't planning on buying and waiting on PlayStation till I can get it for retail

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

It will be pretty much impossible for MS to be #1 this year because they published CrossfireX (40). https://www.metacritic.com/...

SquareEnix's average will be ruined by Babylon's Fall (42) this year and Elden Ring (96) will boost Bandai Namco's average a lot. Destruction AllStars (62) brought down Sony's average last year.

I think these awards are a good thing because it encourages companies to only publish high quality software.

It's crazy that Nintendo came in at No.14 and were No.9 in 2020 (MS at No.6, Sony at No.4). If BOTW2 and Bayonetta 3 come out this year, they're going to do way better.

[peppeaccardo]

#9 Electronic Arts <==== THIS MUST BE A JOKE, RIGHT ??

[ABizzel1]

I think they took it down, because some game scores were lower than what they had in the article.

I still think Xbox is going to win, but its score is a bit lower.

[NotanotherReboot]

Xbox numbah 1!!!

[Christopher]

Sony: "11 scored products (10 distinct titles): 91% good, 0% bad"
Microsoft: "10 scored products (5 distinct titles): 100% good, 0% bad"
Nintendo: "18 scored products (18 distinct titles): 50% good, 0% bad"

***** The difference between Distinct Titles and Scored Products, if any, results from multi-platform releases; for example, if The Sims 4: Even More Tables and Chairs comes out on the Switch, PS5, and PC, that counts as 3 total products but just 1 distinct title.***

Seems notable. That's 5 unique titles across multiple platforms on MS. But, that's 10 unique titles (all but MLB The Show it seems) for Sony. Twice as many titles and still 91% good. Even more were "not bad" on Nintendo.

MS stole the show by having three games score great, which they award bonus points for on top of just being great games. But, that's half (or one-third) the number of games in comparison as well.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Destruction AllStars (62) brought down Sony's average, although I think MS's average might still be slightly higher without it.

Sony were right to take development of Twisted Metal away from Lucid Games and give it to an internal studio.

[Christopher]

That game seemed a bit weird, TBH. Less-than-Rocket-League-level customization concepts for cars only others ever see. And then the whole earning up to being in a car or something? Remove movement options by putting you on four wheels and then make it just kind of mayhem, people are looking for more. I'd blame people at Sony for greenlighting the idea as well, TBH. Perhaps it made it past that process just to fill out the release? Kind of like Knack, but that at least got a sequel.

[coolbeans]

I feel like I ought to clarify some things regarding Destruction AllStars.

The car players are earning up towards is their special vehicle. Regular ones, varying from light, medium, or heavy, continuously spawn throughout the match in designated spots. I'm not sure what you mean about the customization concepts when comparing to Rocket League. From what I remember, there were different styles for each Hero, their special car, and regular vehicles. I can't recall how basic the decals & other stuff was for regular vehicles though. The better stuff was pretty diverse, but it felt slow to save up enough credits.

It did feel like this "release filler" after it'd come out, but I can see genuine creativity Lucid Games was going for. It's kinda like retooling Titanfall's on-foot soldier/mech dynamic with Heroes fit for a destruction derby. Given what we now know, it seems like this was a tryout for the Twisted Metal franchise. Its release is made even weirder by the ginormous price difference within weeks of its release: initially PS+ exclusive since the $70 price tag never went up on the storefront and then dropped to $20 upon leaving + in April. I remember one reviewer cataloguing this around the time it happened too: https://www.vgchartz.com/ar...

Anyways...

[Christopher]

***The car players are earning up towards is their special vehicle. Regular ones, varying from light, medium, or heavy, continuously spawn throughout the match in designated spots.****

I mean, the focus is on earning those vehicles, right? I feel that was my main point, you earn up to your "special" car?

***I'm not sure what you mean about the customization concepts when comparing to Rocket League.***

There was some customization stuff, but it fell well below what was already in Rocket League.

***I remember one reviewer cataloguing this around the time it happened too***

Ugh, not reading that clickbait material. I bet that "journalist" even made a sports car reference about the quality of the game.

[coolbeans]

-"I mean, the focus is on earning those vehicles, right? I feel that was my main point, you earn up to your "special" car?"

It's dependent on the mode, really. The pure TDM stuff treats them as a key towards damaging hits and body counts. Objective variants have a slightly different vibe.

-"There was some customization stuff, but it fell well below what was already in Rocket League."

Sure, but RL has been out for several years. Considering all the different heroes, Lucid did a decent job on the amount of options. It just sucked how most good stuff was behind microtransactions.

-"Ugh, not reading that clickbait material. I bet that "journalist" even made a sports car reference about the quality of the game."

I think most sports car references are based, especially his. Having read through it, I don't think "clickbait" is a fair assessment. The way it captures that moment in time when AllStars price drop happened is something hardly ever seen in other games writing.

[ABizzel1]

This was MS year regardless of how anyone feels.

It was a good close to the year for them, and the developers they bought produced solid content. As someone who plays Xbox too, I agree that several those games scored about 0.5 higher than they should have (Flight Sim 90 -> 85 on SX, Psychonaughts was 90 something and now an 87, and Halo and the same with Halo it dropped down to 87 when it was like 89 or something.)

And now they've taken it down.

Xbox still deserves to win, but overall this was an off year for most of the gaming industry. 2022 going forward is where the competition and winning something like this will be the real battle.

[rlow1]

Nice rankings and congrats to MS. What I was more shocked by was Nintendos ranking. Not even in the top ten. Next year it could be Sony in the top spot with two excellent releases so far. But the year is just warming up.

[Rocosaurus]

Well done Xbox. Surprised to see Nintendo as far down as nr 14.

[Rocosaurus]

Whoever is publishing Elden ring will surely be high on the list for 2022.

[Orchard]

Looks like Xbox actually managed to pull off a new record:

"It is very rare for a publisher to average above 80 for its releases across a single calendar year. But how often does a company average above 85 ? Never ... until this year."

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