Metacritic Ranks 2018's Top Game Publishers

Metacritic has released its 2019 Game Publisher Rankings, providing a look at the best the industry had to offer last year from a different angle than individual games. Capcom took the top prize, with an average Metascore of 79.3 across all of its games released last year.

The publisher rankings are actually divided into two categories. The first consists of big publishers that released 12 or more distinct titles throughout the year. The second group, labeled "mid-size" publishers, released between 5-11 games. Publishers who released four or fewer weren't listed at all. The formula takes into account average Metascore, the percent of scored products with "good" (75 and above) and "bad" (49 and below) reviews, and the number of games with "great" (90 and above) reviews, with point values attached to each.

After crunching the numbers, Capcom came out on top. It had 83% good games and only 17% so-so ones, and no bad ones. Its best-scoring game was Monster Hunter World at an average metascore of 90, which helped boost it from the fifth place last year. Its worst-reviewed game was Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2, which we noted in our own review was the weaker half of the full package.

Sega came in second place with an average score of 78.5 led by Sonic Mania Plus, followed by EA at 77.5 led by FIFA 19. Those were both improvements over last year, when Sega came in third place and EA didn't make the list at all. Nintendo wasn't so lucky, though, falling from second place in 2017 to fourth. Ubisoft rose from sixth place to fifth.

Due to its number of releases, gaming giant Activision Blizzard falls in the mid-size publisher of these rankings, where it came in the first. It was followed by Paradox Interactive and 505 Games. In a surprising twist, the publisher behind the best-reviewed game of the year, Red Dead Redemption 2, came all the way in fourth place for the mid-tier. Its points were weighed down somewhat by some so-so releases along with Carnival Games for Switch, which reviewed poorly.

You can read below for the top ten listings in both categories, and hop over to GameSpot's sister site Metacritic for all the detailed data.

Big Publishers:

1. Capcom
2. Sega
3. Electronic Arts
4. Nintendo
5. Ubisoft
6. Sony
7. Square Enix
8. Bandai Namco
9. Digerati Distribution
10. NIS America

Mid-Size Publishers:

1. Activision Blizzard
2. Paradox Interactive
3. 505 Games
4. Take Two Interactive
5. Aksys Games
6. Bethesda Softworks
7. Microsoft
8. Devolver Digital
9. Team17
10. Arc System Works