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Metacritic's 6th Annual Game Publisher Rankings
Which game publishers released the best games over the past year? In our annual tradition, we have sifted through 12 months of data to determine the best and worst game publishers of the past year, based solely on the quality of their 2015 releases. Sales and user reviews do not factor into these rankings; only critic reviews (as captured by each game's Metascore) are used to evaluate performance.
Find previous game publisher rankings here:
2014 releases / 2013 / 2012 / 2011 / 2010
(Merely looking for a list of 2015's highest-scoring games? Find that here.)
Ranking of major publishers
We split publishers into two separately ranked groups, based on the number of games they released during the last calendar year. Our first group consists of the largest publishers, who each issued 14 or more unique titles (with Metascores) during 2015. The remaining "mid-size" publishers each released between 6-13 unique titles last year. (Publishers with 5 or fewer unique titles are excluded.)
We have ranked these publishers in order from best overall game quality to worst, using a formula based on four factors:
- Average Metascore for all games released in 2015
- % of scored products with good reviews (Metascore of at least 75)
- % of scored products with bad reviews (49 or lower; in this case, a lower % is better)
- Number of "great" titles (Metascore of 90 or higher, min. 7 reviews)
Note that the Metascore average (the first factor) counts slightly more than the other factors. (Detailed scoring information appears in a table below the rankings.) In addition, note that iOS games are not included in the figures below.
Here is how the major publishers stacked up based on the quality of their 2015 releases:
1. Sega
Previous year's rank: n/a
| Average Metascore |
| 77.1 |
Sega is the sole major publisher in this year's rankings to finish the year with a "green" average Metascore indicating that, on average, its 2015 releases were approved by critics. The company ranked 5th among mid-sized publishers a year ago (it released fewer titles in 2014) and saw its average score increase by four points in this year's results, even without any releases scoring 90 or higher. Before you get too excited about Sega's success, note that half of its 2015 titles were new 3D re-releases of older games for the 3DS platform. The publisher released just one game for current-gen consoles: the middling, Sonic-influenced cartoonish platformer Tembo the Badass Elephant.
2. Telltale Games
Previous year's rank: n/a
| Average Metascore |
| 74.6 |
Telltale finished as the #1 mid-size publisher in last year's rankings, and jumps up to the major publisher group this year with a solid second-place finish, despite seeing its average Metascore drop from 79.7 to 74.6. Aside from reviving its Telltale Publishing arm to distribute one third-party title (The Jackbox Party Pack), Telltale once again spent the year releasing its own episodic adventure games based on existing pop culture franchises. The company's 2015 slate included multiple episodes of a game based on Game of Thrones as well as other company's game properties (Minecraft, Borderlands), with the latter (the Tales From the Borderlands series) faring the best in its translation to the Telltale format.
3. Sony
Previous year's rank: 4
| Average Metascore |
| 74.4 |
The only major publisher with more than one title scoring 90 or higher, Sony saw its average score tick up by nearly two points compared to the previous year. Even better is the fact that over half of Sony-branded products released in 2015 received positive reviews from critics. That's something that Sony hasn't accomplished in any of the five previous years we compiled these reports. As always, though, the publisher's console (PS4) releases received better reviews than its Vita games. Subtract those Vita products, and Sony's average Metascore jumps up to 78.2.
4. Activision Blizzard
Previous year's rank: 8
| Average Metascore |
| 72.0 |
After landing at or near the bottom of our rankings in each of the last four years, Activision Blizzard managed to work its way up to the middle of the pack this year, increasing its average Metascore by nearly five points and earning positive reviews for 53% of its 2015 releases (compared to just 44% for its 2014 games). Once again, the Blizzard half of Activision Blizzard is the one that impressed critics the most, with five Blizzard-branded releases in 2015 averaging 84.9. Activision also failed to launch a promising new franchise in 2015 after introducing Destiny the year before.
5. Devolver Digital
Previous year's rank: n/a
| Average Metascore |
| 73.5 |
Included in our "major" group for the first time thanks to a bigger-than-ever release slate, the seven-year-old, Texas-based publisher focuses on releasing games from indie developers. That indie focus produced scattershot results in 2015, with only 40% of Devolver's releases last year collecting positive reviews from critics, and the publisher's average score dropping by 2.5 points.
6. Nintendo
Previous year's rank: 1
| Average Metascore |
| 71.7 |
It wasn't a good year for the Nintendo brand. A year after finishing first in our rankings, Nintendo saw its average Metascore decline by nearly five points and its percentage of games receiving positive reviews fall from 56% to just 41%. The company once again released more unique titles than any other publisher, but too few of them connected with critics. The duds seemed to be spread fairly evenly among Nintendo's two platforms, with its Wii U titles averaging 71.3 and its 3DS games averaging 71.9.
7. Electronic Arts
Previous year's rank: 3
| Average Metascore |
| 71.9 |
It's probably not a good sign that EA's highest-scoring game of the year was its latest version of Madden. Indeed, the 34-year-old brand received positive reviews for just one of every three products released in 2015, while its average Metascore dropped by 2.5 points. The company's EA Sports-branded titles actually fared better (averaging 73.8) than its other releases (70.6). The latter group included just two games (including Star Wars Battlefront) with positive reviews, and consisted solely of sequels and remakes, without a single new franchise or original title.
8. Bandai Namco Entertainment
Previous year's rank: 7
| Average Metascore |
| 69.5 |
Despite yet another (slight) name change, the former Bandai Namco Games finds itself in a very familiar position: near the bottom of our rankings. Though the publisher actually saw its average Metascore increase slightly compared to the prior year, its success rate fell a bit, with just 31% of its 2015 releases collecting approval from critics (compared to 34% in 2014). Bandai was able to (somewhat) successfully launch a new racing franchise, however, with the fairly well reviewedProject CARS selling enough units to merit a sequel despite numerous issues with the game's Xbox One version.
9. Ubisoft
Previous year's rank: 2
| Average Metascore |
| 69.9 |
Ranked #2 after 2014, Ubisoft fell all the way to dead last among major publishers this year, thanks to a deeply mediocre 2015 slate that saw just seven of 39 (18%) releases receive positive reviews from professional critics. Even some of Ubisoft's best 2015 releases count as disappointments, including the latest Assassin's Creed entry (Syndicate), which became the third straight release in the once-great series to fail to score 80 or higher.
| 1 | Zen Studios |   |
79.5 |
| 2 | Square Enix | |
78.8 |
| 3 | Sony | |
78.2 |
| 4 | Capcom | |
77.2 |
| 5 | Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment | |
76.6 |
Highest Avg. Metascores Among PlayStation 4 Publishers, 2015 Releases
| 1 | Bethesda Softworks | |
78.9 |
| 2 | Microsoft Game Studios | |
78.7 |
| 3 | Capcom | |
77.0 |
| 4 | Square Enix | |
76.7 |
| 5 | Curve Digital | |
76.5 |
Highest Avg. Metascores Among Xbox One Publishers, 2015 Releases
| 1 | Activision Blizzard | |
80.0 |
| 2 | Paradox Interactive | |
77.8 |
| 3 | Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment | |
77.2 |
| 4 | Capcom | |
76.7 |
| 5 | Take-Two Interactive | |
76.4 |
Highest Avg. Metascores Among PC Game Publishers, 2015 Releases
