As seems to have become a yearly tradition, Metacritic has recently released a report ranking major game publishers according to data from critic reviews. In 2010, the best major game publisher according to Metacritic was Take Two Interactive. In 2011, it was Microsoft. For 2012, proving that critics generally pay no attention to public opinion on a publisher when reviewing its games, EA has come out on top.
It's not just based on average score, however. Metacritic actually uses a formula that also takes into account the percentage of scored products from that publisher that have good reviews (“good” meaning 75 or higher), the percentage with bad reviews (“bad” meaning lower than 50), and the number of “great” titles (i.e. those with a Metascore of at least 90).
So for EA, an average Metascore of 75.2 plus no games with a Metascore of less than 50 makes a highly successful company. For those interested, Metacritic also lists things like “Best Overall Release” (in EA's case, Mass Effect 3), “Best Original Title” (Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning), “Worst Overall Release” (Medal of Honor: Warfighter), and “Metacritic Users' Favorite” (a tie between Need for Speed: Most Wanted and The Secret World).
Microsoft takes second place, followed by Sony, Nintendo, and Capcom. Check out the full list to find out the rest.
