Review aggregator site Metacritic has released its publisher rankings for 2020, showing us which studios are releasing the strongest lineup of games based on their overall quality – at least according to critics.
Publishers are ranked based on a point system consisting of four main steps, described below. To be eligible, a publisher must have released at least five titles during the year:
(1) Average Metascore for all games released in 2020
150 possible points (awarded on 1.5 x the average Metascore)(2)% of scored products with good reviews (Metascore of at least 75
100 possible points (eg: 80% good = 80 points)(3)% of scored products with bad reviews (49 or lower; in this case a lower% is better)
100 possible points (ex: 20% bad = 80 points)(4) Number of “great” titles (Metascore of 90 or higher, min.7 reviews)
Awarded as 5 bonus points for each individual title with a score of 90+
So on to the list. Sega came out on top this year with a total score of 372.2 points, partly thanks to Person 5 Royal and Yakuza 0 score above ’90’, which earns you the Publisher Bonus Points as described in the fourth bullet point above.
Nintendo finished in ninth place overall, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons the only game to score above 90. In fact, the company’s average Meta score was down five points from the year before, keeping it lower in the pecking order than we would normally see.
Last year, in the 2019 publisher rankings, Nintendo came third.
What did you think of Nintendo’s 2020? Did you end up buying and enjoying many of his games? Let us know with a comment below.