The Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

It’s almost the holiday season! As many of you reading this know, that’s the time of the year in gaming where everything goes bonkers and great games are released week after week. We figured that now is probably the last chance we will have to take a step back, and calmly look at how this year has gone for some of the biggest companies in gaming. So, let’s rank some publishers shall we?

Let’s kick this off with a couple of important notes. First, we only ranked publishers that have at least three games that we (Twinfinite, no one else is factoring in here) reviewed so far in 2018. If it was less than that, we threw them out for this ranking. Later in the year, when we do this ranking again, that could change. Second, these rankings are determined by an average of our scores that we gave games that they published ranked out of five. See our review rubric and policy for more information. Also, these are ranked purely based on our review scores which are based on the opinion of the specific author who wrote the review, and does not necessarily reflect everyone on the staff’s opinion. When determining these rankings, we’re not considering factors such as how Sea of Thieves has grown since release. It’s just straight average score at the time that the review went out.

Finally, remember these are publisher, not developer rankings. A game like Octopath Traveler was developed by Square Enix, but was published by Nintendo in North America.

Without further ado, let’s jump in.

9th: Microsoft – Review Average: Fair

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2

Now, to be fair to Microsoft, who starts off this list in last place out of the nine eligible publishers that we ranked, the disappointing Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, dragged their score down pretty hard. Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 weren’t killer apps, but Microsoft would have been at least a little higher on this ranking if it wasn’t for AoE.

Luckily, Microsoft has Forza Horizon 4 on the way, which looks incredible so far based on what we’ve seen and played. It will probably give Microsoft a boost back up the rankings when we redo them at the end of the year.

8th: Ubisoft – Review Average: Fair 

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Assassin’s Creed Rogue Remastered, Far Cry 5, The Crew 2

Ubisoft has been hot and cold so far in what has been kind of a quiet year for them. Far Cry 5 is likely going to be a game of the year contender for lots of different video game websites this year, but the AC: Rogue remaster and The Crew 2 weren’t really anything to write home about.

Ubisoft still has a few big tricks up its sleeve with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Transference, and Starlink: Battle of Atlas on the horizon. Expect Ubisoft’s place to shift dramatically in either direction by the end of the year, depending on how all three of those games end up panning out.

7th: Square Enix – Review Average: Great

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Lost Sphear, Secret of Mana Remake, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

It’s been an interesting year for Square Enix. They have focused pretty heavily on everything but major AAA RPGs and the results have been a little up and down, but for the most part it has worked out.

Lost Sphear lost a bit of the luster of I Am Setsuna had captured, but overall it still was a solid JRPG. The Life is Strange franchise had two solid entries with BTS: Farewell and Captain Spirit which will help build some hype for Life is Strange 2 later this year.

There were a couple of stumbles though. The Secret of Mana remake disappointed many, and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT was fine, but didn’t take the world by storm either.

6th: Capcom – Review Average: Great

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Monster Hunter: World, Mega Man Legacy Collection, Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

Capcom doesn’t have the volume that other publishers on this list have this year, but what they have put out has worked out pretty well. Both of the collections they released, Mega Man and Street Fighter, were well put together, and Monster Hunter: World is likely going to be a game of the year contender for many websites this year.

Aside from Monster Hunter, it’s been kind of a quiet year for one of the biggest and most storied Japanese publishers. Next year should be much busier with Resident Evil 2 Remake poised to make a huge splash.

5th: Nintendo – Review Average: Great

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Kirby Star Allies, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Mario Tennis Aces

Despite not having the big time generational games like last year such as TLoZ: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey yet, Nintendo still has had a very busy publishing plate. They tapped into a lot of their other second tier franchises like Donkey Kong and Kirby (although Kirby actually brought them down a bit, at least for us), and supported a ton of well-received, smaller indie-like games such as Sushi Striker and Dillon’s Dead-Heat Breakers.

Nintendo also utilized ports to carry them through to the holiday season AKA Smash season. Games like Hyrule Warriors, Captain Toad, Tropical Freeze were all well-received.

Arguably their two biggest games, Super Smash Ultimate, and Let’s Go Eevee/Pikachu haven’t dropped yet; and, if the year ended today, it’d be a pretty solid year. So there’s still a lot to look forward to, and potential for moving up.

4th: Sega/Atlus – Review Average: Great 

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Yakuza 6, Shining Resonance Refrain, Sonic Mania Plus

While as a developer, Sega still could be doing so much more with its IPs, as a publisher, Sega continues to make really intelligent choices. Support for the Yakuza franchise in North America has paid off, at least critically, as Yakuza 6 was a gem, and we have high hopes for Yakuza Kiwami 2 now as well in a couple of weeks. Atlus continues to deliver consistently high-quality RPG games, and Sega thankfully left Sonic Forces behind, and chose instead to put effort into beefing up Sonic Mania via the Plus expansion.

Sega’s not even done yet either. There’s still Two-Point Hospital, Team Sonic Racing, and Valkyria Chronicles 4 left to go in 2018. There’s a good chance that Sega can creep up even higher before the year is done.

3rd: Electronic Arts – Review Average: Great

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: The Sims Mobile, A Way Out, Madden NFL 19

Honestly, it’s been a quiet year for EA. After a highly controversial and busy 2017, EA has taken a breather in 2018, at least so far. The Sims franchise got some new content via expansions, and a new mobile game. We really liked the new Madden game, Unravel 2 was cute, and that, for the most part, has been it so far. No mega hits, but nothing really to drag it down either. Slow and steady.

That’s going to change later this year though when Battlefield V goes to war in the extremely busy holiday season.

2nd: Bandai Namco  – Review Average: Great

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Dragon Ball FighterZ, Ni No Kuni II, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory

Maybe a little surprising, yeah? But Bandai Namco is quietly having a really impressive year as a publisher, just narrowly missing out on our top spot by a few percentage points due to “Fair” review scores for Little Witch Academia, and Digimon.

For starters, Namco Bandai published Ni No Kuni II which, considering features editor Alex Gibson gave it a 5/5, our only one of the year so far, is going to definitely be a GOTY contender for us at least. Dragon Ball FighterZ is going to be among the best fighting games released this year, and there was also the excellent port, Dark Souls Remastered, too.

Whether it’s new games, niche games, or ports, Namco Bandai has been consistently great all year so far.

1st: Sony – Review Average: Great 

Best Video Game Publishers: Pre-Holidays Average Score Rankings

Notable Releases: Shadow of the Colossus Remake, God of War, Detroit: Become Human

While for other sites, Sony being number one might have been a given, considering the critical fervor for God of War. However for us, considering Zhiqing, our reviews editor, was on the lower end of review scores for God of War at a 4/5, Sony wasn’t going to be automatic winner. Even then, Sony’s average review scores edged out Namco Bandai by a small margin. Mostly thanks to its consistency. Nothing dragged Sony-published titles down, and everything this year so far was varying degrees of great, to super great.

Sony will have another opportunity to potentially pad out its lead before the year is over with Spider-Man.