Game Developer Magazine's Top 20 Publishers: Nintendo Wins Again
For the second straight year, Nintendo has dominated Game Developer magazine's annual Top 20 Publishers report - a position long occupied by Electronic Arts. Game Dev figures their list based on revenue, number of games released, average review, and anonymous partner feedback, and this year it added "wide-ranging reputation survey" to the list of criteria.
And while Nintendo may be facing a bit of a critical backlash for its treatment/non-treatment of its core gamer audience, there's no denying that the numbers tell a different story; indeed, Nintendo's first-party Wii and DS releases seem to have secured its position at the top of the list.
EA, the former contender, sat pretty at #2 while Activision held onto #3 for the second year in a row. At #4, Ubisoft also maintained last year's rating, while SCEA entered the top five at the trailing position, given a bit of a boost after a relatively dismal 2007.
Far from being some number-crunched derivation, the Top 20 Publishers report involves over 300 industry professionals who gave their opinions and comments. Check out the details after the jump, if you please.
GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE'S 6th ANNUAL
TOP 20 PUBLISHERS REPORT SEES NINTENDO VICTORIOUS AGAIN
Market-Leading Publisher Holds Onto Top Spot In Latest Countdown, Research Report
SAN FRANCISCO -- Oct. 1, 2008 -- Game Developer magazine's highly-anticipated annual Top 20 Publishers report has debuted for 2008, revealing that publisher Nintendo, which last year unseated the long-dominant Electronic Arts, has maintained its top position on the chart. The countdown, which once again this year included a wide-ranging reputation survey alongside revenue, release count, average review, and anonymous partner feedback, sees the Kyoto-headquartered publisher's extremely strong stable of first-party game releases for Wii and DS, alongside chart-topping reputation scores, again leaving it atop the chart.
After Nintendo and EA, completing the top five are: Activision, keeping its #3 spot for the third year running; Ubisoft, which maintained last year's impressive four-place surge; and Sony Computer Entertainment, which jumped into the top five thanks to an increased slate of titles, improving on a review record already higher than most, and maintaining positive relationships with its surveyed partners.
Further down the chart, back on the list at #18 after a two-year absence is Codemasters, whose aggressive expansion and improving review scores helped the company secure its spot in the countdown, in the process displacing last year's newly-ranked import game publisher Atlus.
The 2008 rankings were calculated by considering number of releases by SKU, average review scores, and estimated publisher revenue from August 2007 to July 2008. It also included the results of a survey conducted to gather opinions on the major video game software publishers.
More than 300 industry professionals from all parts of the game production process were asked to give their opinions - including comments - on the reputations of each publisher in the survey. In addition, scores and commentary were gathered from respondents who had direct experience with the publishers in the recent past, either as workers or partners, including milestone, marketing and pay feedback.
"We're delighted to present the result of our yearly publisher countdown once again," said Simon Carless, director, Game Developer Research. "Nintendo's second chart-topping appearance in a row underscores the extraordinary popularity of the firm's first-party Wii and DS franchises - we congratulate them on their achievement."
The full Top 20 Publishers 2008 countdown is available both in the October 2008 edition of Game Developer Magazine and, for the first time this year, on industry-leading sister site www.gamasutra.com. In addition, a full Top 20 Publishers 2008 report featuring all statistics, ratings and complete survey feedback - including specific comments for each publisher - is available at www.gamedevresearch.com.
tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany on 1 October 2008
· Comments (1)
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I'm glad Nintendo got recognized. I know that all the other publishers are bigger in size and budget, but it really is too bad SEGA isn't on the top 5. :\