There's been some reshuffling on Metacritic's list of top publishers in the year 2017, with Bethesda proudly sitting at the helm, despite the fact the company hasn't had any new IPs in 2017. They're not alone though.
Now be advised that Metacritic ratings are an intricate web of mechanisms aimed at realistic gauging of the game's punch. Even though some companies managed to outsell or outlaunch one another, the quality of their games made a huge difference as to their position.
Bethesda has taken two years to go from top mid-sized publisher to top major publisher, thanks to Wolvenstein II: The New Colossus, the Evil Within 2, Prey reboot and loads of Elder Scrolls content. Apparently, 91 per cent of their products were received well, even if the company failed to launch any new IPs in 2017.
Metacritic
Bethesda's plight looks even more impressive once you consider the competition. Namely, Nintendo came in close second - this is the company that launched more titles than anyone in 2017, with three of them, Mario Kart, Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild hitting 90+ scores, which is the only publisher to achieve this.
Sega, who was number one back in 2015 has gone down slightly as it's had a mixed bag of a year. Activision Blizzard has done well to shed the "movie tie-in games that weighed down its score the prior year".
Apparently, Blizzard did better than Activision on the review front, with its games averaging 80.5. Funnily enough, Metacritic says the result is still a "bad year" for Blizzard.
Capcom isn't far behind either, although with Monster: Hunter World only launching in January, we'd come back in 2019 and check the ratings again.
