Slashdot Mirror
Top 20 Game Publishers
Patrick Caldwell writes "Game Developer magazine recently released a list of the top 20 video game publishers. EA, Activision, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are the first five, as could probably have been predicted." From the article: "
For the third year in a row, Electronic Arts (EA) has grabbed the top slot on the "Top 20 Publishers" chart. EA reached an annual revenue of more than $3.1 billion, continued high output and received positive average reviews for its titles. However, the company faced some serious competition from fellow publishers like Activision, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, all of whom had very strong showings this year and rounded out the top 5 in that order."
I'm trying not to be a fanboy, but try the DS for some innovation. True the franchises are the same, but some of the games are quite different. I suggest:
Feel the Magic XX/YY
Kirby's Canvas Course
Trace Memory
Castlevania is great, but is basically Symphony of the night in your pocket.
Games that follow the same franchise can be innovative, unfortunately most aren't. Also don't pass over a game just because the graphics look childish, sometimes those are the best ones.
Of course, these games may not be your thing, milage may vary, etc...
Oh crap, I'm on fire again.
I disagree with this list on many fronts. EA is not the best publisher, just the largest/most profitable/most prolific or some combination thereof. The overall quality of EA games is going down the toilet and by the news I've read the treatment of their employees ranges somewhere between 3rd world sweat shop workers and Russian soldiers during WWI. EA is probably the biggest offender on those fronts but similar things could be said about many of those 'top publishers'. A qualitative perspective would probably leave most or all of those publishers on the board while giving respect to the ones who are actually encouraging innovation over pure profit. To those who would argue that profit is what game publishers are in the game for I say this: If you want to rate the publishers by profit margin then do it in a finance publication and not a gaming magazine. Gamers don't care about profit and while profitability is important it should be considered alongside the quality of the product if one really wants to see who's on 'top'.