Take-Two is Metacritic's top publisher

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 10 February, 2011

Makes higher-rated games than any other.

Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and Red Dead Redemption company Take-Two makes the best games, according to review aggregation site Metacritic.

The 2K Games and Rockstar parent company topped a list that compared the 2010 releases of game publishers.

"One of just two major publishers to finish 2010 with an average Metascore in the green range (75 or higher) indicating positive reviews from game critics, Take-Two Interactive tops our 2010 rankings thanks to critically lauded releases like the sandbox-style multi-platform western Red Dead Redemption and PC strategy game Sid Meier's Civilization V 90, which professional reviewers loved even if some longtime fans weren't quite as delighted," Metacritic said.

"Take-Two did not release a single poorly-reviewed game last year; on the contrary, nearly two in every three releases earned positive reviews. And the numbers for subsidiary Rockstar Games were even better; Rockstar averaged 82.1 for its 10 scored products last year. Another Take-Two label, 2K Sports, also finished with a green average Metascore (75.0), though that mark was inferior to the 78.5 average held by the other major publisher of sports titles, EA Sports."

Rockstar's critically acclaimed and eight million-selling open world Wild West game Red Dead Redemption currently sits on a 95 Metascore.

The top 10 in full:

  1. Take-Two Interactive
  2. Nintendo
  3. Capcom
  4. Microsoft
  5. Electronic Arts
  6. Activision Blizzard
  7. Sony
  8. Square Enix
  9. Sega
  10. Namco Bandai

The ranking is based on how well their games were reviewed last year. The formula employed is based on the average "Metascore" for all products released in 2010.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • towser #1 1 year ago

    What about the top ten of developers eh?

  • Zephro #2 1 year ago

    Top 10 devs in 2010 would be the same as top 10 games....
    How many devs actually released 2 games in 1 year?

  • RodHull #3 1 year ago

    A deserved top spot for Take Two, their games on this gen of consoles have definitely been amongst my favourites.

    Agree with towser, I would also like to see a developer top ten.

  • frunk #4 1 year ago

    Not bad for a company that started off publishing some rather dodgy sex games.

    Anyone remember Lula?

    Or have I just shown both my age and dodgy eclectic taste?

  • ZizouFC #5 1 year ago

    Well deserved.

  • nooneyouknow #6 1 year ago

    @frunk

    No, I remember Lula. Still have a copy in my wardrobe at home. Had no idea it was a Take-Two game.... I was just a ragingly pubescent teen at the time.

  • Shikasama #7 1 year ago

    I honestly wasn't that impressed with RDR. It was an OK game but there was some bloody unforgiveable errors. The morality system was completely borked, forcing you to be the 'noble outlaw', far too much travel time between missions, sidequests that made no sense, incosistent characters, a story with pretty weird pacing, shooting mechanics that made the game a joke in terms of difficultyq3 and a few other really annoying things that got in the way (cut scenes for skinning an animal?). It was a GTA game set in the west with less to do.

    I really think that gamers (and the gaming press) are so desperate for decent story driven games and better characters that they are far to eager to lavish heaps of praise on ones that egde out above mediocre. That is why games like RDR and Heavy Rain (which also had some hefty narrative flaws) gets lauded so much. Some of the dialogue was good in RDR but then in other places it went into the MGS realms of philosophising about good and evil.

    I'm not trying to say it was a bad game by any means (not that it will stop the negs I'm gonna get for my opinion) but I just don't see how it managed to get such huge praise. All the way through I thought it was pretty average.

  • GiarcYekrub #8 1 year ago

    I had Lula: the sexy empire level 1 and 2 were fun making the pornos but level 3 was a ball ache having to manage all them sex shops

  • dsmx #9 1 year ago

    I looked at that list and it should be:

    1. Take-Two Interactive
    2. Nintendo
    3. Capcom
    4. Microsoft
    5. Electronic Arts
    6. Sony
    7. Square Enix
    8. Activision Blizzard
    9. Sega
    10. Namco Bandai

    based on actual metacritic averages unless my ability to tell which number is bigger is seriously wrong.
    Edited by dsmx at 10/02/11 @ 12:00

  • respectyourelder #10 1 year ago

    Good for Take Two, their decision not to sell Rockstar's output to EA a couple of years back well justified both in revenue generated and in maintaining a quality output.

    I can only hope LA Noire turns out as good as it looks as well, could be another great year for Take Two.
    Edited by respectyourelder at 10/02/11 @ 12:03

  • polaris70 #11 1 year ago

    Well it's all about opinions and RDR is the best game I've played in 20 years. I don't know why, I suppose it's that I love Westerns and I immediately connected with the world. The story was ace and I loved the characters. I also loved GTA4 but not as much as RDR. Well done Take-Two. Looking forward to LA Noire.

  • GiarcYekrub #12 1 year ago

    I reckon this year is EA hands down,

    Dead Space 2 EA
    Bulletstorm EA
    Dragon Age 2 EA
    Portal 2 EA
    Crysis 2 EA
    Mass Effect 3 EA
    Edited by GiarcYekrub at 10/02/11 @ 12:14

  • towser #13 1 year ago

    @Zephro - Platinum games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_Games released Vanquish and Bayonetta in 2010. I'm sure there are others too...

    EDIT:
    Bioware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioWare also releases games within the same year too - mind you, it's quite a big dev studio.
    Edited by towser at 10/02/11 @ 12:16

  • respectyourelder #14 1 year ago

    @GiarcYekrub

    Good shout there mate, certainly a lot of good looking titles there. Chuck in Fifa 12 as well which will probably get atleast above 85.

    Only problem for EA is that they release a lot more games than Take Two, so there's a risk of their stronger scores being diluted a bit. It has to be said though that EA have come on leaps and bounds in terms of the quality of their flagship games over the last 4-5 years.
    Edited by respectyourelder at 10/02/11 @ 12:14

  • HL706 #15 1 year ago

    @Shikasama

    At last! Someone finally agrees with me. RDR was my most anticipated game last year and when I finally played it I was...bored. I kept telling myself that it was going to get more interesting, that something awesome was about to happen. After 20 hours and finishing Mexico it became obvious to me that this was it, Get mission from person A, go to point B and wipe out group C. Rinse and repeat.

    Hopefully LA Noire can recapture the sense of fun that's been missing since San Andreas and Bully.

  • polaris70 #16 1 year ago

    Looking forward to Shift 2 from EA as well. Looking at my stack of games, most of them are EA titles, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, FIFA 11, Mass Effect 2, BFBC2.

  • desperado67 #17 1 year ago

    i'm glad it was not just me who didn't get on with RDR. Good, but overrated, and for once most of the guys @ work agreed with me! I feel a bit cheated that it took me so many hours to find out that, no, its not going to get better. Looked pretty good though.

  • PixelPirate #18 1 year ago

    Well it's all about opinions and RDR is the best game I've played in 20 years. I don't know why,

    *ahem* play Demons Souls, go wash your mouth out

    Then come back and tell the class what you have learned :-)

  • kinky_mong #19 1 year ago

    GiarcYekrub wrote:I had Lula: the sexy empire level 1 and 2 were fun making the pornos but level 3 was a ball ache having to manage all them sex shops

    Why do I have a horrible feeling I'll be re-reading that line in a few months time in every newspaper under the headline "X-Factor reject killer on trial"?

  • polaris70 #20 1 year ago

    I don't get why I'm getting stick for saying RDR is the most enjoyable (single-player) game I've played. And I have played top games like HL2. Demon Souls might be a more enjoyable game for you - congratulations. But it doesn't interest me. It's all about what worlds you want to be immersed in I suppose. The Mexico level in RDR some people didn't like it much, but for me I was playing a "Fistfull of Dynamite". I'm glad you liked Demon Souls but it's a game I'll never be picking up even if it is the best game since sliced bread.

  • spekkeh #21 1 year ago

    Too bad Shikasama got negged, because they look to me like valid criticisms. I still enjoyed RDR a great deal mind, but like all of R*s sandbox games, while the tech is really impressive, there are quite a few flaws in the gameplay and pacing department. It was a solid nine for me, but the 95 on metacritic goes to show that R* just has too many uncritical fanboys, here (negging) and in the gaming press.

  • spekkeh #22 1 year ago

    @desperado: I found that it did get better near the end, but by then I had endured so much obvious padding in the Mexico area, I just wanted the game to be over with. If you stopped in Mexico and pick up the game a few months later, you're bound to enjoy it again.

  • UncleLou #23 1 year ago

    , far too much travel time between missions

    There's criticism I can understand even if I don't agree, and there's criticism where I just think people should play different games. This is one of the latter examples. I like traveling in games. I think it's absolutely indispensable for certain games to convey scope, for the atmosphere, etc. There already is a fast-traveling option, too. So, if that still isn't enough, I guess you should just play something different, or we'll all end up with lowest common denominator games at one point.

  • Shikasama #24 1 year ago

    Saying 'just play different games' is rather daft don't you think? Especially considering that if I happen to like 3rd person action games in the main, I won't find out about any specific flaws until I actually buy the game.

    To be honest with you while I was playng I mostly forgot about the fast travel option, I think because I found it annoying to use the first few times I tried (having to be away from roads and what have you wasn't too easy at the start of the game where you're going from the ranch to Armadillo). Travel time in the main doesn't bother me too much, I'll use GTA as an example here, and a sense of scope is fair enough. Unfortunately my frustration with RDR travel times were compounded by other thigns attached to it, such as bad checkpointing, bad map pathing and some cringeworthy and inconsistent dialogue on the road. Mostly though it was just so intensley dull when your 19 hours into the game and watching the same scenery go by. I might be wowed by the designers epic rolling landscape the first time I see it, but not over the next 20-25 hours of repetative missions.

    Saying 'just play a different game' is simply generalising (and ignores the point above about having already bought it because its a 'third person action game'). You don't know that I spend well over 300 hours on both Fallout games, but the key difference is that the travel was punctuated by actual content rather than simply running from A to B to be told what group of guys to consecutively headshot.

  • UncleLou #25 1 year ago

    Saying 'just play different games' is rather daft don't you think?

    No. I would argue it's pretty daft to complain about a genre-defining feature, though, if you want to discuss it like this.

    You don't know that I spend well over 300 hours on both Fallout games, but the key difference is that the travel was punctuated by actual content rather than simply running from A to B to be told what group of guys to consecutively headshot.

    And yet you'll find hundreds of posts of people complaining about traveling in Fallout 3/NV. In fact, bugs aside, it was the complaint I read more than anything else. And yet I think we would both agree that those people should not be catered to, should they? Same thing with Stalker. I think these people massively miss the point of such games, and it's not the games that need changing. Same goes for RDR, in my opinion (at least it doesn't need changing in that respect).

    To be honest with you while I was playng I mostly forgot about the fast travel option,

    You'll forgive me if that leaves me a little speechless.

  • SirClive #26 1 year ago

    Take Two win despite the laughable review score of 4 out of 10 for Mafia 2 her on EG.

  • Shikasama #27 1 year ago

    You're right UncleLou and you are better at third person shooters than me. I should expect arduous travel times in boring scenery in every third person shooter and be damn grateful for it. Alongside this, I also cannot appreciate other points in the game and any other criticism I have of it is trite and meaningless. I should give up playing all open world, third person action and shooter games and come to you for future confirmation of any misgivings I have.

    You play games the right way and I play it the wrong way. Only you, on your higher plane of virtual enlightenment get the point of RDR whilst I have completely missed it and don't deserve to put the disc in my tray.

    In light of these events, I shall stick only to the 'games I should play', possibly games like Civilisation, although I do have some issues with that I should probably run by you first to see if they are correct or not. I hope none of those are 'genre defining', otherwise the pool of games I will be allowed to play will get quite small, only leaving me with twin stick shooters and scrabble.

  • O11Y #28 1 year ago

    RDR was a good laugh but to me it was just paint-by-numbers GTA with ponies. I'm a huge fan of Rockstar's flagship but after god knows how many iterations it is starting to wear a bit thin. Hopefully they'll mix it up a bit with Film Noir GTA.

  • Phishfood #29 1 year ago

    GTA: Brokeback Mountain didn't deserve its praise.

  • UncleLou #30 1 year ago

    You're right UncleLou and you are better at third person shooters than me

    No, I am better at reading comprehension, though, it seems.

    I should expect arduous travel times in boring scenery in every third person shooter and be damn grateful for it

    Nope, you missed the point again. You asbolutely should not. No traveling times in Uncharted, for example, see?

    Alongside this, I also cannot appreciate other points in the game and any other criticism I have of it is trite and meaningless.

    Never said that. You're really bat at reading comprehension, wow.

    In light of these events, I shall stick only to the 'games I should play', possibly games like Civilisation

    Maybe. As long as you don't complain about it being turn-based, or a lack of shooting. If you catch my drift. Which seems admittedly unlikely.

  • tickleygonad #31 1 year ago

    UncleLou and Shikasama sittin in a tree....

    Seriously guys, get a room!!