For the first time online, we've made available sister publication Game Developer magazine's annual Top 20 Publishers feature, revealing 2006's countdown, which is calculated empirically from revenue, review scores, and more.
2006
brings the fourth annual Game Developer Top 20 Publishers ranking, and
along with it evidence of an industry in flux as it prepares for the
next generation of console hardware. Some publishers have sought to
beef up their existing talents and resources to handle the oncoming
storm, while others have contributed to the constant consolidation the
industry has been experiencing.
Some familiar faces
have joined forces with others (Bandai and Namco), and some have shaken
up others’ spots on the ranking (notably Take-Two and Nintendo).
There
are two newcomers to the list, and one graceful exit: Buena Vista Games
and NCsoft both made respectable first showings this year, bumping off
Codemasters. And while this ranking arguably marks the end of a console
generation, the next will show just who has been most effective in
making the transition, so there can only be more rise, fall, and
shakeup as the industry matures.
[NOTE: The full Game Developer magazine feature
includes more information on the methodology - since this Top 20 is the
only empirically weighted countdown of video game publishers. It also
includes a full table revealing the specific statistics used to work
out the ranking, including average game review percentages, release SKU
amounts, and anonymous milestone and producer feedback.]
1. Electronic Arts
Year formed: 1982 Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif. Studios:
Criterion (Guildford, U.K.); Digital Illusions CE (London, Ont.,
Stockholm) EA Black Box (Vancouver); EA Canada (Burnaby, British
Columbia); EA China (Shanghai); EA Los Angeles (Playa Vista, Calif.);
EA Mobile; EA Montreal; EA Mythic (Fairfax, Va.); EA Japan (Roppongi,
Japan); EA Redwood Shores (Redwood City, Calif.); EA Singapore; EA U.K.
(Chertsey, U.K.); Maxis (Emeryville, Calif.); EA Phenomic (Leipzig,
Germany); EA Tiburon (Orlando)
For the fourth
year in a row, EA resides at the top of our ranking. Despite a loss
reported in its earnings for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2006, a
$15.6 million settlement paid to end a lawsuit over the company’s labor
practices, and results below company expectations in 2005’s holiday
season, the publisher managed to maintain robust revenue.
EA’s
sports titles made an even more impressive performance than in previous
years, and the Sims series and its expansions continue to generate high
sales. Even a lower average review score than in last year’s tally
hasn’t altered the company’s position in the top publisher ranking.
Perhaps
to that end, the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company has announced an
intention to focus more on original intellectual properties. Along
these same lines, EA ended its contract with the James Bond
license early, likely due to poor sales of games from the franchise.
Licensed properties continue to be a major source of income, however,
with games based on The Godfather and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire having sold millions of copies each.
This
megapublisher has continued to diversify its stable of development
houses and partnerships. It has brought online its own digital
distribution system for games and a system for collecting
micro-transactions for in-game purchases. It carried off a major coup
d’état when it acquired Jamdat Mobile, a global publisher of mobile
phone games and the largest distributor of its kind in the U.S.
Other acquisitions included developer Hypnotix, responsible for Outlaw Golf and Outlaw Volleyball,
who now reside at EA’s Tiburon studio, and German strategy-game
developer Phenomic. In February 2006, EA announced a partnership with
Neowiz, a Korean publisher of online games, and by the end of June the
resulting project FIFA Online had beaten all previous records
for online games in Korea. Plus, the publisher has further expanded
into Asia, ramping up development with new hires in its Shanghai studio
and opening a division for Asian localization in Singapore. With all
the above and a five percent staff cut made in February, the company is
well-positioned for the current generational transition.
2. Nintendo
Year formed: 1933 Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan Studios:
Intelligent Systems (Kyoto); Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and
Development (Kyoto, Tokyo); Nintendo Software Technology Corp.
(Redmond, Wash.); Retro Studios (Austin); Systems Research &
Development (Kyoto, Osaka)
Nintendo’s DS portable
has come into its own during this year’s considered period, moving the
company into second place with increased software revenues and nearly
double the number of releases. The incredible mass appeal and resulting
sales of the company’s Nintendogs, Brain Training, and related titles, as well as the company mainstay’s latest foray, New Super Mario Bros., more than made up for its continually sliding console-game revenues.
The
DS stands as the company’s clear focus—as far as portable games go—for
the immediate future. By introducing a revised DS hardware piece, the
sleek DS Lite, Nintendo further boosted the handheld platform’s
popularity. Additionally, sales of Game Boy Advance titles have been
steadily declining, as further evidence of the transition.
E3
2006 saw Nintendo unwrap its next-generation console, now known as Wii,
which looks to boast the same bold design sense and philosophy of mass
appeal as the DS hardware. If the new console can manage to reach an
audience similar to that of the DS, Nintendo’s position near the top of
our list will likely be solidified for next year. The company continues
to maintain excellent relations with third-party publishers and
external developers as well, and received the highest scores for
producers and milestone payments out of any company via our anonymous
survey.
3. Activision
Year formed: 1979 Headquarters: Santa Monica, Calif. Studios:
Beenox (Quebec City); Infinity Ward (Encino, Calif.); Luxoflux (Santa
Monica, Calif.); Neversoft (Encino, Woodland Hills, Calif.); Raven
Studios (Madison, Wis.); RedOctane (Sunnyvale, Calif.); Shaba Games
(San Francisco);
Toys For Bob (Novato, Calif.); Treyarch (Santa
Monica, Calif.); Vicarious Visions (Mountain View, Calif., Troy, N.Y.);
Z-Axis (Foster City, Calif.)
Knocked
down to third place from last year’s second by Nintendo’s powerhouse DS
push, Activision retains a place near the top thanks to its Call of Duty and Tony Hawk franchises—Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty: Big Red One
sold extremely well across many platforms. Activision’s release count
declined over 2005, but a higher average review score and favorable
developer survey ratings helped the EA rival maintain its footing in
our list’s top three.
The most artful work we’ve
seen from Activision on the business side has been to carefully secure
intellectual properties and licensing agreements to sustain its
projects for years to come. The company struck agreements that gave it
licenses to produce games based on the Spider-Man and Transformers movies, four additional new Dreamworks pictures, Mattel’s Barbie toy line, and the potentially lucrative James Bond franchise, taken over from EA. Guitar Hero’s
brisk sales led Activision to purchase the game’s publisher RedOctane
in May, yielding an original IP for the publisher—but the company’s
number one original IP in 2005 was Gun.
Activision
has not proved to be immune to the sorts of legal threats that have
faced its competitors, specifically EA and Take-Two. As of this
writing, the company faces two separate lawsuits: one over its labor
practices and another over allegedly backdated stock options. At the
same time, the company has tightened its belt for the generational
transition by reducing its workforce by seven percent back in February.
4. Sony Computer Entertainment
Year formed: 1993 Headquarters: Tokyo Studios:
Bend, Ore.; Cambridge, U.K.; Contrail (Tokyo); Foster City, Calif.;
Guerrilla Games (Amsterdam); Incognito Entertainment (Salt Lake City);
Insomniac (Burbank, Calif); Liverpool, U.K.; London; Polyphony Digital
(Tokyo); San Diego; Naughty Dog (Santa Monica, Calif.); Seoul; SN
Systems (Bristol, U.K.); Tokyo; Zener Works (Tokyo)
Sony
gains the number four spot on the Top 20 Publishers list, as Microsoft
drops from the top five. Despite strong continued sales of God of War and a respectable showing by MLB 2006 The Show
for PlayStation 2, first-party software sales for the platform fell off
during the period considered in our methodology. First-party PSP
software sales buoyed Sony though, and allowed the Tokyo-based company
to hold steady in terms of revenue. A slightly higher average review
score — to which Shadow of the Colossus’s shining critical reception contributed — doubtless helped the company’s standing in our ranking.
Guerrilla Games has proved to be a valuable asset to Sony’s first-party portfolio, with Killzone
games on the way for PSP and PlayStation 3, and Sony acknowledging the
fact more concretely by acquiring the Dutch developer this year.
5. Take-Two Interactive
Year formed: 1993 Headquarters: New York Studios:
Cat Daddy Games (Bellevue, Wash.); Firaxis Games (Hunt Valley, Md.)
Irrational Games (Quincy, Mass.; Canberra, Australia); Kush Games
(Camarillo, Calif.); Rockstar Leeds (Leeds, U.K.); Rockstar North
(Edinburgh); Rockstar San Diego; Rockstar Toronto; Rockstar Vancouver;
Rockstar Vienna; Venom Games (Newcastle, U.K.); Visual Concepts (San
Rafael, Calif.)
Take-Two Interactive, the owner of the powerhouse Rockstar Games publishing label and the lucrative Grand Theft Auto franchise, has proven successful at maintaining a plateful of successful releases, even in a year without a new mainline GTA release. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, co-published with Bethesda, broke sales records for Xbox 360 games and was no slouch in the PC format either. Civilization IV also performed well, and the PSP release of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories proved to be one of the top-selling titles on the platform during the period considered. Unsurprisingly, the now $20 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas continued to contribute to the company’s revenues.
Take-Two
acquired sterling independent developer Irrational Games in January as
a result of a relationship the two companies formed around Irrational’s
upcoming release Bioshock. Nabbing this team will likely
result in even more high quality, original IPs for the publisher and
create an opportunity for Irrational’s often-niche projects to receive
more marketing attention than they have in the past.
The scandal over Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’
“hot coffee” was still threatening Take-Two as this ranking’s period of
consideration began. While the company in June received a subpoena from
the District Attorney of New York County’s office for documents related
to “hot coffee” and regarding financial issues, in July the FTC let
Take-Two off the hook by announcing that no penalties or fines would be
imposed as a result of its investigation. Of course, the FTC did gently
remind Take-Two to properly represent games’ ratings and content
descriptors in the future.
6. Microsoft Game Studios
Year formed: 1975 Headquarters: Redmond, Wash. Studios:
Bungie Studios (Redmond, Wash.); Ensemble Studios (Dallas); FASA
(Redmond, Wash.); Lionhead Studios (Guildford, U.K.); Microsoft Game
Studios Japan (Tokyo); Rare (Twycross, U.K.)
Microsoft’s
internal game development endured a transition phase during this
period, ignoring the all-but-defunct Xbox platform and preparing new
titles for the Xbox 360. The lack of a release as popular as the
company’s Halo series for Xbox has caused the publisher to
drop three spots in our ranking. The stable of studios holds much
promise for its home platform, however, with Halo 3 on the way and a pledge of support from Final Fantasy
creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and his studio Mistwalker. With a lower
console price point than Sony, Microsoft has some real opportunities to
move forward in the coming generation.
On the PC side, Age of Empires III
has consistently cleaned up the charts since its October release,
reaching platinum status and becoming the fastest selling entry in the
long-running series, and a Windows Vista-only Halo 2 will make for interesting results next year.
7. THQ
Year formed: 1989 Headquarters: Calabasas Hills, Calif. Studios:
Blue Tongue Entertainment (Melbourne); Concrete Games (Carlsbad,
Calif.); Cranky Pants Games (Kirkland, Wash.); Heavy Iron Studios (Los
Angeles); Helixe (Burlington, Mass.); Incinerator (Carlsbad, Calif.);
Juice Games (Warrington, U.K.), Kaos Studios (New York); Locomotive
Games (Santa Carla, Calif.); Paradigm (Dallas); Rainbow Studios
(Phoenix); Relic Entertainment (Vancouver); THQ Australia Studios
(Spring Hill, Australia); THQ Wireless (Calabasas Hills, Calif.); Vigil
Games (Austin); Volition (Champaign, Ill.)
Thanks
to heightened revenues, THQ moves up two spots on the list this year,
though the company had a lower average review score, and respondents to
our survey were less than favorable when ranking their milestones and
payments. THQ’s highly rated producers and significant revenue aided
the publisher’s climb up the list of Top 20 Publishers.
While
the company has continued to expand its original releases, its bread
and butter is still its collection of licensed titles, several of which
sold more than one million copies during the period and aided the
publisher’s rise on our charts (Cars and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 being the company’s most notable hits).
THQ
expanded its operations and added considerable talent to its resources
with the establishment of the internal studios Kaos and Incinerator,
and the acquisition of Juice Games, Vigil Games, and Paradigm
Entertainment (along with its Stuntman franchise). And in
what seems to be a running industry trend, THQ is also now under SEC
investigation for its handling of stock options over the years.
8. Ubisoft
Year formed: 1986 Headquarters: Paris Studios:
Annecy, France; Barcelona; Blue Byte (Düsseldorf, Germany); Bucharest;
Casablanca; Milan; Montpellier, France; Montreal; Montreuil, France;
Quebec City; Red Storm (Morrisville, N.C.); Reflections (Newcastle,
U.K.); Shanghai; Wolfpack (Austin)
Sliding two
positions down the list from 2005, Ubisoft’s average review score and
pay and perks ratings fell a bit from last year. The Parisian company’s
revenues were quite solid, however, and were kept steady by healthy
sales of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Peter Jackson’s King Kong, 3DO acquisition Heroes of Might & Magic V, and releases from the Far Cry franchise.
While Far Cry
developer CryTek has signed an exclusivity agreement with EA, Ubisoft
has purchased the game’s engine and intellectual property. Another key
acquisition this year was Ubisoft’s purchase of Driver developer Reflections from the ailing Atari.
Overall,
the company hasn’t been as active as other major publishers in
snatching up outside development houses, preferring to develop its
existing talent instead, promoting its name talent and original IP
whenever possible.
9. Konami
Year formed: 1973 Headquarters: Tokyo Studios:
Blue Label Interactive (Los Angeles); Hudson Soft (Tokyo, Sapporo, San
Francisco); Konami Computer Entertainment (Tokyo); Konami Software
Shanghai
Konami this year has continued its
restructuring efforts, which began last year with the consolidation of
its Japanese development studios into a single branch. Gaming and
non-gaming divisions have been shuffled and reorganized, culminating
with the consolidation of Konami’s European business operations into a
single branch located in Germany, and the closure of its Honolulu
studio.
Sales of games in the Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, YuGiOh!, and Dance Dance Revolution series brought the publisher relatively consistent success in the U.S., though PawaPro and Winning Eleven
sports titles brought much more success in other territories. Also
looking to increase its involvement in the ever-growing mobile market,
Konami purchased Los Angeles mobile developer Blue Label Interactive
and formed a partnership with casual game publisher PlayFirst for
mobile distribution of its games. But the Japanese publisher is clearly
affected by the transition as well, with fewer major releases this year
and more effort being spent on next-generation development.
10. Sega Sammy Holdings
Year formed: 1952 (Sega); 1975 (Sammy) Headquarters: Tokyo Studios:
Creative Assembly (West Sussex, U.K., Fortitude Valley, Australia);
Racing Studio (Birmingham, U.K.); Secret Level (San Francisco); Sega
Shanghai Studios (Shanghai); Sega Studios (Tokyo); Sega Studios USA
(San Francisco); Sports Interactive (London)
Sega Sammy’s consumer games division (the company simply
publishes under the Sega brand) has continued to post profits this
year, with elevated revenues rescuing the company’s overall financial
results from an ailing pachinko (Japanese gambling machines) division.
U.S. sales of games in the Sonic series, especially the platinum-selling Shadow the Hedgehog, held down the fort in the U.S., while the company published a mix of Japanese and Western-developed titles, like Treasure’s Gunstar Super Heroes and the first Total War title, resulting from Sega’s acquisition of The Creative Assembly.
Sega
has set its sights on Western audiences for the next generation of
consoles. Over the last 12 months, the company has acquired skilled
developers Sports Interactive and Secret Level, and has formed
partnerships with Obsidian, Petroglyph, and Bizarre Creations for
exclusive next-generation and PC projects. Sega has proved apt at
managing relations with Western studios like these; the company
received high marks with regard to producers and milestone payments in
our anonymous survey.
The company has tuned up its Japanese-oriented next-gen development as well, with Sonic titles promised across all new home consoles, including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, in the coming year.
11. Namco Bandai
Year formed: 1950 (Bandai); 1955 (Namco) Headquarters: Tokyo Studios: Banpresoft (Tokyo);
Namco Networks America; Japan Bec Co., Ltd. (Tokyo);
San Jose, Calif.; Yokohama; Tokyo
This
year we see the first results of the merger between Namco and the
Japanese mega-conglomerate Bandai, which consolidated their U.S.
operations in January. Unfortunately for both participants, sales of
their major titles (including Soul Calibur III and Ridge Racer 6 domestically and Mobile Suit Gundam titles overseas) fell short of expectations for the year.
The
publisher admits to being too soft in taking advantage of handheld
development for the surging DS platform. The resultant decreased
release count and a marginal review score has kept the publishers’
combined efforts out of the top ten, but the company has managed to
remain in its Namco-occupied position from last year.
Licensed titles proved to be the biggest help for the company over the period, with its externally-developed Curious George games debuting in the U.S. market, and a new line of Tamagotchi
games doing well in all territories. In addition, the publisher lost no
time in taking advantage of the mobile market. In October 2005, Namco
established a subsidiary mobile games division in the U.S. known as
Namco Networks America.
12. Vivendi Games
Year formed: 2000 Headquarters: New York Studios:
Blizzard Console (Aliso Viejo, Calif.); Blizzard Entertainment
(Irvine, Calif.); Blizzard North (San Mateo, Calif.); High Moon Studios
(Carlsbad, Calif.) Massive Entertainment (Malmö, Sweden); Radical
Entertainment (Vancouver); Sierra Entertainment (Bellevue, Wash.);
Swordfish Studios (Birmingham, U.K.); VUG Mobile (Meudon, France)
Blizzard’s online RPG World of WarCraft
— still the most popular game in the world — was responsible this year
for driving revenues reported by the French conglomerate’s games
division. Now simply called Vivendi Games (dropping “Universal”), the
publisher’s income increased significantly over last year’s records,
thanks to World of WarCraft mainly, but also successes such as 50 Cent: Bulletproof and games based on the Ice Age 2 movie license.
Seeking
to capitalize on the wireless-game boom, parent company Vivendi
established a mobile development division in Meudon, France. Vivendi
Games added more talent to its studio list in January by snapping up Darkwatch developer and former internal Sammy developer High Moon Studios—and the Darkwatch franchise along with it.
All
has not been so well for other development efforts, though. Even after
a developer switch and years of production, Blizzard’s StarCraft: Ghost was put on indefinite hold recently.
The
company stayed put on our ranking at number 12, with a reduced release
schedule and lower average review scores hurting its overall score,
while a higher producer rating raised them back up.
Interestingly,
Vivendi Games has chosen to revive the Sierra publishing brand for a
number of its products, playing on the nostalgia of gamers for that
venerated label, which had been dormant for two years.
13. Square Enix
Year formed: 2003 Headquarters: Tokyo Studios: Beijing; Osaka; Tokyo;
UIEvolution (Bellevue, Wash.)
2005–2006
saw a conservative release schedule from the Japanese publisher, with
less than one title released for each month of the period considered.
Sequels in mainstay series performed well, including Dragon Quest VIII and especially the Buena Vista Games partnership Kingdom Hearts II, which sold even faster than its predecessor. Square Enix nurtured its online games business during the period, with Final Fantasy XI
receiving an expansion during the year and increasing its subscriber
base to over 500,000 users. A friendly takeover of Japanese publisher
and arcade distributor Taito was completed during the period, but that
merger has not had much of an effect on U.S. software publishing to
date; Taito’s strengths are in amusement machines and mobile
development.
A high average review score and the
successes of its mobile releases helped the publisher rise from two
previous years spent in the number 16 spot on our list.
14. Capcom
Year formed: 1979 Headquarters: Osaka Studios:
Capcom Interactive (Los Angeles); Clover Studio (Osaka); Cosmic
Infinity (Burlington, Ont.); Flagship (Tokyo); Team 1 (Osaka); Team 2
(Osaka)
Capcom rises a notch this year, thanks in part to the runaway success of Monster Hunter 2 (PlayStation 2) and Monster Hunter Freedom (PSP).
Financial reports issued by the company obliquely referred to brisk
sales for lower-priced titles, which seems to indicate good revenues
brought by Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and Capcom’s wide variety of retro remakes and compilations made available this year.
The DS version of the innovative courtroom adventure game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
surpassed Capcom’s sales expectations again and again in the U.S., and
the title received four reproductions over five months of release. Two
of the Japanese publisher’s attempts to appeal more to the Western
market fell flat however, with Beat Down and Final Fight Streetwise
failing both critically and commercially. Those titles’ poor critical
reception helped drag down the publisher’s average review score this
year, and Streetwise’s failure was the final nail in the
coffin for California-based internal developer Capcom Studio 8, which
was shut down in March. But more talent was brought on board this year
as Capcom’s new mobile division, Capcom Interactive, bought up Ontario
wireless developer Cosmic Infinity in May.
15. NCSoft
Year formed: 1997 Headquarters: Seoul Studios: ArenaNet (Bellevue, Wash.); Austin; Seoul
New to the Top 20 Publishers list is Korean company NCsoft, whose sales of Guild Wars
have reached more than two million, bringing the company to our list
for the first time. An expansion to the online role-playing game
entitled Guild Wars: Factions, which also sold well, has helped to make up for another new release this year that didn’t fare so well: Auto Assault.
Overall, NCsoft boasts only three releases for the year considered,
which definitely helped the company secure the highest overall review
score in our listing (which also contributed to its ranking this year).
Regardless of its three decent games, the
publisher’s future among the big 20 may already be in doubt: the first
of said releases, City of Villains, reportedly has been
experiencing a drop in subscriber headcount (as of press time), which
likely contributed to significant layoffs among NCsoft’s U.S. staff in
June. Analysts have expressed concern over Auto Assault’s failure and whether Richard Garriott’s long-awaited MMO Tabula Rasa
would make its current launch window. Luckily, the publisher doesn’t
seem opposed to diversifying its efforts: NCsoft formed a partnership
with the veteran staff at Spacetime Studios for a new online game, and
it will also be publishing the Barcelona-developed, hooligan-friendly Soccer Fury.
16. SCi/Eidos
Year formed: 1990 Headquarters: London Studios: Beautiful Game Studios (London); Crystal Dynamics (Palo Alto, Calif.); IO Interactive (Copenhagen); Pivotal Games (Bath, U.K.)
Since
its purchase by competitor SCi last year, Eidos seems to have kept its
day-to-day operations largely independent from the parent company. But
a slow release schedule and slightly lower average review scores have
caused it to drop from the number 14 spot it held last year on the Top
20 list.
As an upswing, Eidos’ Tomb Raider series has been revitalized by Crystal Dynamics-developed Tomb Raider: Legend. The game was met with multi-platinum sales and favorable critical reception. Additionally, the latest Hitman release, Blood Money,
sold over a million copies as well. SCi predicts that the company will
be catapulted back into profitability by this welcome success, in the
black again for the first time since the merger with Eidos, which bodes
well for both halves of the relationship. During restructuring under
SCi, the original Tomb Raider series creator Core Design was
sold to developer Rebellion, ending the years-long business
relationship between Core and Eidos once and for all.
17. Lucasarts
Year formed: 1982 Headquarters: San Francisco Studio: San Francisco
Up
from the number 20 spot and landing at number 17 this year comes San
Francisco-based LucasArts. LucasArts only published six games during
the year considered, but a high average review score and high revenues,
fueled by smash hits Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Wars: Empire at War, have propelled the rather quiet publisher to its current ranking. The company also released Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan,
an expansion for its struggling massively multiplayer online game, only
to dole out refunds to players who were distraught over sweeping (and
widely unpopular) changes made to the game in an update released just
after the expansion.
But future prospects are
bright. Partnerships with Day 1 and Free Radical for next-generation
console development should bring more Mercenaries-style, non-Star Wars-dependent successes, and Traveller’s Tales has just finished a sequel to the hit Lego Star Wars.
18. Buena Vista Games
Year formed: 1994 (as Disney Interactive) Headquarters: Burbank, Calif. Studios: Avalanche Software (Salt Lake City); Propaganda Games (Vancouver)
Also
new to the Top 20 Publishers roster is Buena Vista Games, Disney’s game
publishing division. The company enters at number 18 due the success of
Kingdom Hearts II, which was published and developed in
partnership with Japanese developer Square Enix and has sold more than
one million copies. The publisher has beefed up its internal
development since the release of the first Kingdom Hearts
with the purchase of Salt Lake City-based Avalanche Software and the
establishment of a Vancouver studio, Propaganda Games, which is staffed
largely by former EA employees. Also successful for Buena Vista this
year were games based on the Chronicles of Narnia movies.
Buena
Vista’s monetary foundation is admittedly rooted in a wide variety of
games based on Disney-owned intellectual property, but the company has
made some surprising moves this year toward original material and other
licenses. In April, Buena Vista announced a deal to publish four games
by Tetsuya Mizuguchi-headed studio Q Entertainment. Propaganda will be
developing a new game based on the Turok license, taking the
reins from previous license-holder Acclaim, and Japanese handheld
developer Jupiter Corp. will be responsible for Spectrobes, an entirely new anime-styled RPG.
19. Atari
Year formed: 1983 Headquarters: Lyon, France Studios:
Atari Melbourne House (Melbourne); Eden Studios (Lyon, France);
Humongous Inc. (New York); Shiny Entertainment (Newport Beach, Calif.)
Atari
has had a rough year. The French-owned publisher posted reduced
revenues over the past 12 months, which resulted in significant losses.
The Matrix: Path of Neo and Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
underperformed. It faced mountains of debt, multiple lawsuits (two of
which had been settled at the time of writing), and a warning from the
Nasdaq stock exchange that the publisher would be de-listed if it
didn’t improve its stock price.
Soon after the
warning from Nasdaq, Atari announced a series of efforts aimed at
hauling itself out from the muck, beginning with a 20 percent reduction
in staff and the sales of two of its major subsidiary
developers—Reflections (Driver) and Paradigm (Stuntman).
The
publisher still hasn’t returned to profitability, Atari is losing much
less money than it was around this time last year. The revenues it has
managed to post, its fair release count, and a middling average review
score have helped it stay in the top 20 this year, and its promising
lineup for the next year (which includes Neverwinter Nights 2, two Dragon Ball Z titles, the next-gen iteration of Alone in the Dark, among others) should help push Atari closer to the black ink.
20. Midway
Year formed: 1988 Headquarters: Chicago Studios: Austin; Chicago; Los Angeles; Pitbull Syndicate (Newcastle, U.K.); San Diego; Surreal Software (Seattle)
Occupying
the final spot on the list of Top 20 Publishers is Midway, who has
suffered low revenues and losses all year long due to the generational
transition and development costs. The publisher acquired studios in
Australia (Ratbag) and England (Pitbull Syndicate) in August and
October, respectively. But just a few months later, after posting major
quarterly and yearly losses, Midway closed down Ratbag and gave the
pink slip to all employees there. The revenues that the company did
manage to post and its still-healthy release schedule saved Midway from
sliding off the Top 20, as its average review scores fell considerably
from last year’s grade. Keeping the publisher ranked this year were its
mainstay sports titles, most notably NBA Ballers: Phenom, NFL Blitz: The League, and the successful Mortal Kombat side-trip Shaolin Monks.
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