For Grins… The Developer Summary

It was interesting to review the feedback and comments from the related coverage associated from our previous post “The Most and Least Consistent Videogame Publishers.”   One report that many wanted to see was a developer specific score card which I thought might be interesting as well.  I had some time, so I thought I’d put something together.

The method was pretty much the same as we used for the publisher report, except I didn’t roll up or consolidate developers and all platforms were included.  No pretty charts or graphs here, just an excel file containing the master developer summary, and tabs for breakdowns by ESRB and Platform. 

Here’s the scope:

• Date Range:  2000 to 2008
• Platforms:  All (Dreamcast, DS, Gamecube, GBA, N64, nGage, PC, PlayStation, PS2,PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360)
• Developers:  All  (1742 devs)
• Game Titles: 8,411
• Media Reviews:  168,220 (est)
• Source:  Metacritic 
• Score Type:  Non-weighted game averages were calculated to replace the weighted Metacritic score.
• Filter:  Metacritic Score required (games with four or more reviews applied)
• Method:  ABCDF (+2,+1,0,-1,-2) Gradescale

Right Click on the Image Above, and “Save Target As.”

If you want to see the best in each of the categories, look for the developers with the highest Grade Score or the lowest “Rank” number.  Each tab in the spreadsheet lists all the score card results by ESRB and Platform, so you’ll be able find how your favorite developer ranks. 

Biggest disclaimer here…  I’m sure that out of the 1,700 or so developers, some of the applicable studio detail may not be intact.  For example, the Sony Developers and associated studio regions may not be entirely accurate.  Although I did normalize the developer names to address spelling anomolies, that is about all I did.  There may be some devs that were rolled up under master studios (ex:  EA Sports) where accurate studio/dev breakdowns didn’t exist.

Finally, I make no determination of what this summary does, or does not represent.  I’m simply presenting the score card summary. 

Cheers,

Tim