Metacritic

[Johnny]

Anyway, as far as caring about scores go. I'm sure a lot of us don't care about them, personally. But it's not like they're going anywhere and if they do have an impact either on sales or even developer bonuses (as the case may be, sadly) then it's understandable that we might worry about their usage/implementation.

 

That's fair. Although a lot of people - not just the common fanboy on kotaku or GT - seem to focus on the scores far beyond what you're explaining. Often more than what is actually said in the review.

I think it's highly counter-productive to do so. It's not interesting discussion, and it moves focus away from the informative and useful parts of the reviews. It saddens me as a gamer and as a wannabe reviewer. If I was one of the people paid to do reviews for the big sites, I'd hate to have my words marginalized in favor of discussion about how the score should have been .2 lower or higher.

[Thursday Next]

For what it's worth, and take this for pandering to the forum owners if you want, I do prefer the way that some sites like PXoD handle reviews. The "Gripes/Get it for" summary is more valuable than a number and doesn't take that much more effort to take in.

 

Numbers still have a value (hahaha) provided you take them with a pinch of salt, but I do base my purchase choices more on the words than the score.

[deanb]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32102086&postcount=3251

 

Threw this in the Uncharted 3 thread too. Basically, if you've not yet heard, Eurogamer gave Uncharted 3 an 8/10. A terrible crime for a game to be given such a low score*. And it got a ton of backlash around the net and maybe a huge wake-up call on "hmm, maybe we've fucked up how review scores work". Overall it's a decent review, as in the writing n such is all their. But it's not a 10/10.

 

It's this kind of reaction why we don't have review scores. People can't expect a number and be disappointed when the number given isn't as high as expected. And I'd be rather upset as a review writer to chuck out a few hundred words and have only the last few figures focused on. I'd jsut say "fuck it" and put out "SKYRIM: 9/10" and fuck the actual writing of the review.

 

David Jaffe threw some thoughts on it too: http://criminalcrackdown.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-take-on-eurogamers-controversial.html

 

*see I'd maybe be hating on the new site design but that horrendous 8/10 is horrendous. Though the font is pleasant.

[MasterDex]

That all sounds very similar to the reaction on the EAUK BF3 forums to the IGN score of 9.0. Claims of CoD bias abounded and condemnation of how disgraceful it was to give BF3 such a score (from people that hadn't played the game and felt no qualms in slamming it themselves on those forums no less).

 

I'm glad PXOD don't use scores and it's likely if we did that I wouldn't have done any reviews.

[Yantelope V2]

http://nightmaremode.net/2012/03/do-we-need-metacritic-17251/

 

Seriously, why do people hate metacritic so much? Shouldn't you hate the people who put too much emphasis on the metacritic score rather than the site itself? The site itself serves a pretty useful funciton I think which is to give you a quick at a glance look at what the general critical opinion of a game is.

[fuchikoma]

It seems that the real problem is that publishers aren't responsible enough to handle having the information MC puts out properly (or maybe they are handling it properly from a business stance, but we just don't like what we see? I don't think so - likeable isn't the same as profitable.)

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay, I'm a "games are art" person, but I still fucking hate the fact that lots of other "games are art" people seem to think that that means reviewing games as a product as opposed to an art is automatically bad. Games are both. So yes, while it's interesting to discuss/read about the artistic merit of games, it's also damn useful to know if I'm going to enjoy playing it, and I don't think reviewers should be criticized for approaching game reviews from that perspective. I honestly think it's a problem with movie reviews that they all focus on whether a movie is artistically "good" and seem to ignore whether it's an enjoyable experience. That's why I usually ignore the critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and look at the audience reactions instead: it's more indicative of whether I'll enjoy the thing.

 

So yes, game criticism as art criticism is a good and interesting thing, but that doesn't mean that game reviews as product reviews need to go away.

 

Back on topic: I think it's retarded of publishers to pin bonuses/royalties/whatever to arbitrary Metacritic scores. Does this happen in other industries? Do authors get a bonus if their book gets over a 3.5 on Amazon? AFAIK the standard practice in books is to give the author a flat amount for the book, and then give them royalties for every book after they hit a certain minimum sales number. And to me that makes a lot more sense: Why does it matter to Bethesda whether FO:NV gets a 35 of a 95 on Metacritic, as long as they still sell 5 million units? Shouldn't it be the sales that matter? That's a problem with the publishers though, not with Metacritic itself.

[Yantelope V2]

I think this goes back a bit to separating the two aspects of reviewing the game. Like you said, it's a product, and you review it on functionality just like you would review some new consumer electronic or even an appliance. At the same time it's a form of entertainment so you review it on artistic merit and fun factor and things of that nature. I think the fact that we have to mash together those things and put a number on it is a little rough.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

Basically, evaluation of a game is either done against its value and pricepoint, or in a void intentionally ignorant of those factors. The first sort is useful for consumers, the second sort is useful for game enthusiasts and designers interested in commentary devoid of reference to price.

[Yantelope V2]

Edited April 16, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[deanb]

http://www.1up.com/news/metacritic-presents-problems-industry

[TheMightyEthan]

He lumps Rotten Tomatoes in with Metacritic, but I don't have nearly as much of a problem with Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes just labels reviews as positive or negative ("fresh" or "rotten") and tells you what percentage are positive. That's different from actually trying to quantify the quality like Metacritic does.

[deanb]

He used rotten tomatoes as an example of folks Bashing low reviews even if they've not played/seen it, in this case TDKR. I do agree rotten tomatoes is a decent aggregation system.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, that part was fine, it was this sentence in the last paragraph that I was referring to:

 

Unfortunately, the popularity of sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes make it unlikely that we'll see Metascores going away anytime soon.

 

Not a big deal at all, I was just making the point that RT is a very different kind of "metascore" from Metacritic.

[CorgiShinobi]

Yep, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are pretty different. Wasn't it just about a year or so that Rotten Tomatoes changed the percentage system? It use to be 70%+ was Fresh, but now it's anything 60%+ is Fresh.

 

I think that changed because there were a quite a bit of decent flicks that were ending up between that 60-69% range and being labeled "Rotten." Considering it takes a real stinker (Jack and Jill - 3%) to end up in the 0-10% range, now we have a 10-59% Rotten range and a 60-99% Fresh range.

[TheMightyEthan]

It does seem weird to label something "rotten" when more than half the reviews are positive. Maybe they need a third category...

[TheFlyingGerbil]

"all right to cook with, but I wouldn't put it in a salad"

[deanb]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189448/Metacritics_weighting_system_revealed.php

 

The Metacritic weighting system has been reverse engineered.