Is Metacritic ruining the games industry?

[Barilak]

Let’s say there’s a new film out in a few weeks that was filmed under the following unusual contractual condition: if the Rotten Tomatoes rating isn’t above 80% after a week or two, the writer and director don’t get paid royalties. Or say a new band signs to a record label, and the label refuses to pay a signing bonus unless their first album gets 5 stars in NME, the Guardian and Kerrang as well as an 85+ on Pitchfork.

Imagine how patently absurd this would be – and then reflect that this is exactly the situation that some game developers find themselves in. Metacritic, the review aggregator that collects scores from major sites, newspapers and magazines and swirls them together with blogs and smaller outlets to create an average number and give you an at-a-glance assessment, has become such a powerful force in the games industry that it doesn’t just impact the nature of games reviews, it directly influences development and marketing, as well as how developers are paid.

...

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/16/is-metacritic-ruining-the-games-industry?

An interesting article.

I've often found myself in a games store, using Metacritic on my cellphone to decide which game I should buy. Games are expensive (especially on console) so I never take the risk of buying a game which scores below 70, and if I'm making a choice between several games, I'll usually pick the one with the highest Metacritic score.

And I do find that I consult Metacritic scores for games far more often than I do for TV, movies or music.

What's your view of aggregate sites like Metacritic? How much importance do you place on these scores when deciding to buy a game?

 

[Frikkenator]

*waits patiently for comments on why you would pay for a game when you can pirate it*

I always did the same thing (with metacritic on phone in the store), but I soon realised that it is mostly a bad idea. So what I did was spend some time finding gaming sites with review scores that match my liking, and using them as reference, it's worked out much better.

Btw, if you don't know http://www.lazygamer.net/ check them out, their reviews are solid!

 

[Bryn]

Developers must just deal with it. I like the fact that Metacritic prevents me from buying crap games. If the producers of the content get paid less for poor reviews maybe they'll endeavour to make better products.

 

[Shayd]

This would ultimately boil down to the answer to this question: is there any game that got an awful meta critic score and was actually good?

In my experience the answer would be a resounding NO.

 

[Frikkenator]

This would ultimately boil down to the answer to this question: is there any game that got an awful meta critic score and was actually good?

In my experience the answer would be a resounding NO.

May be true, just don't take the user score into account... ever.

 

[kolaval]

Except take user score into account for diablo 3

 

[iAmThePope]

*waits patiently for comments on why you would pay for a game when you can pirate it*

Why Why WHY would you BUY games if you can pirate them?????????

ˆˆ

 

[Barilak]

I could tell you that I don't pirate games because I'm a saint and I want to support the gaming industry, but that would be a lie. The truth is, I don't have a high-end PC but I do have a PS3, so I have no choice but to buy PS3 games. I don't regret this, though.

I get a certain satisfaction seeing all of my PS3 games sitting on a shelf. I feel a sense of pride when I look at them. I'm proud of my own patience and self-control in collecting these games over the years. I had to save money, wait for my birthday or Christmas. Sometimes, I would often wait a year for a game to go down in price. Yes, I've spent a lot of money on them, but I can't say that the money has been wasted. I've derived so much enjoyment from them.

But maybe I'm being a bit overly sentimental. I'm starting to remind myself of the Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons Movie. The world as he knows it is about to end, and all he says is "I've spent my entire life life collecting comic books...life well spent!"

 

[Ancalagon]

There is a simple reason why Metacritic is bad for the gaming industry - the same people withholding the bonuses are the same people pushing deadlines and cutting budgets.

In other words, the publisher cuts the budget and sets a deadline that results in necessary time and polish not being given. The game is shipped before its ready not because the developers are lazy, but because the studio is trying to cut costs.

Surprise surprise, the game is a flop because all of the reviews mention how buggy it is. So what does the publisher do? They dont pay bonuses to staff.

However, the publisher is at fault in the first place. Had they provided budget and time, the game would have been okay.

 

[Nerfherder]

This would ultimately boil down to the answer to this question: is there any game that got an awful meta critic score and was actually good?

In my experience the answer would be a resounding NO.

More importantly, are there rubbish games with a good score.... I bet there are

 

[techead]

this ^^

blame the developers for releasing crap, dont flame when people give a game a bad rep like Diablo 3 which Im starting to think is a total POS