• Should we kill Metacritic
    89 replies, posted
It's not a valid source of reviewing a game.
If we get rid of metacritic they're just going to find some other entirely subjective source to determine a game's "objective" quality.
[QUOTE=Jordax;46279223]They had just 13 months to make New Vegas from scratch. Two months were lost in coming up with all the concepts, which just left 11 months for Obsidian to actually make the game. Which makes it all the more impressive that they managed to put in triple the amount of weapons in Fallout 3 and double the amount of quests, even on a really tight deadline. Imagine what they would have done with six months more. Or if they weren't limited by the restrictions the GameBryo engine and consoles brought . (This caused the New Vegas Strip to be toned down immensely in comparison to its concept art due to the engine limitations, for example)[/QUOTE] New Vegas is way more gray when it comes storywise, not even the evil Caesar has evil Karma on the game, he just does what he believes its the best. Shamefully most of the Legion stuff was cut, they barely have any territory either, people just assume they are some evil fucks, and in fact they are, but if all that stuff weren't cut I'm sure there would be way more people who would have followed their path for their own beliefs instead of for getting their ending.
[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;46279329]When I use metacritic I only view user scores[/QUOTE] User scores are so binary. They're either a 1 or a 10. And they can be a 1 for reasons outside the game itself, like Sim City.
[QUOTE=tom1029;46279390]I don't get the hate on it, it's stupid that companies base bonuses etc (Like the NV incident) on it but that doesn't really seem like a problem with metacritic, more with the game studio. That said, I generally ignore the "official" rating and only really pay attention to the user rating, it seems to be a much better indicator.[/QUOTE] I think user ratings are just as shit as official ratings. People will rate things 0 for the pettiest of reasons, even before they're released.
[QUOTE=Waffle cones.;46279166]Metacritic itself is not that bad. It aggregates reviews and gives you a summary of what major critics thought of a movie, game, TV show, or album. The problem is how over-emphasized the importance metascores are. All Metacritic does is average out what people's subjective opinions are, ...[/QUOTE] It actually doesn't. It weights certain reviewers more than others. [quote=Metacritic FAQ]This overall score, or METASCORE, is a weighted average of the individual critic scores. Why a weighted average? When selecting our source publications, we noticed that some critics consistently write better (more detailed, more insightful, more articulate) reviews than others. In addition, some critics and/or publications typically have more prestige and respect in their industry than others. To reflect these factors, we have assigned weights to each publication (and, in the case of movies and television, to individual critics as well), thus making some publications count more in the METASCORE calculations than others.[/quote] And they don't tell how much they weight each score, which is a huge problem.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;46279091]Why does metacritic receive flak? Genuine quesiton.[/QUOTE] Read the OP?
I never held Metacritic as worth listening to, considering user reviews are usually radical in either direction and they don't really even tell us how "professional" reviews are weighted
I read this earlier in the week, it sort of came across to me that he didn't like what scores big development games got and tried to shit on them (Personally something I find very loud and irritating, especially when it comes if they spout stuff like "The reviewers were paid off"). Second thing as well with the "Your game must get X on Metacritic, or else X will happen", this seems more like an industry problem if anything, not Metacritic's. Thirdly I don't think there really is any sort of replacement for a website like Metacritic, some people suggest to me that I should try asking friends and other people you know in real life, problem is for me though is that the responses aren't what I would consider good, why they say to me "Yeah X game is good" they often cannot tell me in detail what are the good parts of this game and what didn't work out so great and there is a real concern with me that more obscure and slightly more off the map games would end up off the radar. Metacritic gives me a good insight into what is worth my money, which also takes me back to the scoring system. While it is fair to say that I probably would choose a "91" rated game over say a "76" rated game I think its a fair thing to want to get the absolute best enjoyment for your money. Preferably I'd get both but when your tight for money like I quite often am the higher rated game will take preference, I just don't want to take the risk that I could buy a lower rated game and think that there is something better out on the Steam store that I could be playing right now and not feel like I've spent my money unwisely.
[QUOTE=TestECull;46279106]Because devs get gypped out of their bonuses based not on the quality of their work but what number they get on metacritic.[/QUOTE] That's not the fault of metacritic. That's the fault of their contract.
[QUOTE=ImperialGuard;46279126]New Vegas is amazing and a huge beast, but it was originally supposed to have a LOT more dev time. There were supposed to be tons of quests that got cut, as well as a big map extension east. I just like to imagine what could have been.[/QUOTE] I've never heard anything about the map being cut, care to tell me about it? Google hasn't turned up anything either.
I fine Metacrtic good for critics but not good for user's at least most of the times's.
Personally I say don't listen to any standard review or score at all. The system is entirely fucking broken. The way I do it is just look at the game, look at some gameplay, watch people like Totalbiscuit who have no reason not to bring up it's flaws, read positive and negative user reviews from people who might be biased but you know aren't being paid to say what they're saying, and then decide whether you want the game or not.
Yes. Metacritic is a joke for video game reviews. Professional reviews are all the same, which raises loads of questions, and user reviews are pure crap because people will give a game a 0 if the installer takes 1 min over the expected time or something else extremely stupid that would never warrant a game a 0.
[QUOTE=Cheshire_cat;46280179]I've never heard anything about the map being cut, care to tell me about it? Google hasn't turned up anything either.[/QUOTE] The original design for the game went from Vegas and Hoover Dam in the southwest corner of the map, to TX and the Gulf in the southeast and even up to Denver and Boulder CO in the North.
[QUOTE=ss1234;46279380]I still only trust Adam Sessler when it comes to video game journalism.[/QUOTE] Now I don't hate Adam Sessler or Bioshock: Infinite, but he gave the game a perfect 5 out of 5 when he was still part of Rev3, and it sure as hell isn't a perfect 5 as a lot of people will attest. Adam's still a great reviewer to me, but he really gets focused more on storytelling sometimes than the actual gameplay, and he has his moments that make you wonder what the fuck. [QUOTE=Whatsinaname;46279266]Even then, demos can be misleading. There are some great games with awful demos.[/QUOTE] Or a demo that cherry picks 'fun' segments and then doesn't show the monotony of the rest of the game.
[QUOTE=darunner;46280403]The original design for the game went from Vegas and Hoover Dam in the southwest corner of the map, to TX and the Gulf in the southeast and even up to Denver and Boulder CO in the North.[/QUOTE] Sounds neat. I guess that was before the game actually started development, or is there some actual game assets?
[QUOTE=UnrealDiego;46279648] And they don't tell how much they weight each score, which is a huge problem.[/QUOTE] Not really a problem. If people knew what curtains to pull to have their weight be greater, they'd do it all the way, not necessarily improving the actual quality. People would rather crook around than just try to write good reviews and have a good opinion. The problem is, however, who assigns those weights. A "who watches the watchmen" kind of deal. [editline]20th October 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=darunner;46280117]That's not the fault of metacritic. That's the fault of their contract.[/QUOTE] So the problem here is not the existence of Metacritic, but rather the regard in which it is held by publishers, and the problematic nature of it. People sadly won't learn not to trust scores if you take them away, they'll just turn to another source. As far as I know, it's actually a fairly natural behavior - the attempt to try to compress things into a calculable manner - so there's really not much to be done about that. Lowering that publisher's regard is the only thing that can possibly be done, I think.
We should kill reviews with numbers attached. Keep editorial content such as "I had an issue with Bayonetta's sexualization" outside of the review and inside editorials. Finally, we should make a review format of whether you should buy the game by a simple yes or no and explain why and who it's meant for.
[QUOTE=Reshy;46279224]IF you kill Metacritic a new one will popup in it's place, because all Metacritic does it grab reviews from other sources and average them. You literally can't stop it unless other companies stop giving out numerical reviews.[/QUOTE] then kill that one too
I think the problem with an objective scale like x/10 is that, where it can be applied to films because it's easier to define what a good or bad film is, there's way more go be considered in whether a video game is worth the purchase. There should really be several categories that aren't aggregated into one score. I'll say make them gameplay, innovation, aesthetic (story/graphics/cultural significance) and replay value. It doesn't make sense to give a game a 10 because it has a fantastic story and ignore the fact that it's lacking in every other area (Bioshock Infinite/The Last of Us are the prominent recent examples) and people look for different things in purchasing a game. Being able to look at the category that matters most to you to decide whether it's worth it is much better than just reading one number and hoping it got that score because of the same kinds of things you value in a game. The problem is that because it's a newish medium, the reviewers have followed the film review blueprint of objective scores and it just doesn't apply well at all to this completely different form of media.
"we" Yes us the clickbait opinion article readers are so affluential
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;46279020][url]http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/time-to-kill-metacritic/0139824[/url] I think we seriously should kill Metacritic. From consumer standpoint the only thing it really does well is that it's convenience. But that convenience has a price. For example, Fallout New Vegas developers didn't get their bonus simple because they didn't get an 80 on Metacritic. Not to mention the fact that it doesn't allow for subjective views about topics, or enforces those subjective views too much.[/QUOTE] The lack of a bonus for the NV team is the fault of the publishers though. You can't blame a ranking system for how that system is used and abused by a population in a case like that. The developers would've used some other semi-arbitrary production driver if Metacritic wasn't a thing - IGN ranking, whether or not the game got x many GOTY awards, etc, etc.
[QUOTE=Dick Slamfist;46279231]What I hate about metacritic is any time a big budget game is released and people find flaws they don't like, they swarm together and give it a 0. so they can go LOOK WATCH DOGS HAS A 3.3 ON METACRITIC!!! Now, I don't particularly care about Watch_Dogs, but I just think that's immature. It's not indicative of the actual content of the game just because you felt cheated that you pre-ordered and didn't like what you got.[/QUOTE] Except Watch Dogs was literally a bait and switch with the E3 trailers of real gameplay. People had a right to be mad about that for pre ordering.
[QUOTE=Dick Slamfist;46279231]What I hate about metacritic is any time a big budget game is released and people find flaws they don't like, they swarm together and give it a 0. so they can go LOOK WATCH DOGS HAS A 3.3 ON METACRITIC!!! Now, I don't particularly care about Watch_Dogs, but I just think that's immature. It's not indicative of the actual content of the game just because you felt cheated that you pre-ordered and didn't like what you got.[/QUOTE] Those [u]user reviews[/u] are extremely easy to spot. I can't think of a single game that deserves a zero. Even Big Rigs deserves a two or three because of the crazy shit that they managed to break in the game unintentionally. Also Watch_Dogs was not exactly the best example to use. It wasn't exactly unprovoked.
[QUOTE=Korova;46283142]Those [u]user reviews[/u] are extremely easy to spot. I can't think of a single game that deserves a zero. Even Big Rigs deserves a two or three because of the crazy shit that they managed to break in the game unintentionally. Also Watch_Dogs was not exactly the best example to use. It wasn't exactly unprovoked.[/QUOTE] I'd say there are games that deserve a 0 in certain categories, but that's the problem with a review system like this, it's an objective system where people have different ways of deciding their rating and base it on different criteria entirely to other reviewers.
[QUOTE=Tasm;46283136]Except Watch Dogs was literally a bait and switch with the E3 trailers of real gameplay. People had a right to be mad about that for pre ordering.[/QUOTE] Except for the fact that all media released [B]at least[/B] 6 months before release was p. accurate
ban gaming reviews with numbered scores, convert metacritic into offering a generalized blurb about a certain game rather than an aggregate score
The claim that metacritic ratings harm devs' ability to find work or negatively impact game sales is completely unfounded. There's no evidence to prove it and we research this stuff intently. The only studio that has had an issue is Obsidian, and the bonus they didn't get was peanuts compared to the total dev cost. Obsidian is also notoriously bad with cost projections/finances. The running joke in the publisher circuit is to add 30% to the pitch. Metacritic is simply an aggregate site used as a scapegoat. Killing it for the sake of reviews is one thing, but killing it because of scary clickbait articles is another thing entirely.
I'll ask friends who play or try to discuss with other gamers if a game is worth buying. I mean, they're not getting paid to answer me. :v: Although I really do appreciate TotalBiscut's way of approaching giving games critiques/reviews.
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