<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->80 means more sales, it means UWE staff can claim to have worked on a title that scored 80...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2 articles , one was about a company having a requirement that the applicant had to have worked on a title that score 80 or higher on Metacritic , the other article was about a developer that lost a bonus because the title didnt reach 80 on Metacritic desplite being commercially successful. (the articles do exist but I cant be bothered to dig them up).
<!--quoteo(post=2022983:date=Nov 14 2012, 10:29 AM:name=tk-421)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tk-421 @ Nov 14 2012, 10:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022983"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'll be writing to Metacritic and asking for a revamp of the review score. I would suggest that more people POLITELY and CIVILLY do the same.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I already sent an e-mail, but the more the better.
I sent it to their 'editor' e-mail address, but I imagine that gets spammed horribly. Does anyone have an e-mail address that is more likely to be answered?
There are 7 reviews over 80 and the one 60 (that doesn't even exist anymore) has dragged the Metascore under 80, as Metacritic gives Gamespot (both owned by CBS) more influence and now refuse to update it.
<!--quoteo(post=2023137:date=Nov 14 2012, 04:34 AM:name=Snazz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Snazz @ Nov 14 2012, 04:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023137"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Let me get this straight...
There are 7 reviews over 80 and the one 60 (that doesn't even exist anymore) has dragged the Metascore under 80, as Metacritic gives Gamespot (both owned by CBS) more influence and now refuse to update it.
Just sent my email off to the Metacritic editor (the link is on their contact page). Still trying to raise a bit of attention on reddit and/or find another way to contact them...
Metacritic is a horrible, biased system that weights and review scores depending on how the feel that day. So far they've gotten Obsidian ###### over over stupid ###### like New Vegas getting 84 instead of 85, denying them of a bonus from the publisher.l
Personally I hope metacritic gets nuked and everyone associated with it dies in a fire before they so more damage to the industry.
Stop going to that website, it just gives them power.
I always knew these sites were purely commercial PR tools controlled by the big companies through a kind of bribery
<!--quoteo(post=2023176:date=Nov 14 2012, 06:40 AM:name=Onii-chan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Onii-chan @ Nov 14 2012, 06:40 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023176"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Metacritic is a horrible, biased system that weights and review scores depending on how the feel that day. So far they've gotten Obsidian ###### over over stupid ###### like New Vegas getting 84 instead of 85, denying them of a bonus from the publisher.l
Personally I hope metacritic gets nuked and everyone associated with it dies in a fire before they so more damage to the industry.
Stop going to that website, it just gives them power.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you say the average on metacritic is not a real average? Do you know definetely that they weigh sites differently? That would be lame indeed, I always thought of metacritic in a way of minimizing this "bribery" effect, because manipulating it is harder than a few big reviewing sites.
P.S.: I dont know if it is the same here but I like <a href="http://www.gamerankings.com" target="_blank">Gamerankings</a> more than MC
P.P.S.: Its quite interesting that there are only 3 reviews although NSII is very prominent in Steam. So I guess, you didnt "offer" this game for reviewing to as many sites as other games are, so obviously thats where this whole industry starts - its not abut reviewing games to provide reviews, it seems more like reviewing in a publishers duty
<!--quoteo(post=2023185:date=Nov 14 2012, 04:54 PM:name=dissection)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dissection @ Nov 14 2012, 04:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023185"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I always knew these sites were purely commercial PR tools controlled by the big companies through a kind of bribery
Do you say the average on metacritic is not a real average? Do you know definetely that they weigh sites differently? That would be lame indeed, I always thought of metacritic in a way of minimizing this "bribery" effect, because manipulating it is harder than a few big reviewing sites.
P.S.: I dont know if it is the same here but I like <a href="http://www.gamerankings.com" target="_blank">Gamerankings</a> more than MC<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's clearly not a proper average since that would currently put NS2 at 80.75, or 81, not 79. They have their own crazy formula and probably biased, as TotalBiscuit mentioned in a few of his vids.
EDIT: Yes that's how publishers control the reviewers, they rarely just pay money up front, but a bad review will make the publisher not send any new games to that reviewer before the release date, meaning that by the time they're done with it (assuming the reviewer play it for more than 20 minutes), most users and traffic will go to other sites, ergo less ad $ for them.
"Gaming journalism" quite a horrible industry indeed with the publishers holding the leash, and metacritic just makes it a lot worse.
<!--quoteo(post=2023185:date=Nov 14 2012, 07:54 AM:name=dissection)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dissection @ Nov 14 2012, 07:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023185"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Do you say the average on metacritic is not a real average? Do you know definetely that they weigh sites differently? That would be lame indeed, I always thought of metacritic in a way of minimizing this "bribery" effect, because manipulating it is harder than a few big reviewing sites.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can find information on this here but yes they use weighted averages: <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/faq#item3" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/faq#item3</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How do you compute METASCORES?
To put it simply, a METASCORE is a weighted average of reviews from top critics and publications for a given movie, TV show, video game, or album.
The basic concept is the same for each of the genres currently included in our site. Let's use a fictional movie--'Iron Chef vs. Godzilla'--as an example.
Our staffers will go through every publication on our Movies Publications list (see below) looking for reviews for Iron Chef vs. Godzilla. For each review found, we will take the score given by the critic and convert it to a 0-100 point scale. (For those critics who do not provide a score, we'll assign a score from 0-100 based on the general impression given by the review.). These individual critic scores are then averaged together to come up with an overall score.
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.
In addition, for our movie and music sections, all of the weighted averages are normalized before generating the METASCORE. To put it another way that should be familiar to anyone who has taken an exam in high school or college, all of our movies and albums are graded on a curve. Thus the METASCORE may be higher or lower than the true weighted average of the individual reviews, thanks to this normalization calculation. Normalization causes the scores to be spread out over a wider range, instead of being clumped together. Generally, higher scores are pushed higher, and lower scores are pushed lower. Unlike in high school, this is a good thing, since it provides more of a distinction between scores and allows you to better compare scores across movies (or albums).
The resulting METASCORE, then, is a good indication of how a particular movie/game/album/television show was reviewed. The better the reviews, the higher the score will be; the worse the reviews, the lower the score will be. Ideally, if reviews are completely divided between good and bad, the METASCORE should be close to 50.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, thanks. I understand now. I wrote a critical comment on a negative article on metacritic by ign.com recently and did not know that. It explains why ign is a bit bitter about metacritic. Obvioulsy this site is abusing power as well as reviewing sites are and able to pressurize the reviewers instead. Its a shift of power and the publishers now invest in metacritic ratings even more.
Too sad, I`d rather have a broad overview over largely uninfluenced reviews and always thought metasites could provide that. Rather unlikely it seems now.
<!--quoteo(post=2023069:date=Nov 14 2012, 12:30 PM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Nov 14 2012, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023069"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I also recall a company not recieving a bonus based purely on the fact it the title didnt reach 80, it only got 79.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2023176:date=Nov 14 2012, 02:40 PM:name=Onii-chan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Onii-chan @ Nov 14 2012, 02:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023176"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Metacritic is a horrible, biased system that weights and review scores depending on how the feel that day. So far they've gotten Obsidian ###### over over stupid ###### like New Vegas getting 84 instead of 85, denying them of a bonus from the publisher.l<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You can argue about the weight system being bad and the way you can seek attention through top/bottom grades is bad, but I don't think it's metacritic's fault that Obsidian doesn't get their bonus. It's more telling about how rotten the industry and press are and how unaware and how clueless and media illiterate the consumers are, not so much what's wrong with metacritic.
Definitely there are things that could be better with the site, but most of the issues highlighted by it originate elsewhere.
And to be clear: By no means I want to approve how the metacritic works altogether and the influence it has on the industry, but I think it's a little odd to blame one site when the whole industry is a huge mess.
<!--quoteo(post=2023204:date=Nov 14 2012, 08:14 AM:name=dissection)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dissection @ Nov 14 2012, 08:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023204"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Okay, thanks. I understand now. I wrote a critical comment on a negative article on metacritic by ign.com recently and did not know that. It explains why ign is a bit bitter about metacritic. Obviously this site is abusing power as well as reviewing sites are and able to pressurize the reviewers instead. Its a shift of power and the publishers now invest in metacritic ratings even more.
Too sad, I`d rather have a broad overview over largely uninfluenced reviews and always thought metasites could provide that. Rather unlikely it seems now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Weighted averages would be relatively fine if the base was larger that they are pulling the reviews from. However when not all review sites are represented we only get a slice and a skewed one at that of what critics think about it. We can't really call it an aggregate score when we omit information that could further flesh out our sample data. Now, couple that with the fact that some publishers put too much on the metacritic gravy train and we have a problem. While UWE is effectively their own publisher, as Cory said the score shows directly on steam, and that weighted score can and unfortunately does affect sales.
I prefer gamerankings as I wrote above and as I see it it is a bit better than metacritic.
The Faq states something about meeting certain criteria to be integrated into the composite reviews considered when calculating the average but they dont seem to weigh the ratings differently.
The first one will be kind of objective even when reviewing sites would have to pay for being considered (As I see it the number of recognized reviews seems to be quite big), while the metacritic model has to do absolutely nothing with giving an objective average. That basically open doors to every manipulation thinkable by the publishers and PR agenst.
<!--quoteo(post=2023224:date=Nov 14 2012, 08:39 AM:name=dissection)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dissection @ Nov 14 2012, 08:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I prefer gamerankings as I wrote above and as I see it it is a bit better than metacritic.
The Faq states something about meeting certain criteria to be integrated into the composite reviews considered when calculating the average but they dont seem to weigh the ratings differently.
The first one will be kind of objective even when reviewing sites would have to pay for being considered (As I see it the number of recognized reviews seems to be quite big), while the metacritic model has to do absolutely nothing with giving an objective average. That basically open doors to every manipulation thinkable by the publishers and PR agenst.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just going to point out gamerankings is also owned by gamespot (or their parent company) just like metacritic is. They also only select a few publications to use in their rankings (even missing some pretty major ones) and that list is even shorter than the metacritic one so far. Not much better to be honest.
I like metacritic, I can get a general feel for the score and then look into things further.
If you have issues with scores being under 85 and those in the company not getting their bonus, that is completely on god awful practices of the publisher/company.
The only thing you should be doing is e-mailing metacritic so we can have that Gamespot score removed, rather than ranting on here.
I have sent a message to their Facebook account, hopefully they check that more often.
<!--quoteo(post=2023224:date=Nov 14 2012, 03:39 PM:name=dissection)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dissection @ Nov 14 2012, 03:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I prefer gamerankings as I wrote above and as I see it it is a bit better than metacritic.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> As was pointed out, Gamerankings is owned by Gamespot, and they also have the same policy as Metacritic. Someone from the community already contacted them and had a lengthy conversation with them about the fact that there were 2 Gamespot review scores up there, the 60 and the 80. So they went and pulled the 80 one, and left the 60, and then said they always use the first review score. So, yeah, that sucked.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=2023321:date=Nov 14 2012, 12:13 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Nov 14 2012, 12:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023321"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As was pointed out, Gamerankings is owned by Gamespot, and they also have the same policy as Metacritic. Someone from the community already contacted them and had a lengthy conversation with them about the fact that there were 2 Gamespot review scores up there, the 60 and the 80. So they went and pulled the 80 one, and left the 60, and then said they always use the first review score. So, yeah, that sucked.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited November 2012
<!--quoteo(post=2023321:date=Nov 14 2012, 05:13 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Nov 14 2012, 05:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023321"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As was pointed out, Gamerankings is owned by Gamespot, and they also have the same policy as Metacritic. Someone from the community already contacted them and had a lengthy conversation with them about the fact that there were 2 Gamespot review scores up there, the 60 and the 80. So they went and pulled the 80 one, and left the 60, and then said they always use the first review score. So, yeah, that sucked.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Hrm, that's quite an example of "fine journalism" right there...
A fictional review that has a lot off issues, is mostly based on an opinion, gets simple facts about the game completely wrong, barely knows about the game as is evident in the knowledge used in the review about it. That low quality review actually gets priority, because of some rule instead of actually making a decision based on checking your facts?
You know I never read reviews, as I always thought they are either biased or a based on a personal opinion, while they should <b>always</b> be from a neutral perspective and fair about the good and the bad points of a game, to give the reader a basis to buy or not to buy, you know basic professionalism and such... I have no problem at all if a reviewer doesn't like a game, but at least show the common courtesy to be fair and point out both the good things and the bad things. NS2 even with the flaws it has does NOT deserve that low score. It's actually an insult to both UWE and really shines a light on Gamespot's so called professionalism.
This just seals the deal for me of even thinking of reading reviews ever again :D
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
The best thing for NS2 is just to have it covered by more places. Don't worry about the metascore so much, just go get us more reviews! Pick your favorite gaming site, email them and ask them why they haven't reviewed NS2 yet.
Even beyond the benefits of swamping bad reviews with good ones, NS2 just needs more coverage period. Sites review AC3 and Halo 4 on the day of release because all of their readers are clamoring for it constantly. Nobody is clamoring for NS2 so it gets overlooked. Gotta get out the ground game people. :)
Here's the email I just received back from Metacritic:
"Hey xxx,
The critics we track know - and I spoke to the GameSpot team about this this week - that we only accept the first review and first score published for a given game. I'm explicit about this policy with every new publication we agree to track. It's a critic-protection measure, instituted in 2003 after I found that many publications had been pressured to raise review scores (or de-publish reviews) to satisfy outside influences. Our policy acted as a disincentive for these outside forces to apply that type of inappropriate pressure.
ArgathorJoin Date: 2011-07-18Member: 110942Members, Squad Five Blue
edited November 2012
<!--quoteo(post=2023321:date=Nov 14 2012, 05:13 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Nov 14 2012, 05:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023321"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Someone from the community already contacted them and had a lengthy conversation with them about the fact that there were 2 Gamespot review scores up there, the 60 and the 80. So they went and pulled the 80 one, and left the 60, and then said they always use the first review score. So, yeah, that sucked.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow, just reading that made me cringe. It must have been awful for you guys, that really does suck. Just remember, there is a large (and growing) community of people that love what you do and stand for, keep up the awesome work!
So, in short, a hearty thank you to Eric Neigher for his wonderful [and inaccurate] 6.0 review that we now cannot remove from the metacritic score page.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=2023372:date=Nov 14 2012, 12:54 PM:name=tk-421)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tk-421 @ Nov 14 2012, 12:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023372"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Here's the email I just received back from Metacritic:<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And yet nothing can be done about blatant inaccuracies.
I think this is more of an indictment of gaming culture and the review industry. I'm not going to go into all the shenanigans that go on between reviewers and developers and stuff like that. Plenty of articles on the subject. I also wouldn't complain about NS2 getting 6/10. It has quite a few glaring issues. Some will be fixed, others are too deeply entrenched in the game. Here's the real problem though.
1. AAA games tend to get good reviews even if they're bad, glitchy, repetitive. Reviewers are at fault for this.
2. There seems to be a definition of what an FPS is supposed to be. It looks a lot like CoD and BF, and if an FPS lacks these "modern" shooter elements, that's bad in many peoples' minds. This is an issue of reviewers, devs, and players. Devs make it, reviewers expect it and gamers don't ask for anything different. In general, the consolification of all games.
3. Hard is bad, so is teamwork. Many people seem to think that a game is bad if everyone can't just jump in an instantly know what they're doing. The thought seems to be that if you need to spend more than 5 minutes figuring out the game's systems then it's just too hard to play. Furthermore players must be islands. Teamwork in many games is merely the sum of the individual players' skills. I think Robin Walker (or whomever from Valve said it) said it best when they said that most of the time, the only teamwork you can truly expect is ppl spawning together who happen to be standing next to each other when the shooting starts. Personally, I find it satisfying to learn a new game that's actually reasonably deep and really demands that I communicate and work with other players. Of course this is why I'm part of gaming communities as well.
4. 6/10 is a bad review and the mentality of players. It seems there's also the expectation that only games that received certain review scores could possibly be any good. As if any game could truly be distilled into a simple number. Metascores help, but the whole meta system has glaring issues. Honestly I spend more time on sites like techno buffalo and other small sites that just do their best to review without bias. As players we need to realize that just because corporate reviewers pan a game doesn't mean it's a bad game. Sometimes it's just an opinion and we need to read more critically.
I could go on, but really we're all to blame for a lot of this stuff. As players we should be demanding more of what we want and not just accepting the status quo. Reviewers need to make sure they've got their ducks in a row and understand a game prior to reviewing it and stop reading into what it should be. They also need to take a stand against AAA devs who demand pay for play (good reviews in exchange for the "honor" of reviewing their game). There will always be the outside devs like UWE, who do something different, but most devs aren't gonna change until we make them.
Critic-protection measure? What B.S. is this? The way it works out in the end, it might dissuade some Metacritic-obsessed people from purchasing this game through Steam - ending up as a blow towards consumer and developer - the very entities that these critics are supposed to be looking out for.
I seem to recall a time when game reviews were about protecting the consumer from making bad purchases. Now, as with many reviews from so-called 'news' sites - it's all about manipulation and politics.
<!--quoteo(post=2023372:date=Nov 14 2012, 11:54 AM:name=tk-421)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tk-421 @ Nov 14 2012, 11:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023372"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's a critic-protection measure, instituted in 2003 after I found that many publications had been pressured to raise review scores (or de-publish reviews) to satisfy outside influences.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Any evidence of that?
(the articles do exist but I cant be bothered to dig them up).
Scores do effect sales, that is a fact.
I already sent an e-mail, but the more the better.
I sent it to their 'editor' e-mail address, but I imagine that gets spammed horribly. Does anyone have an e-mail address that is more likely to be answered?
There are 7 reviews over 80 and the one 60 (that doesn't even exist anymore) has dragged the Metascore under 80, as Metacritic gives Gamespot (both owned by CBS) more influence and now refuse to update it.
That's f*$#3d up.
There are 7 reviews over 80 and the one 60 (that doesn't even exist anymore) has dragged the Metascore under 80, as Metacritic gives Gamespot (both owned by CBS) more influence and now refuse to update it.
That's f*$#3d up.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yep, that's pretty much the situation.
Just sent my email off to the Metacritic editor (the link is on their contact page). Still trying to raise a bit of attention on reddit and/or find another way to contact them...
So far they've gotten Obsidian ###### over over stupid ###### like New Vegas getting 84 instead of 85, denying them of a bonus from the publisher.l
Personally I hope metacritic gets nuked and everyone associated with it dies in a fire before they so more damage to the industry.
Stop going to that website, it just gives them power.
<!--quoteo(post=2023176:date=Nov 14 2012, 06:40 AM:name=Onii-chan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Onii-chan @ Nov 14 2012, 06:40 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023176"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Metacritic is a horrible, biased system that weights and review scores depending on how the feel that day.
So far they've gotten Obsidian ###### over over stupid ###### like New Vegas getting 84 instead of 85, denying them of a bonus from the publisher.l
Personally I hope metacritic gets nuked and everyone associated with it dies in a fire before they so more damage to the industry.
Stop going to that website, it just gives them power.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you say the average on metacritic is not a real average? Do you know definetely that they weigh sites differently? That would be lame indeed, I always thought of metacritic in a way of minimizing this "bribery" effect, because manipulating it is harder than a few big reviewing sites.
P.S.: I dont know if it is the same here but I like <a href="http://www.gamerankings.com" target="_blank">Gamerankings</a> more than MC
P.P.S.: Its quite interesting that there are only 3 reviews although NSII is very prominent in Steam. So I guess, you didnt "offer" this game for reviewing to as many sites as other games are, so obviously thats where this whole industry starts - its not abut reviewing games to provide reviews, it seems more like reviewing in a publishers duty
Do you say the average on metacritic is not a real average? Do you know definetely that they weigh sites differently? That would be lame indeed, I always thought of metacritic in a way of minimizing this "bribery" effect, because manipulating it is harder than a few big reviewing sites.
P.S.: I dont know if it is the same here but I like <a href="http://www.gamerankings.com" target="_blank">Gamerankings</a> more than MC<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's clearly not a proper average since that would currently put NS2 at 80.75, or 81, not 79.
They have their own crazy formula and probably biased, as TotalBiscuit mentioned in a few of his vids.
EDIT: Yes that's how publishers control the reviewers, they rarely just pay money up front, but a bad review will make the publisher not send any new games to that reviewer before the release date, meaning that by the time they're done with it (assuming the reviewer play it for more than 20 minutes), most users and traffic will go to other sites, ergo less ad $ for them.
"Gaming journalism" quite a horrible industry indeed with the publishers holding the leash, and metacritic just makes it a lot worse.
You can find information on this here but yes they use weighted averages: <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/faq#item3" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/faq#item3</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How do you compute METASCORES?
To put it simply, a METASCORE is a weighted average of reviews from top critics and publications for a given movie, TV show, video game, or album.
The basic concept is the same for each of the genres currently included in our site. Let's use a fictional movie--'Iron Chef vs. Godzilla'--as an example.
Our staffers will go through every publication on our Movies Publications list (see below) looking for reviews for Iron Chef vs. Godzilla. For each review found, we will take the score given by the critic and convert it to a 0-100 point scale. (For those critics who do not provide a score, we'll assign a score from 0-100 based on the general impression given by the review.). These individual critic scores are then averaged together to come up with an overall score.
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.
In addition, for our movie and music sections, all of the weighted averages are normalized before generating the METASCORE. To put it another way that should be familiar to anyone who has taken an exam in high school or college, all of our movies and albums are graded on a curve. Thus the METASCORE may be higher or lower than the true weighted average of the individual reviews, thanks to this normalization calculation. Normalization causes the scores to be spread out over a wider range, instead of being clumped together. Generally, higher scores are pushed higher, and lower scores are pushed lower. Unlike in high school, this is a good thing, since it provides more of a distinction between scores and allows you to better compare scores across movies (or albums).
The resulting METASCORE, then, is a good indication of how a particular movie/game/album/television show was reviewed. The better the reviews, the higher the score will be; the worse the reviews, the lower the score will be. Ideally, if reviews are completely divided between good and bad, the METASCORE should be close to 50.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Too sad, I`d rather have a broad overview over largely uninfluenced reviews and always thought metasites could provide that. Rather unlikely it seems now.
Never mind the bonus. It was a bit more serious:
<a href="http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1283857/obsidian_layoffs_studio_lost_bonus_due_to_low_metacritic_score.html" target="_blank">http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1283857/obsid...itic_score.html</a>
So far they've gotten Obsidian ###### over over stupid ###### like New Vegas getting 84 instead of 85, denying them of a bonus from the publisher.l<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can argue about the weight system being bad and the way you can seek attention through top/bottom grades is bad, but I don't think it's metacritic's fault that Obsidian doesn't get their bonus. It's more telling about how rotten the industry and press are and how unaware and how clueless and media illiterate the consumers are, not so much what's wrong with metacritic.
Definitely there are things that could be better with the site, but most of the issues highlighted by it originate elsewhere.
And to be clear: By no means I want to approve how the metacritic works altogether and the influence it has on the industry, but I think it's a little odd to blame one site when the whole industry is a huge mess.
Too sad, I`d rather have a broad overview over largely uninfluenced reviews and always thought metasites could provide that. Rather unlikely it seems now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Weighted averages would be relatively fine if the base was larger that they are pulling the reviews from. However when not all review sites are represented we only get a slice and a skewed one at that of what critics think about it. We can't really call it an aggregate score when we omit information that could further flesh out our sample data. Now, couple that with the fact that some publishers put too much on the metacritic gravy train and we have a problem. While UWE is effectively their own publisher, as Cory said the score shows directly on steam, and that weighted score can and unfortunately does affect sales.
The Faq states something about meeting certain criteria to be integrated into the composite reviews considered when calculating the average but they dont seem to weigh the ratings differently.
<a href="http://www.gamerankings.com/help.html" target="_blank">http://www.gamerankings.com/help.html</a>
The first one will be kind of objective even when reviewing sites would have to pay for being considered (As I see it the number of recognized reviews seems to be quite big), while the metacritic model has to do absolutely nothing with giving an objective average. That basically open doors to every manipulation thinkable by the publishers and PR agenst.
The Faq states something about meeting certain criteria to be integrated into the composite reviews considered when calculating the average but they dont seem to weigh the ratings differently.
<a href="http://www.gamerankings.com/help.html" target="_blank">http://www.gamerankings.com/help.html</a>
The first one will be kind of objective even when reviewing sites would have to pay for being considered (As I see it the number of recognized reviews seems to be quite big), while the metacritic model has to do absolutely nothing with giving an objective average. That basically open doors to every manipulation thinkable by the publishers and PR agenst.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just going to point out gamerankings is also owned by gamespot (or their parent company) just like metacritic is. They also only select a few publications to use in their rankings (even missing some pretty major ones) and that list is even shorter than the metacritic one so far. Not much better to be honest.
If you have issues with scores being under 85 and those in the company not getting their bonus, that is completely on god awful practices of the publisher/company.
The only thing you should be doing is e-mailing metacritic so we can have that Gamespot score removed, rather than ranting on here.
I have sent a message to their Facebook account, hopefully they check that more often.
As was pointed out, Gamerankings is owned by Gamespot, and they also have the same policy as Metacritic. Someone from the community already contacted them and had a lengthy conversation with them about the fact that there were 2 Gamespot review scores up there, the 60 and the 80. So they went and pulled the 80 one, and left the 60, and then said they always use the first review score. So, yeah, that sucked.
--Cory
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow, that's pretty vile.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hrm, that's quite an example of "fine journalism" right there...
A fictional review that has a lot off issues, is mostly based on an opinion, gets simple facts about the game completely wrong, barely knows about the game as is evident in the knowledge used in the review about it. That low quality review actually gets priority, because of some rule instead of actually making a decision based on checking your facts?
You know I never read reviews, as I always thought they are either biased or a based on a personal opinion, while they should <b>always</b> be from a neutral perspective and fair about the good and the bad points of a game, to give the reader a basis to buy or not to buy, you know basic professionalism and such... I have no problem at all if a reviewer doesn't like a game, but at least show the common courtesy to be fair and point out both the good things and the bad things. NS2 even with the flaws it has does NOT deserve that low score. It's actually an insult to both UWE and really shines a light on Gamespot's so called professionalism.
This just seals the deal for me of even thinking of reading reviews ever again :D
Even beyond the benefits of swamping bad reviews with good ones, NS2 just needs more coverage period. Sites review AC3 and Halo 4 on the day of release because all of their readers are clamoring for it constantly. Nobody is clamoring for NS2 so it gets overlooked. Gotta get out the ground game people. :)
"Hey xxx,
The critics we track know - and I spoke to the GameSpot team about this this week - that we only accept the first review and first score published for a given game. I'm explicit about this policy with every new publication we agree to track. It's a critic-protection measure, instituted in 2003 after I found that many publications had been pressured to raise review scores (or de-publish reviews) to satisfy outside influences. Our policy acted as a disincentive for these outside forces to apply that type of inappropriate pressure.
Best,
Marc Doyle
co-founder, games editor
metacritic"
Wow, just reading that made me cringe. It must have been awful for you guys, that really does suck. Just remember, there is a large (and growing) community of people that love what you do and stand for, keep up the awesome work!
And yet nothing can be done about blatant inaccuracies.
1. AAA games tend to get good reviews even if they're bad, glitchy, repetitive. Reviewers are at fault for this.
2. There seems to be a definition of what an FPS is supposed to be. It looks a lot like CoD and BF, and if an FPS lacks these "modern" shooter elements, that's bad in many peoples' minds. This is an issue of reviewers, devs, and players. Devs make it, reviewers expect it and gamers don't ask for anything different. In general, the consolification of all games.
3. Hard is bad, so is teamwork. Many people seem to think that a game is bad if everyone can't just jump in an instantly know what they're doing. The thought seems to be that if you need to spend more than 5 minutes figuring out the game's systems then it's just too hard to play. Furthermore players must be islands. Teamwork in many games is merely the sum of the individual players' skills. I think Robin Walker (or whomever from Valve said it) said it best when they said that most of the time, the only teamwork you can truly expect is ppl spawning together who happen to be standing next to each other when the shooting starts. Personally, I find it satisfying to learn a new game that's actually reasonably deep and really demands that I communicate and work with other players. Of course this is why I'm part of gaming communities as well.
4. 6/10 is a bad review and the mentality of players. It seems there's also the expectation that only games that received certain review scores could possibly be any good. As if any game could truly be distilled into a simple number. Metascores help, but the whole meta system has glaring issues. Honestly I spend more time on sites like techno buffalo and other small sites that just do their best to review without bias. As players we need to realize that just because corporate reviewers pan a game doesn't mean it's a bad game. Sometimes it's just an opinion and we need to read more critically.
I could go on, but really we're all to blame for a lot of this stuff. As players we should be demanding more of what we want and not just accepting the status quo. Reviewers need to make sure they've got their ducks in a row and understand a game prior to reviewing it and stop reading into what it should be. They also need to take a stand against AAA devs who demand pay for play (good reviews in exchange for the "honor" of reviewing their game). There will always be the outside devs like UWE, who do something different, but most devs aren't gonna change until we make them.
I seem to recall a time when game reviews were about protecting the consumer from making bad purchases. Now, as with many reviews from so-called 'news' sites - it's all about manipulation and politics.
the irony