Metacritic () — англоязычный сайт-агрегатор, собирающий отзывы о музыкальных альбомах, играх, фильмах, телевизионных шоу, DVD-дисках и мобильных играх. На основании собранных отзывов сайт высчитывает средний рейтинг продукта, который активно используется в журналистике, индустрии компьютерных игр и бизнесе, в частности, для предсказания коммерческого успеха недавно выпущенной игры.

 История
thumb|upright=0.7|Первоначальное лого Metacritic
Metacritic был запущен в январе 2001 года Марком Дойлом, его сестрой Джули Дойл Робертс и однокурсником из школы юриспруденции Университета Южной Калифорнии Джейсоном Дитцем, спустя два года разработки. На тот момент уже существовал сайт Rotten Tomatoes, собирающий рецензии на фильмы, однако Дойл, Робертс и Дитц видели возможность охватить более широкий спектр медиа. В 2005 году они продали Metacritic CNET, который вместе с Metacritic был в дальнейшем поглощён CBS Corporation. В 2020 году Metacritic и другие проекты CNET были приобретены компанией Red Ventures.

 Влияние
Metacritic активно используется в бизнесе для предсказания будущих продаж. В 2007 Ник Уингфилд из The Wall Street Journal отметил, что Metacritic «влияет на продажи игр и акции издателей компьютерных игр». По его словам, влияние обусловлено тем, что компьютерная игра стоит дороже музыки или билетов в кино. Руководители многих студий считают, что низкая оценка на Metacritic «может повредить потенциалу долговременных продаж». Уингфилд пишет, что Уолл-стрит обращает внимание на оценки на Metacritic и GameRankings, поскольку данные сайты зачастую публикуют рейтинги до того, как данные о продажах переходят в открытый доступ, приводя в пример соответственно быстрые подъём и падение стоимости акций издателей после выпуска игр BioShock и Spider-Man 3. В 2008 году в интервью журналу The Guardian Марк Дойл сослался на двух крупных издателей, которые «провели комплексные статистические исследования, показавшие строгую корреляцию между высокими рейтингами игры и её хорошими продажами» в определённых жанрах. Он заявил, что всё большее число финансовых и бизнес-аналитиков используют Metacritic как «ранний индикатор потенциальных продаж игры, и, как следствие, изменения цен на акции издателя». Однако исследование 2015 года, проанализировавшее 88 игр для Xbox 360 и 80 игр для PlayStation 3, выпущенных с 2012 года, показало, что рейтинг на Metacritic не оказывает влияния на продажи.

Неоднократно вызывало споры использование сайта издателями как меры для определения, заслуживают ли разработчики получения дополнительного гонорара. Значимым примером является Fallout: New Vegas — игра 2010 года, получившая 84 балла на Metacritic и соответственно не добравшая одного балла до требуемых издателем отметки в 85 баллов, из-за чего разработчики игры, Obsidian Entertainment, не получили дополнительного денежного бонуса. Игровые журналисты раскритиковали использование Metacritic издателем, замечая, что это делает игровых критиков ответственными за выплаты разработчикам, а также отмечая, что между 84 и 85 баллами нет существенной разницы. Журналисты писали о высоком уровне продаж игры — пять миллионов копий, что принесло издателю порядка 300 миллионов долларов прибыли, — на контрасте с серией увольнений, проведённых в Obsidian в 2011—2012 годах.

С другой стороны, сайт часто используется игровыми журналистами и аналитиками как общая оценка восприятия критиками, а издателями — в качестве инструмента для улучшения своих продуктов. В 2008 году , в будущем — исполнительный директор Electronic Arts, наряду с другими руководителями, показывал аналитику с Уолл-стрит график, на котором был отражён тренд на снижение средней оценки игр компании. Аналитик воспринял данные серьёзно и отметил, что компанию необходимо привести в норму. Также в 2008 году компания Microsoft использовала рейтинги на Metacritic для исключения плохих игр из Xbox Live Arcade.

 Средние баллы
Рейтинг на Metacritic является взвешенной средней оценкой критиков. Некоторым изданиям присваивается больший вес «в силу их значимости». Персонал Metacritic отмечал, что он не собирается раскрывать относительный вес, присвоенный каждому из критиков.

+ Легенда Показатель Компьютерные игры Фильмы, телепрограммы и музыка Всеобщее признание 90—100 81—100 В основном положительные отзывы 75—89 61—80 Смешанные или средние отзывы 50—74 40—60 В основном отрицательные отзывы 20—49 20—39 Преобладающее неприятие 0—19

В июне 2018 года на Metacritic была введена метка Must-See (), присваиваемая фильмам, получившим средний балл 81 или выше при наличии минимум 15 рецензий профессиональных критиков. В сентябре того же года была добавлена метка Must-Play () для игр, собравшим 90 баллов или выше на основании минимум 15 рецензий.

 Критика
Metacritic получила смешанные отзывы от критиков сайтов и журналистов. Его влияние многократно исследовалось; ряд исследователей посчитал его в целом полезным, а другие — ненадёжным и отнюдь не нейтральным. Сайт выиграл две ежегодные премии Вебби в категории «Гайды/Рейтинги/Обзоры» в 2010 и 2015 годах.

Metacritic критикуют за преобразование всех систем оценивания в единую процентную шкалу. Так, оценка «A» преобразовывается в 100, «F» — в нуль, а «B-» — в 67. Джо Додсон, бывший редактор Game Revolution, считает, что Metacritic и аналогичные сайты нередко присваивают слишком низкие процентные оценки для некоторых шкал. Дойл защищает систему оценки, считая, что любая шкала должна быть преобразована в единую систему и нормирована так, чтобы наименьшая оценка стала 0, а наибольшая — 100. Также критике подвергается закрытая система вывода среднего рейтинга игры.

В результате отрицательного влияния на индустрию некоторые игровые сайты, в том числе Kotaku и Eurogamer, отказались от рецензий с оценкой и начали фокусироваться на словесном описании игр, чтобы их рецензии не могли попасть на Metacritic. Kotaku ссылается на случаи, когда оценки на Metacritic были использованы издателями для того, чтобы не выплачивать бонусы разработчикам.

Также критике подвергалось то, как Metacritic удаляет пользовательские рецензии и блокирует их авторов — без уведомления и права на апелляцию. Критики и разработчики отмечали, что все продукты подвержены манипуляциям со стороны пользователей — как занижению оценки посредством ревью-бомбинга, так и накрутке рейтингов одноразовыми аккаунтами, благодаря чему продукты кажутся более популярными, чем они есть на самом деле. Президент и креативный директор Signal Studios, Дуглас Олбрайт, описывал Metacritic как «сайт, не имеющий стандартов».

 См. также
 OpenCritic

 Примечания

 Ссылки

Категория:Базы данных фильмов в Интернете
Категория:Сайты США
Категория:Агрегаторы рецензий компьютерных игр
Категория:Лауреаты премии Вебби

In 2005, they sold Metacritic CNET, which together with Metacritic was later absorbed by CBS Corporation.

In 2020, Metacritic and other CNET projects were acquired by Red Ventures.

metacritic: the history
It began as a simple idea back in the summer of 1999: a single score could summarize the many entertainment reviews available for a movie or a video game. Metacritic's three founding members—all former attorneys who were happy to find a more constructive but less profitable use of their time—launched the site in January 2001 and Metacritic has evolved over the last decade to reflect their experience distilling many critics' voices into the single Metascore, a weighted average of the most respected critics writing reviews online and in print.
Metacritic's mission is to help consumers make an informed decision about how to spend their time and money on entertainment. We believe that multiple opinions are better than one, user voices can be as important as critics, and opinions must be scored to be easy to use.
Our Metascore system is unique and merits its own explanation page.

Question: who owns cnet and metacritic

In 2005, they sold Metacritic CNET, which together with Metacritic was later absorbed by CBS Corporation.

In 2020, Metacritic and other CNET projects were acquired by Red Ventures.

Question: when did cbs buy metacritic cnet

Question: when does cnet become a part of metacritic

when does cnet become a part of metacritic

Question: what is the name of the website used by cnet

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Question: what does cnet stand for on cnet

Question: what is the name of the website that publishes metacritic

what is the name of the website that publishes metacritic

Question: who owns metacritic and cnet

In 2005 , they sold Metacritic CNET , which together with Metacritic was later absorbed by CBS Corporation .

In 2020 , Metacritic and other CNET projects were acquired by Red Ventures .

В 2005 году они продали Metacritic CNET, который вместе с Metacritic был в дальнейшем поглощён CBS Corporation. В 2020 году Metacritic и другие проекты CNET были приобретены компанией Red Ventures.

В 2005 году они продали Metacritic CNET, который вместе с Metacritic был в дальнейшем поглощён CBS Corporation.

В 2020 году Metacritic и другие проекты CNET были приобретены компанией Red Ventures.

In 2005, they sold Metacritic CNET, which together with Metacritic was later absorbed by CBS Corporation. In 2020, Metacritic and other CNET projects were acquired by Red Ventures.

In 2005, they sold Metacritic CNET, which together with Metacritic was later absorbed by CBS Corporation.

In 2020, Metacritic and other CNET projects were acquired by Red Ventures.

The original logo Metacritic Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Mark Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and a fellow student of the University of Southern California Law School by Jason Ditz, after two years of development.

At that time there was already a Rotten Tomatoes website that gathers reviews on films, but Doyle, Roberts and Ditz saw the opportunity to cover a wider range of media.

Первоначальное

однокурсником

юриспруденции

Университета

High Scores Matter To Game Makers, Too
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Movies have Roger Ebert. Wine has Robert Parker. Videogames have Marc Doyle.
Mr. Doyle edits game reviews for Metacritic, a Web site he co-founded that can influence the sales of games and the stocks of videogame publishers. One company requires game publishers to pay higher royalties if they receive low scores on such sites.
But unlike conventional critics, Mr. Doyle rarely plays videogames and instead spends more time strumming his banjo. He has little interest in mingling with game makers. In July, he didn't join other game reviewers in previewing new titles at E3, a major computer and videogame trade show -- even though the event took place a few blocks from his house.
"I'm not the star of the show," says Mr. Doyle.
Yet in many videogame circles, the system he helped to create is. Metacritic compiles game reviews from more than 100 publications and then averages them into a single score, on a 1-to-100 scale, to help consumers make smarter purchases. The site also reviews movies, music and other forms of entertainment.
But such review sites hold the most sway in the videogame industry partly because the stakes are higher for consumers shelling out $50 to $60 for a new game than they are for someone buying, for example, a $10 movie ticket.
Some game companies now tie bonuses for their developers to game scores on such sites, while the stocks of game publishers can fall when a new title gets a disappointing score. "Everyone wants to make that game [that gets a score] of 85-plus," says Jim Ward, president of LucasArts, the games division of Lucasfilm Ltd. in San Francisco.
Game publisher Activision Inc. two years ago began using scores from a site called Game Rankings to determine part of its bonus compensation for employees, in order to spur its game-making teams to create better products. Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. has a similar policy for makers of its sports videogames.
Metacritic and Game Rankings are both owned by CNET Networks Inc. Game Rankings, unlike Metacritic, focuses only on games.
About 18 months ago, Activision also conducted a study of 789 games made for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 console and found a strong correlation between some high game scores and strong sales. Activision Chief Executive Robert Kotick says the link was especially notable for games that score above 80% on Game Rankings, which grades games on a 1-to-100 percentage basis, with 100% being a perfect score. For every five percentage points above 80%, Activision found sales of a game roughly doubled. Activision believes game scores, among other factors, can actually influence sales, not just reflect their quality.
Because Metacritic and Game Rankings typically post scores quickly after a game debuts and before any sales data are publicly available, Wall Street is also paying attention to them. On a Friday in early May, Activision's Spider-Man 3, a game based on the movie of the same name, hit store shelves to generally mediocre reviews. Metacritic gave the PlayStation 2 version of the game a 50, compared with an 80 for Spider-Man 2 for the same console.
By the following Monday, several financial analysts had noted Spider-Man 3's low scores as a possible concern for Activision. The Santa Monica, Calif., company's shares dropped 5% that day and continued sliding for the remainder of that week. In August, shares of Take-Two soared nearly 20% the week after its new game, Bioshock, got a nearly perfect Metacritic score, a 97 (it has since fallen to 96 as more reviews were included in its average).
All of this makes Metacritic's Mr. Doyle an unlikely kingmaker in the $7.4 billion U.S. games industry. He controls Metacritic's scoring system, deciding which publications to compile reviews from -- a varied list that includes trade magazines like GameInformer, the New York Times, a gamer Web site called Fourfatchicks.com and other outlets.
Mr. Doyle, who graduated from the University of Southern California law school, launched Metacritic on the Web in January 2001 with his sister, Julie Doyle Roberts, and Jason Dietz, a law-school classmate. Mr. Doyle says he realized then that the Internet was well-suited for providing a composite of reviews, minimizing the impact of individual critics' idiosyncratic tastes. Another site, Rotten Tomatoes, now owned by News Corp. , was already compiling movie reviews but Mr. Doyle and his partners saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media. The trio sold the site to CNET two years ago for an undisclosed sum. Mr. Doyle, 36, is now a senior product manager at CNET but he also acts as games editor of Metacritic.
These days, publishers frequently plead with Mr. Doyle to exclude reviews they deem unfair from Metacritic scores. Some have argued that reviews in British publications are biased against American football videogames, he says. But once he has included a publication in the Metacritic system, Mr. Doyle says he refuses to omit any individual reviews based on such complaints.
The site's scores are weighted averages, in which Mr. Doyle assigns more significance to the reviews of certain publications based on their stature. It's a formula he declines to disclose, calling it Metacritic's "secret sauce."
Metacritic's method for calculating scores is a sore spot with some game reviewers. While many game publications give numerical scores on 100-point scales, some assign letter grades like those that students receive in school. In such cases, Mr. Doyle converts A grades to a score of 100 and F's to a score of zero, even though some reviewers believe F's should be closer to a score of 50. In cases where there are no scores, the reviewer will sometimes independently send a score to Mr. Doyle that he or she thinks is a fair representation of the review.
"We give Metacritic's funhouse mirror conversion scheme an F+," Joe Dodson, a former editor at review site Game Revolution, wrote in an essay last year criticizing Metacritic and similar sites. Mr. Dodson's main beef was that Metacritic's conversion system for letter grades turns Game Revolution's reviews into scores that are too low.
Metacritic's scores aren't always on the mark as a sales predictor. That's especially true with games based on movies, where a well-loved, well-marketed film can lift sales of even games most critics dislike. Despite relatively poor scores, analysts believe Activision's Spider-Man 3 game will likely closely match the more than four million copies sold of Spider-Man 2 in the U.S. and far outsell the first game in the series.
Yet many executives say there's at least an indirect link between game sales and scores. Much of the games business is now oriented around "franchises" -- concepts that can indefinitely produce sequels and spinoff titles -- and savage game scores can hurt the long-term sales potential of such a franchise, executives say.
"The first version of a game might sell OK," says Neil Young, general manager at Electronic Arts Inc., the world's biggest games publisher. "Now when you think about doing a second version of a product, you've got an uphill battle."
Three years ago, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., unhappy with the quality of some games based on Warner movies, decided to take action. Jason Hall, then the head of Warner's game efforts, began including "quality metrics" in the contracts the studio signed with partners interested in licensing Warner movies for games.
If game publishers don't deliver products that receive specified scores or better from Metacritic, Game Rankings or other sites, some deals require game publishers to pay higher royalties on game sales to Warner than they would have for better-scored games. A spokeswoman for Warner says it's too early to determine how much the studio's policy is affecting overall game quality.
Mr. Doyle, who was once an avid gamer, may soon get reacquainted with the games he has largely stopped playing. He says he is tempted by a wave of new games coming out for the holidays and may buy one of the latest game consoles to play them. He won't say which ones.
Write to Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
The E3 videogame trade show took place in July. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it took place in May.

Question: who came up with the name of metacritic

Джейсоном Дитцем

The original logo Metacritic Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Mark Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and a fellow student of the University of Southern California Law School by Jason Ditz, after two years of development.

At that time there was already a Rotten Tomatoes website that gathers reviews on films, but Doyle, Roberts and Ditz saw the opportunity to cover a wider range of media.

Question: when did the first metacritic score come out

when did the first metacritic score come out

Question: what is the name of the website launched by mark doyle, julie do

what is the name of the website launched by mark doyle, julie do

Question: who came up with the idea of metacritic

Марком Дойлом

Question: how long did it take for metacritic to come out

how long did it take for metacritic to come out

Question: where did the first metacritic come from

University of Southern California Law School

школы юриспруденции Университета Южной Калифорнии

University of Southern California Law School

where did the first metacritic come from

Question: what is the name of the website that aggregates film reviews

what is the name of the website that aggregates film reviews

The original logo Metacritic Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Mark Doyle , his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and a fellow student of the University of Southern California Law School by Jason Ditz , after two years of development .

At that time there was already a Rotten Tomatoes website that gathers reviews on films , but Doyle , Roberts and Ditz saw the opportunity to cover a wider range of media .

История Первоначальное лого Metacritic Metacritic был запущен в январе 2001 года Марком Дойлом, его сестрой Джули Дойл Робертс и однокурсником из школы юриспруденции Университета Южной Калифорнии Джейсоном Дитцем, спустя два года разработки. На тот момент уже существовал сайт Rotten Tomatoes, собирающий рецензии на фильмы, однако Дойл, Робертс и Дитц видели возможность охватить более широкий спектр медиа.

На тот момент уже существовал сайт Rotten Tomatoes, собирающий рецензии на фильмы, однако Дойл, Робертс и Дитц видели возможность охватить более широкий спектр медиа.

The original logo Metacritic Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Mark Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and a fellow student of the University of Southern California Law School by Jason Ditz, after two years of development. At that time there was already a Rotten Tomatoes website that gathers reviews on films, but Doyle, Roberts and Ditz saw the opportunity to cover a wider range of media.

The original logo Metacritic Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Mark Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and a fellow student of the University of Southern California Law School by Jason Ditz, after two years of development.

At that time there was already a Rotten Tomatoes website that gathers reviews on films, but Doyle, Roberts and Ditz saw the opportunity to cover a wider range of media.

Who Owns What
The Delacorte Lectures
Magazines and Their Websites: A Columbia Journalism Review Survey and Report
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CJR's guide to what the major media companies own.
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21st Century Fox
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Question: who owns the website metacritic

Question: when did cnet buy metacritic cnet

Question: what is the internet equivalent of metacritic

what is the internet equivalent of metacritic

Question: who are the creators of metacritic

Дойл , Робертс и Дитц

Question: what kind of reviews does metacritic give

what kind of reviews does metacritic give

At that time there was already a Rotten Tomatoes website that gathers reviews on films, but Doyle, Roberts and Ditz saw the opportunity to cover a wider range of media. In 2005, they sold Metacritic CNET, which together with Metacritic was later absorbed by CBS Corporation.

соответственно

статистические

исследования

определённых

In today's technology section, my Gamesblog column is looking at the metascore phenemonen, namely Metacritic and GameRankings, which have become an enormously important element of online games journalism over the past few years. We all know how useful these sites are in exposing us to a range of critical opinions, but my short article looks at some of the downsides of relying on the metascore alone.
Anyway, to get a look behind the metascoring process I interviewed Metacritic Games Editor, Marc Doyle, who provided lots of background info on how the score averages are calculated - and what sort of controversies the sites' methods have provoked. There wasn't room for a lot of this in the column so here's the interview in full.
Have you heard of specific instances where a Metacritic score has affected the sales of a game - for better or worse? Not specifically. Of course friends and users of the site have informed me that they haven't purchased games (or seen movies or bought albums) with low Metascores, but I've never been told by a publisher or developer that they've been able to definitively make a causal connection between poor sales and low scores from my site.
However, at least two major publishers have conducted comprehensive statistical surveys through which they've been able to draw a correlation between high metascores and stronger sales (and vice versa), but with a much tighter correlation in specific genres of games than in others.
I'd prefer not to name the publishers or talk about those studies in particular [One of the publishers is Activision, which carried out a fairly well-publicised study of score data. More info here - Keef]. But I do think that gamers are a much more informed group of internet users with respect to reviews than film fans or music buyers - not because they're necessarily smarter, but because games are much more of a time and money investment than other forms of entertainment.
A moviegoer spends $10 and 2 hours of their life on a movie, so they don't necessarily feel "burned" by a highly touted film that turns out to be garbage. On the other hand, a gamer who shells out $60 USD and expects to play upwards of 30 - 50 hours on a game wants/needs to know whether that hotly anticipated title is going to deliver, and sites like Metacritic which survey a wide span of the best game critics can be a valuable tool in that regard.
Is it true that you're often contacted by publishers who take issue with how you compile data to create metascores? Any recent examples? Absolutely. Some publishers feel I should include certain critics who I don't track or exclude other critics that I do - usually because the excluded critics are shelling out higher scores to their games, or the critics I do use are panning their games. The more savvy PR departments realise that I put a lot of time and effort into selecting the publications I track on Metacritic. I'm always looking for quality sites to add, but I have to be extremely careful in that process. I understand the impulse to chime in with me, however, when a certain critic comes down on a game on which a development team has invested a huge amount of time and effort.
Another typical complaint I hear from publishers is that UK critics shouldn't be reviewing games based on essentially American sports such as the NFL, NBA or NASCAR. Conversely, many European publishers feel that American critics are not qualified or properly situated to review football, rally, F1, cricket and rugby games. My response to them is that if a publication decides to review a game, it's implicit that their critic has a degree of competence necessary to review the game, or at least can provide information to their readers that is helpful. More importantly, once I've decided to track a publication, I cannot pick and choose which reviews I list on Metacritic based on such individual judgments. If I did this, my credibility would immediately be called into question.
One of the more controversial aspects of what I do is the conversion of the A - F scale to Metacritic's 1 - 100 scoring system. For example, when I convert a "B-" score to 67 on Metacritic, many users/fanboys/publishers/developers chime in to argue that a "B-" should be converted to the low 80s because that's how American schools tend to interpret a "B-". The problem is that most publications use a "full scale" without such counter-intuitive connotations, whether it's 0 - 10, 0 - 100, 0 - 5 stars, etc., and it would be impossible to put an A - F grading scale into a system with the others if I were forced to convert an "F" to 50. An "F" game is worthless, and everyone understands this.
As such, I feel that ANY scale simply needs to converted directly with its lowest possible grade equating to 0, and the highest to 100. Long-winded answer, but reasonable minds can disagree on this point, and I fully respect other opinions on the matter. Most importantly, every score is converted exactly the same way on my site, so all games are subject to the same treatment. This consistency is key.
Do you think review scores still have a vital role to play in the industry, given the enormous spends on advertising these days? How has their role changed in the web 2.0 era? I think reviews in general and sites like Metacritic in particular are MORE critical now that advertising budgets have swollen. Like many, I used to be suckered into seeing movies or buying games based on glowing review quotations in magazines or newspapers ("One of the year's best!") from critics nobody has heard of or from skilled PR department writers. A site like ours helps people cut through that unobjective promotional language.
By giving consumers, and web users specifically, early information on the objective quality of a game, not only are they more educated about their choices, but it forces publishers to demand more from their developers, license owners to demand more from their licensees, and eventually, hopefully, the games get better. I don't want to overstate our role in this area, but we're highlighting the review process, which I don't think was taken as seriously when the pool was essentially 50 - 100 unconnected sites and magazines providing their own unique perspectives in isolation. Being able to capture the critical consensus a game receives in a simple two digit number which means something very specific to gamers, fanboys, publishers, developers, retailers, etc., is something that couldn't have been done 15 years ago, and I think it will continue to be valuable as promotional budgets continue to expand.
I was watching the new Fox Business Network shortly after Super Mario Galaxy was released. The anchor was interviewing Reggie F-A of Nintendo, and across the bottom of the screen was a banner stating that the game has received a Metascore of 96. That floored me. More and more businesses and financial analysts are referring to Metacritic numbers as an early indicator of a game's potential sales and, by extension, the publisher's stock price. Apparently, they're able to use quantifiable review data as a predictor of a games success before the NPD sales data is officially released.

Question: what newspaper did mark doyle speak to in 2008

what newspaper did mark doyle speak to in 2008

Question: what two sites are wall street paying attention to

Metacritic и GameRankings , поскольку данные сайты зачастую публикуют рейтинги до того , как данные о продажах

what two sites are wall street paying attention to

Question: what two games caused a decline in shares of game publishers

what two games caused a decline in shares of game publishers

Question: what rating system is Wall street paying attention to

what rating system is Wall street paying attention to

Question: who was the editor of the guardian in 2008

who was the editor of the guardian in 2008

Question: in what year did mark doyle speak to the guardian about two major publishers

in what year did mark doyle speak to the guardian about two major publishers

Question: who stated that two major publishers have conducted comprehensive statistical studies to show a correlation between high

The Guardian Марк Дойл сослался на двух крупных издателей ,

who stated that two major publishers have conducted comprehensive statistical studies to show a correlation between high

Question: what website is wall street paying attention to

what website is wall street paying attention to

Wingfield writes that Wall Street is paying attention to the ratings on Metacritic and GameRankings , as these sites often publish ratings before sales data passes to open access , for example , the rapid rise and decline of publishers ’ shares after the release of the games BioShock and Spider - Man 3 .

In 2008 , in an interview with The Guardian , Mark Doyle referred to two major publishers who “ have conducted comprehensive statistical studies that showed a strict correlation between the high ratings of the game and its good sales ” in certain genres .

Wingfield writes that Wall Street is paying attention to the ratings on Metacritic and GameRankings, as these sites often publish ratings before sales data passes to open access, for example, the rapid rise and decline of publishers’ shares after the release of the games BioShock and Spider-Man 3. In 2008, in an interview with The Guardian, Mark Doyle referred to two major publishers who “have conducted comprehensive statistical studies that showed a strict correlation between the high ratings of the game and its good sales” in certain genres.

He said that an increasing number of financial and business analysts use Metacritic as “the early indicator of potential sales of the game, and as a result, changes in prices on the publisher’s shares.”

However, a 2015 study, which analyzed 88 games for Xbox 360 and 80 games for PlayStation 3, released since 2012, found that Metacritic’s ratings had no impact on sales.

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That answer is pretty surprising.
Do game review scores really have an impact on how well games sell?
At a small panel discussion tucked away in a corner of the Moscone center at the 2015 Game Developers Conference, Erica Holcomb gave a talk on the effects Metacritic scores have on game sales.
The CEO of TBA games and her team looked at the scores of 88 Xbox 360 games and 80 PS3 games from 2012 and compiled data from Metacritic, Game Rankings, and VG Chartz. They plotted out the data and found that Metacritic scores have no impact in determining actual sales.
That’s a surprising finding, considering the amount of importance the game industry puts on Metacritic scores. The most notable example of the pressure could be Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian Entertainment was denied its bonuses for aggregating an 84 on Metacritic instead of the desired 85.
There has been a lot of criticism lobbed at Metacritic as the site is still notoriously secretive about it’s aggregating process. Not all websites score the same way. Some have a 100 point scale, while others have a 5 point scale. Metacritic still converts these reviews into something that fits its own model based on a sites influence, prominence, and dependability. Many have criticized Metacritic for being reductive, dampening the critical conversation that occurs after a game’s release into a simple point value. Just last month, Eurogamer announced that it would not be giving review scores anymore because it felt a number doesn’t help in contributing to a game’s conversation.
The study did find that unweighted critical scores did have a slight impact on game sales.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 3.0)

Question: how many games on xbox 360 according to metacritic

He said that an increasing number of financial and business analysts use Metacritic as “the early indicator of potential sales of the game, and as a result, changes in prices on the publisher’s shares.”

However, a 2015 study, which analyzed 88 games for Xbox 360 and 80 games for PlayStation 3, released since 2012, found that Metacritic’s ratings had no impact on sales.

how many games on xbox 360 according to metacritic

Question: what is the name of the game review system

what is the name of the game review system

Question: how many ps3 games released since 2012 have metacritic

how many ps3 games released since 2012 have metacritic

Question: when did the first ps3 game come out

Question: how many ps3 games have metacritic on

Question: when did pc games start getting a rating from metacritic

when did pc games start getting a rating from metacritic

Question: does the score on metacritic have an effect on sales

does the score on metacritic have an effect on sales

Question: what is the effect of using metacritic on game sales

what is the effect of using metacritic on game sales

He said that an increasing number of financial and business analysts use Metacritic as “ the early indicator of potential sales of the game , and as a result , changes in prices on the publisher ’s shares . ”

However , a 2015 study , which analyzed 88 games for Xbox 360 and 80 games for PlayStation 3 , released since 2012 , found that Metacritic ’s ratings had no impact on sales .

Он заявил, что всё большее число финансовых и бизнес-аналитиков используют Metacritic как «ранний индикатор потенциальных продаж игры, и, как следствие, изменения цен на акции издателя».

Однако исследование 2015 года, проанализировавшее 88 игр для Xbox 360 и 80 игр для PlayStation 3, выпущенных с 2012 года, показало, что рейтинг на Metacritic не оказывает влияния на продажи.

He said that an increasing number of financial and business analysts use Metacritic as “the early indicator of potential sales of the game, and as a result, changes in prices on the publisher’s shares.” However, a 2015 study, which analyzed 88 games for Xbox 360 and 80 games for PlayStation 3, released since 2012, found that Metacritic’s ratings had no impact on sales.

He said that an increasing number of financial and business analysts use Metacritic as “the early indicator of potential sales of the game, and as a result, changes in prices on the publisher’s shares.”

However, a 2015 study, which analyzed 88 games for Xbox 360 and 80 games for PlayStation 3, released since 2012, found that Metacritic’s ratings had no impact on sales.

It has repeatedly raised disputes about the use of the site by publishers as a measure to determine whether developers deserve an additional award.

"Неоднократно

использование

разработчики

дополнительного

соответственно

разработчики

дополнительного

Question: what developer received an additional bonus on metacritic for failing to meet the required score

It has repeatedly raised disputes about the use of the site by publishers as a measure to determine whether developers deserve an additional award.

what developer received an additional bonus on metacritic for failing to meet the required score

Question: what is the best game on metacritic

Question: how many points did fallout new vegas get on metacritic

how many points did fallout new vegas get on metacritic

Question: when did fallout new vegas come out

Question: what is the highest score on metacritic

Question: who decides how many points a game gets on metacritic

who decides how many points a game gets on metacritic

It has repeatedly raised disputes about the use of the site by publishers as a measure to determine whether developers deserve an additional award .

A significant example is Fallout : New Vegas , a 2010 game that received 84 points on Metacritic and respectively failed to reach one point to the publisher 's required score of 85 points , causing the game developers , Obsidian Entertainment , not received an additional cash bonus .

Неоднократно вызывало споры использование сайта издателями как меры для определения, заслуживают ли разработчики получения дополнительного гонорара.

It has repeatedly raised disputes about the use of the site by publishers as a measure to determine whether developers deserve an additional award. A significant example is Fallout: New Vegas, a 2010 game that received 84 points on Metacritic and respectively failed to reach one point to the publisher's required score of 85 points, causing the game developers, Obsidian Entertainment, not received an additional cash bonus.

It has repeatedly raised disputes about the use of the site by publishers as a measure to determine whether developers deserve an additional award.

On the other hand, the site is often used by gaming journalists and analysts as a general assessment of the perception of critics, and publishers as a tool to improve their products.

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There are a lot of Pokémon games.
The decades-long video game series has spawned countless spin-offs, sequels, remakes, and addendums over the years. But which are the best?
That's the question we sought to answer with a little help from reviews aggregation site Metacritic. Here are the results, according to two decades of critical appraisal.
We made one small change: Since there are a handful of duplicates/re-releases/remakes on the list ("Pokémon Red & Green" vs. "Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen," for instance), we're using the highest-ranked version of the original game to make room for a handful that wouldn't have otherwise made the list.
Without further ado, these are the 10 best Pokémon video games of all time:
Critic score: 78/100
User score: 6.7/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "Have fun learning and mastering the 'Pokémon Trading Card Game Online'! Practice against the computer or go head to head with your friends or other players from around the world. Unlock cards and decks as you play to build up your collection and make truly unique decks. Your decks and card collection are stored as a part of your Pokémon Trainer Club account, allowing you to switch between iPad and desktop with ease."
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, OS X, iPad, and Android
Critic score: 78/100
User score: 8.4/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "Hundreds of Pokémon in Three-mendous 3-D! What's sweeter than victory in a Pokémon battle! Victory in a 3-D arena on the N64™! Set your strategy and stand back while your Pokémon battle it out. You can even set the Pokémon you've trained — fully rendered in 3-D and ready for battle!"
Platforms: Nintendo 64
Critic score: 80/100
User score: 8.3/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "In 'Pokémon Conquest,' players take on the role of a young Warlord who is linked with a Pokémon. Together, they must set out to recruit Warrior allies to strengthen their growing kingdom. Along their journey, players will encounter a variety of Pokémon, as well as Warriors and Warlords inspired by the Japanese feudal era. The game contains nearly 200 Pokémon, including many from the recent 'Pokémon Black Version' and 'Pokémon White Version' games, which have sold more than 4 million copies combined in the United States.
As the battlefield unfolds in 'Pokémon Conquest,' players must choose the correct Pokémon type to inflict maximum damage on their opponents. In the turn-based skirmishes, players choose different tactics for intense six-on-six battles, and battle conditions can change on every turn, keeping players on their toes in anticipation of what will happen next."
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Critic score: 80/100
User score: 8.3/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "In the 'Pokemon Black & White Version 2' game, players can explore new areas, discover gyms with new leaders and see how everything has changed in the last two years."
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Critic score: 80/100
User score: 8.3/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "Discover the most frantic, frenzied, fun-filled Pokémon challenge ever — 'Pokémon Puzzle League'! Line up three or more blocks of the same type to clear them off the screen. Create chains and combos to send garbage to your opponent. Collect badges from other Pokémon trainers to earn the right to enter the ultimate competition ... a battle against the mysterious Puzzle Master!"
Platforms: Nintendo 64
Critic score: 82/100
User score: 8.5/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "The race to catch 'em all is on again in 'Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire.' This entry in the Pokémon series features an all-new storyline, awesome new Pokémon, and addictive RPG gameplay. One of the biggest additions to 'Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire' is the two-on-two battle system, which allows you to link up with three friends to battle competitively or cooperatively. You can also showcase your Pokémon's coolness, beauty, cuteness, smartness, and toughness in Pokémon contests. With new Pokémon, two-on-two battles, and an all-new region of Hoenn to explore, Pokémon Sapphire takes the Pokémon experience to the next level."
Platforms: Game Boy Advance
Critic score: 85/100
User score: 7.9/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "'Pokémon Diamond and Pearl' are traditional Pokémon RPGs that takes place in a region called Sinnoh. When you set off on your travels, you'll be able to play as either a boy or girl Trainer. Pokémon fans have caught glimpses of Lucario, Munchlax and Weavile in Pokémon movies, and these Pokémon are debuting in this adventure. 'Diamond and Pearl' utilize the DS's dual slots to transfer Pokémon from the GBA Pokémon games."
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Critic score: 87/100
User score: 8.4/10
Plot summary (from Bulbapedia): "Unlike any other main games series, 'Pokémon Sun & Moon' begins with a video call made by Professor Kukui to the player. Professor Kukui helps create a Trainer Passport for the player before the player and the mother move from Kanto to Alola. Meanwhile, at roughly the same time, a young girl is seen escaping what seems to be a lab with an unidentified Pokémon in her bag. As she gets cornered by the workers in the area, the Pokémon teleports itself and the girl away from the lab and away from danger."
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS
Critic score: 87/100
User score: 7.7/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "'Pokémon Black Version' and 'Pokémon White Version' feature new Pokémon that players can catch, train and battle as they progress through the game, and some Pokémon can only be caught in one version of the game. For example, the Legendary Pokémon Reshiram can only be caught in 'Pokémon Black Version', while the Legendary Pokémon Zekrom can only be caught in 'Pokémon White Version'. Additionally, the two games feature different areas for the first time in the series, with the game world of 'Pokémon Black Version' featuring a unique metropolitan area called Black City, and a lush, green area named White Forest only found in 'Pokémon White Version'. 'Pokémon Black Version' and 'Pokémon White Version' also mark the first time in a Pokémon video game that the seasons will change in the game world. Certain Pokémon appear more frequently during different seasons, and players can only access some areas during a specific season."
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Critic score: 88/100
User score: 8.6/10
Plot summary (from Metacritic): "'Pokemon X and Y' are the first mainline Pokémon games made for the 3DS and feature a mix of Pokémon old and new as well as a trio of new starting Pokémon — a watery toad Froakie, a fiery deer Fennekin, and a grass monster Chespin."
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS
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Question: who uses metacritic to improve their products

On the other hand, the site is often used by gaming journalists and analysts as a general assessment of the perception of critics, and publishers as a tool to improve their products.

who uses metacritic to improve their products

Question: who does metacritic give its rating to

Question: who uses the metacritic score system

игровыми журналистами и аналитиками как общая оценка восприятия критиками , а издателями — в качестве инструмента

Question: who uses metacritic to help improve their products

игровыми журналистами и аналитиками как общая оценка восприятия критиками , а издателями — в качестве инструмента

who uses metacritic to help improve their products

Question: who uses metacritic for their ratings

Question: what does the rating on metacritic mean

восприятия критиками , а издателями — в качестве инструмента

Question: what does metacritic help publishers do

улучшения своих продуктов

Question: what is the point of using metacritic

инструмента для улучшения своих продуктов

On the other hand , the site is often used by gaming journalists and analysts as a general assessment of the perception of critics , and publishers as a tool to improve their products .

С другой стороны, сайт часто используется игровыми журналистами и аналитиками как общая оценка восприятия критиками, а издателями — в качестве инструмента для улучшения своих продуктов.

С другой стороны, сайт часто используется игровыми журналистами и аналитиками как общая оценка восприятия критиками, а издателями — в качестве инструмента для улучшения своих продуктов.

On the other hand, the site is often used by gaming journalists and analysts as a general assessment of the perception of critics, and publishers as a tool to improve their products.

On the other hand, the site is often used by gaming journalists and analysts as a general assessment of the perception of critics, and publishers as a tool to improve their products.

In 2008, in the future, the CEO of Electronic Arts, along with other managers, showed analysts from the Wall Street schedule that reflected the trend to lower the company's average game ratings.

используется

журналистами

исполнительный

руководителями

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - John Riccitiello, head of Electronic Arts, is showing a chart to Wall Street analysts and he is not happy.
This chart, Riccitiello grouses, shows the one metric that has most frustrated him since he took over the world’s largest video game publisher nearly a year ago.
It doesn’t show the company’s falling operating profit or sliding market share. Instead, it shows the average score for EA’s video games on Metacritic.org, a Web site that distills a pool of reviews for a given game down to a single number.
What has Riccitiello worked up is that EA’s average score fell last year to 72 from 77.
“There is nothing acceptable about that,” Riccitiello says. “Our core game titles are accurately measured and summarized by these assessments, and that is a very big deal.”
“So this is perhaps, to me, the most important chart in this presentation, we need to recover here.”
Throughout EA’s investor day last week, Riccitiello and other executives referred frequently to Metacritic, underscoring just how influential the site has become in the $18 billion U.S. video game industry.
Launched in 2001 by Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and Jason Dietz, a former classmate at University of Southern California’s law school, Metacritic is now a part of online technology media company CNET Networks.
“We never created Metacritic as an industry kind of thing. It was always for educating the user,” Doyle said.
Started originally to compile movie reviews, Metacritic quickly branched out into other forms of entertainment, with games now accounting for the most traffic to the site.
“For a movie it’s going to cost you $10 to $12 bucks and it’s a two-hour investment of your time. Whether critics like it is not a huge deal. But a game costs $60 and 20 to 30 hours of your life, so you want to know ahead of time whether a game is good,” Doyle said.
As the man in charge of the game scoring system, Doyle feels a lot of heat from some game companies and reviewers who feel they aren’t getting a fair shake.
Doyle’s system is weighted, meaning that ratings from Web sites or publications he feels have more credibility count for more towards the final score. That means Finnish game magazine Pelit is included whereas Hollywood trade magazine Variety is not, despite its 100-plus years of covering entertainment.
“I used to get stuff from companies reviewed by what they considered inappropriate critics, like a UK publication reviewing a ‘Madden’ game. How are they qualified to review football?” Doyle said.
Another area of controversy is how Doyle assigns a number rating to reviews that provide a letter grade or no score at all. To Doyle, an F is equal to 0 and a C is 50. That chafes some folks in an industry long used to grade inflation where means 70 is average and few games ever fall below 50.
Individual reviewers can also be subject to pressure from game companies unhappy with a Metacritic score.
“The only annoying thing about aggregate sites ... is when the game companies use that against us. Sometimes we’ll hear from a game company that says ‘Hey, you’re the lowest score on Metacritic, can you change it?’,” said Dan Hsu, editor-in-chief of EGM, a monthly publication.
EA’s Riccitiello wants to avoid the trap of just pursuing a good Metacritic score, a mindset he said frequently leads to too much executive meddling.
“The process often gets in the way more than it helps,” he said. “That sort of circus has unfortunately sort of defined our company for too long. And it’s not a good process.”
Some critics also point out that there is increasingly a mismatch between scores for so-called casual games and the popularity of those products.
Games like Nintendo’s “Mario Party 8” and Take-Two’s “Carnival Games” scored badly but sold well.
“That sounds a lot like these horrible movies that make millions their first week but critics hate them,” Doyle said. “Some things are critics-proof but I don’t think critics are any less qualified to judge them.”
That’s one view, but Riccitiello has another: “You don’t cash Metacritic, you cash checks.”
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Question: when was the last time metacritic was down

In 2008, in the future, the CEO of Electronic Arts, along with other managers, showed analysts from the Wall Street schedule that reflected the trend to lower the company's average game ratings.

when was the last time metacritic was down

Question: who has the most users on metacritic

Question: who is the person that shows analysts on metacritic

исполнительный директор Electronic Arts

who is the person that shows analysts on metacritic

Question: where does the average game rating on metacritic come from

Уолл - стрит

where does the average game rating on metacritic come from

Question: who is the person that analyzes metacritic

исполнительный директор

who is the person that analyzes metacritic

Question: who is responsible for the creation of metacritic

who is responsible for the creation of metacritic

Question: who uses metacritic to improve their game

who uses metacritic to improve their game

In 2008 , in the future , the CEO of Electronic Arts , along with other managers , showed analysts from the Wall Street schedule that reflected the trend to lower the company 's average game ratings .

В 2008 году , в будущем — исполнительный директор Electronic Arts, наряду с другими руководителями, показывал аналитику с Уолл-стрит график, на котором был отражён тренд на снижение средней оценки игр компании.

On the other hand, the site is often used by gaming journalists and analysts as a general assessment of the perception of critics, and publishers as a tool to improve their products. In 2008, in the future, the CEO of Electronic Arts, along with other managers, showed analysts from the Wall Street schedule that reflected the trend to lower the company's average game ratings.

In 2008, in the future, the CEO of Electronic Arts, along with other managers, showed analysts from the Wall Street schedule that reflected the trend to lower the company's average game ratings.

The analyst took the data seriously and noted that the company should be normalized.

Also in 2008, Microsoft used the Metacritic ratings to exclude bad games from Xbox Live Arcade.

использовала

Question: what games did microsoft use the metacritic ratings to exclude

The analyst took the data seriously and noted that the company should be normalized.

Also in 2008, Microsoft used the Metacritic ratings to exclude bad games from Xbox Live Arcade.

what games did microsoft use the metacritic ratings to exclude

Question: when did microsoft start using the metacritic ratings

when did microsoft start using the metacritic ratings

Question: what does metacritic mean on xbox live arcade

what does metacritic mean on xbox live arcade

Question: what rating system does microsoft use to determine bad games

what rating system does microsoft use to determine bad games

Question: what does microsoft use to exclude bad games from live arcade

Metacritic для исключения плохих

what does microsoft use to exclude bad games from live arcade

Question: what did microsoft use the metacritic ratings to exclude

what did microsoft use the metacritic ratings to exclude

Question: what did microsoft exclude from xbox live arcade

what did microsoft exclude from xbox live arcade

Question: who decides how many games are on a metacritic scale

"Аналитик воспринял данные серьёзно и отметил , что компанию необходимо привести в норму

who decides how many games are on a metacritic scale

The analyst took the data seriously and noted that the company should be normalized .

Also in 2008 , Microsoft used the Metacritic ratings to exclude bad games from Xbox Live Arcade .

Аналитик воспринял данные серьёзно и отметил, что компанию необходимо привести в норму. Также в 2008 году компания Microsoft использовала рейтинги на Metacritic для исключения плохих игр из Xbox Live Arcade.

Аналитик воспринял данные серьёзно и отметил, что компанию необходимо привести в норму.

Также в 2008 году компания Microsoft использовала рейтинги на Metacritic для исключения плохих игр из Xbox Live Arcade.

The analyst took the data seriously and noted that the company should be normalized. Also in 2008, Microsoft used the Metacritic ratings to exclude bad games from Xbox Live Arcade.

The analyst took the data seriously and noted that the company should be normalized.

Also in 2008, Microsoft used the Metacritic ratings to exclude bad games from Xbox Live Arcade.

Some publications are attributed a greater weight “because of their significance.”

The Metacritic staff noted that it would not reveal the relative weight attributed to each of the critics.

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относительный

Question: what is the name of the music review website

Some publications are attributed a greater weight “because of their significance.”

The Metacritic staff noted that it would not reveal the relative weight attributed to each of the critics.

what is the name of the music review website

Question: what is one reason some publications are given a greater weight

what is one reason some publications are given a greater weight

Question: who gives out the names of the critics

Question: why are some publications given a greater amount of weight

их значимости

why are some publications given a greater amount of weight

Question: what happens to publications that are given a higher or lesser amount of credit

what happens to publications that are given a higher or lesser amount of credit

Question: are some publications given greater or lesser weight because of their significance

are some publications given greater or lesser weight because of their significance

Question: what is one thing that some publications are attributed more of than others

what is one thing that some publications are attributed more of than others

Some publications are attributed a greater weight “ because of their significance . ”

The Metacritic staff noted that it would not reveal the relative weight attributed to each of the critics .

Некоторым изданиям присваивается больший вес «в силу их значимости». Персонал Metacritic отмечал, что он не собирается раскрывать относительный вес, присвоенный каждому из критиков.

Некоторым изданиям присваивается больший вес «в силу их значимости».

Персонал Metacritic отмечал, что он не собирается раскрывать относительный вес, присвоенный каждому из критиков.

Some publications are attributed a greater weight “because of their significance.” The Metacritic staff noted that it would not reveal the relative weight attributed to each of the critics.

Some publications are attributed a greater weight “because of their significance.”

The Metacritic staff noted that it would not reveal the relative weight attributed to each of the critics.

+ Legend Indicator Computer Games Movies, television and music General recognition 90–100 81–100 Mainly positive reviews 75–89 61–80 Mixed or average reviews 50–74 40–60 Mainly negative reviews 20–49 20–39 Mainly negative reviews 0–19

Компьютерные

телепрограммы

положительные

отрицательные

Преобладающее

How We Create the Metascore Magic
A peek behind the curtain
Creating our proprietary Metascores is a complicated process. We carefully curate a large group of the world’s most respected critics, assign scores to their reviews, and apply a weighted average to summarize the range of their opinions. The result is a single number that captures the essence of critical opinion in one Metascore. Each movie, game, television show and album featured on Metacritic gets a Metascore when we've collected at least four critics' reviews.
Why the term “weighted average” matters
Metascore is a weighted average in that we assign more importance, or weight, to some critics and publications than others, based on their quality and overall stature. In addition, for music and movies, we also normalize the resulting scores (akin to "grading on a curve" in college), which prevents scores from clumping together.
How to interpret a Metascore
Metascores range from 0-100, with higher scores indicating better overall reviews. We highlight Metascores in three colors so that you can instantly
compare: green scores for favorable reviews, yellow scores for mixed reviews, and red scores for unfavorable reviews.
How We Calculate Our Scores: The Long FAQ
Score calculation questions
Q: Are user votes included in the METASCORE calculations?
A: No. While we solicit votes from our site visitors on movies, games, and music, and television shows we do not include those votes in the METASCORE. The METASCORE is a weighted average of the published critic reviews contained in the chart on that page, and thus does not include any votes or comments from our users. However, you may, of course, see the average user vote by glancing at the USER SCORE to the right of the METASCORE on every summary page.
Q: What's with these green, yellow, and red colors?
A: Assuming you are looking at our website and not at your Christmas tree, it's fairly simple: "good" METASCORES are coded in green; "average" METASCORES are yellow, and "bad" METASCORES are red. (This same color coding is also used for the individual critic and user grades.) If the numbers are too complicated to read, you can simply look at the pretty colors to tell what the reviews said.
Here's how the scores break down:
|General Meaning of Score||Movies, TV & Music||Games|
|Universal Acclaim||81 - 100||90 - 100|
|Generally Favorable Reviews||61 - 80||75 - 89|
|Mixed or Average Reviews||40 - 60||50 - 74|
|Generally Unfavorable Reviews||20 - 39||20 - 49|
|Overwhelming Dislike||0 - 19||0 - 19|
Q: Well then, can I see all of your grade conversion scales?
A: Absolutely! Some of the conversions are obvious (for example, if a critic uses a 0-10 scale, his/her grade is simply multiplied by ten). Some of the less obvious conversions are displayed below:
|4-Star Scale|
|Their Grade||Converts to|
4
|100|
3.5
|88|
3
|75|
2.5
|63|
2
|50|
1.5
|38|
1
|25|
0.5
|12|
0
|0|
|Letter Grades|
|Their Grade||Converts to|
A or A+
|100|
A-
|91|
B+
|83|
B
|75|
B-
|67|
C+
|58|
C
|50|
C-
|42|
D+
|33|
D
|25|
D-
|16|
F+
|8|
F or F-
|0|

Question: what is the average score on metacritic

+ Legend Indicator Computer Games Movies, television and music General recognition 90–100 81–100 Mainly positive reviews 75–89 61–80 Mixed or average reviews 50–74 40–60 Mainly negative reviews 20–49 20–39 Mainly negative reviews 0–19

Question: what is the range of positive reviews on metacritic

what is the range of positive reviews on metacritic

Question: what is the range of reviews on metacritic

what is the range of reviews on metacritic

Question: what are the three types of reviews on metacritic

Computer Games Movies, television and music

Компьютерные игры Фильмы , телепрограммы и музыка

Computer Games Movies , television and music

what are the three types of reviews on metacritic

Question: what is the average number of negative reviews on metacritic

what is the average number of negative reviews on metacritic

+ Legend Indicator Computer Games Movies , television and music General recognition 90–100 81–100 Mainly positive reviews 75–89 61–80 Mixed or average reviews 50–74 40–60 Mainly negative reviews 20–49 20–39 Mainly negative reviews 0–19

+ Legend Indicator Computer Games Movies, television and music General recognition 90–100 81–100 Mainly positive reviews 75–89 61–80 Mixed or average reviews 50–74 40–60 Mainly negative reviews 20–49 20–39 Mainly negative reviews 0–19

+ Legend Indicator Computer Games Movies, television and music General recognition 90–100 81–100 Mainly positive reviews 75–89 61–80 Mixed or average reviews 50–74 40–60 Mainly negative reviews 20–49 20–39 Mainly negative reviews 0–19

In June 2018, the Must-See label was introduced on Metacritic, attributed to films with an average score of 81 or higher with at least 15 reviews by professional critics.

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профессиональных

Our newest designation
In our ongoing efforts to help our users pick out the very best in entertainment at a glance, we have added a "Must-See" designation for our highest-scoring movies, representing those films deemed by a consensus of top critics as truly exceptional.
We designate a movie as "Must-See" when it achieves a Metascore of 81 or higher and has been reviewed by a minimum of 15 professional critics. You'll notice our new badge (pictured, right) on films meeting these requirements throughout the site.
How elite are these films? It turns out that only around 5% of movies in Metacritic's database qualify for "Must-See" status.
Here are the films released so far in 2018 that qualify as Must-See:
Metacritic Must-See Movies - 2018 (Through June 8)
|Score||Title|
|Black Panther|
|The Death of Stalin|
|First Reformed|
|Hereditary|
|Isle of Dogs|
|Paddington 2|
|A Quiet Place|
|Revenge|
|The Rider|
|Sweet Country|
|The Tale|
|Won't You Be My Neighbor?|
|You Were Never Really Here|
|Zama|
Comments (3)

Question: when did the must see label come out

In June 2018, the Must-See label was introduced on Metacritic, attributed to films with an average score of 81 or higher with at least 15 reviews by professional critics.

Question: how many reviews does a must-see movie have on metacritic

how many reviews does a must-see movie have on metacritic

Question: what must-see score does a movie have on metacritic

what must-see score does a movie have on metacritic

Question: how many reviews does a must-see have on metacritic

минимум 15 рецензий профессиональных критиков

how many reviews does a must-see have on metacritic

Question: where does the must see label come from

Question: what does metacritic call a movie with an 80 or higher score

what does metacritic call a movie with an 80 or higher score

In June 2018 , the Must - See label was introduced on Metacritic , attributed to films with an average score of 81 or higher with at least 15 reviews by professional critics .

В июне 2018 года на Metacritic была введена метка Must-See (), присваиваемая фильмам, получившим средний балл 81 или выше при наличии минимум 15 рецензий профессиональных критиков.

В июне 2018 года на Metacritic была введена метка Must-See (), присваиваемая фильмам, получившим средний балл 81 или выше при наличии минимум 15 рецензий профессиональных критиков.

In June 2018, the Must-See label was introduced on Metacritic, attributed to films with an average score of 81 or higher with at least 15 reviews by professional critics.

In June 2018, the Must-See label was introduced on Metacritic, attributed to films with an average score of 81 or higher with at least 15 reviews by professional critics.

In September of the same year, the Must-Play label was added for games gathered 90 points or more on the basis of at least 15 reviews.

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профессиональных

Metacritic Adds ‘Must-Play’ Label to Highly Reviewed Games
The biggest review aggregation site Metacritic has added a new “Must-Play” designation for games with a score of 90 or higher. Metacritic announced the move on Wednesday, and outlined their reasoning for the addition.
Metacritic’s “Must-Play” designation presides underneath the box-art of games on their pages, or next to the title in lists on the site. To be awarded the designation, a game must have at least 15 professional critic reviews. Metacritic said that it “added a “Must-Play” designation for our highest-scoring games, representing those releases deemed by a consensus of top professional game critics as truly exceptional.” The games section of Metacritic is the only one to have this kind of designation or branding.
So far a handful of titles released in 2018 have qualified for the badge. Among that list of games are titles like Dead Cells, God of War, Monster Hunter: World, and Sonic Mania Plus. While widely regarded as great games, the simplification of a review down to a number has drawn ire in the past. Critics’ disdain for review scores can be seen with more and more publications moving away from scoring their reviews. This slow shift in the industry comes after years of Metascores being determining factors in game sales, developer bonuses, and layoffs at studios.
Metacritic was founded in 1999 and has since been purchased by CBS Interactive. The site scores video games, movies, TV shows, and music on a 100-point weighted scale. Dependent on that score, a color is then used to condense information into one of three colors: green for scores 75 or higher, yellow for scores 50 or higher, and red for scores below 50. The site has come under fire in the past for how it translates review scores into the 100-point scale, especially if a site uses letter-grading that can vary wildly between regions or a 10-point scale like we use here at GameRevolution.

Question: when does must see come out on metacritic

In September of the same year, the Must-Play label was added for games gathered 90 points or more on the basis of at least 15 reviews.

when does must see come out on metacritic

Question: what score is a must see movie on metacritic

what score is a must see movie on metacritic

Question: how many reviews does a must-see movie have

how many reviews does a must-see movie have

Question: when was the must see label added to metacritic

when was the must see label added to metacritic

Question: when does the must play label come out

Question: where does the must see rating come from

where does the must see rating come from

Question: how many points does a must-play game get on metacritic

how many points does a must-play game get on metacritic

Question: what score must a must play have on metacritic

90 баллов или выше

what score must a must play have on metacritic

In September of the same year , the Must - Play label was added for games gathered 90 points or more on the basis of at least 15 reviews .

В сентябре того же года была добавлена метка Must-Play () для игр, собравшим 90 баллов или выше на основании минимум 15 рецензий.

In June 2018, the Must-See label was introduced on Metacritic, attributed to films with an average score of 81 or higher with at least 15 reviews by professional critics. In September of the same year, the Must-Play label was added for games gathered 90 points or more on the basis of at least 15 reviews.

In September of the same year, the Must-Play label was added for games gathered 90 points or more on the basis of at least 15 reviews.

Critic Metacritic received mixed reviews from site critics and journalists.

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Everyone hates Metacritic.
Developers despise it. Bloggers think it’s damaging. And gamers? Well, when they aren’t using it to fuel fanboy rage, they want Metacritic to burn to the ground. That’s pretty much everyone, right? I can’t think of anybody that exists outside of those three groups … well, nobody except for the people that actually use Metacritic.
For gamers, developers, and bloggers, Metacritic is just noise. We’re entrenched in gaming’s cultures and subcultures. We know, before a game comes out, if we want to buy it. The reviews only exist to validate our pre-formed opinions. When someone from within our echo-chamber speaks out on Metacritic, invariably they work backwards from another pre-formed opinion: “Metacritic is bad and it’s useless.”
You would think that any good criticism of Metacritic would start by attacking its ability (or inability) to help consumers. If you can prove that it doesn’t help people make good purchasing decisions, then everything else about the site falls apart.
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For the unaware, Metacritic is a website that collects and collates review scores from dozens of outlets for music, movies, television, and video games. The site’s editorial team takes those scores and runs them through a proprietary algorithm that generates a final number out of 100. That number is the Metascore.
It’s an incredibly reductive process that torches down criticism until nothing remains but a magical number. Critics hate it for that, but the question is: does the Metascore work?
Does Metacritic’s review gathering and number crunching produce a tool that is useful to consumers? The website’s founder Marc Doyle told GamesBeat that he and his team designed Metacritic for entertainment consumers and that he has known from the beginning that it works.
“Starting out, our own team provided the important evidence [that Metacritic works],” Doyle told GamesBeat. “As we were developing the website back in 1999, we pulled together all the various critic reviews on Excel spreadsheets, calculated what would later become Metascores, and used them in deciding what we should see — and what to avoid. That’s where the idea for Metacritic really solidified.”
Even though Doyle believes in his website he also recognizes that it should only be one tool that consumers consult before making a purchase.
“Even for me, I’ll absolutely see movies, buy albums, and play games with low Metascores because they feature an actor I like or a genre I enjoy,” he said. “But for titles I’m less familiar with, I like to know what I’m getting into with entertainment considering how expensive it has become and how much time a game or TV series can consume.”
It isn’t surprising that Metacritic’s founder believes that it works, but I wanted to look into it myself.
I decided to try to figure out if Metacritic is useful for someone who only has a passing interest in gaming. My hunch is that busy people who don’t spend all their time reading message boards are probably more satisfied with their game-purchasing decisions if they use Metacritic.
That’s a really hard thing to prove. No research exists on the subject, so I’m going to put myself in the shoes of someone using Metacritic as it is intended. The GamesBeat team helped come up with questions that might come up for the average gamer, and I will attempt to figure out answers primarily using Metacritic.
Here is what I found:
I want to spend some money on a PlayStation 3 game. What is good right now?
The first thing Metacritic confronts consumers with is a chart for “new and notable” releases in movies, games, TV, and music. If a person got no further than this, they would see that a game called The Last of Us is listed high above the next closest game.
If they dig a little deeper to the High Scores section, which lists the best-scoring games for the past 90 days, they will see a slightly more confusing list that consists of smaller mobile games, downloadable content, and retail games. By selecting just one platform, in this case the PlayStation 3, the list is much easier to parse.
The Last of Us still dominates the list, but I can see other games like Hotline Miami and Dragon’s Crown near the top.
The entire top 10 for PS3, not including DLC, looks like this:
- The Last of Us
- Hotline Miami
- Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
- Dragon’s Crown
- GRID 2
- Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014
- Pool Nation
- Metro: Last Light
- Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark
- Tales of Xillia
I would have no problems handing that list to anyone looking for a new PlayStation 3 game. Anyone who knows that they don’t like dungeons or dragons and wants a full retail game can quickly squeeze it down to just The Last of Us
Someone who is open to smaller games might even take a chance on something like Hotline Miami simply because it scored so well.
Consumers can quickly expand this list by searching for the best game released so far in 2013. That reveals games like BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider, and MLB 13: The Show.
Metacritic isn’t perfect, though. These lists include downloadable content, and the site doesn’t distinguish between the add-on packs and the full games.
All I play is Call of Duty and Madden, but I want to try something new and daring. What is good like that?
I think many people believe that Metacritic’s system rewards conventional games over titles that try something new. The site’s tools do not reflect that. Instead, when I navigate to the High Scores for all systems in 2012, Metacritic gives me a list of quality titles that span most genres.
I don’t know what game you would expect to find on top of that list, but I doubt it is The World Ends with You: Solo Remix for iPad. That game has a 95, which makes it the best-reviewed game on Metacritic in 2012. The rest of the top 15 is just as unconventional:
- The World Ends with you: Solo Remix for iPad
- The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series
- Bastion
- Persona 4 Golden
- Mass Effect 3
- Punch Quest
- Bejeweled HD
- Cave Story
- Beat Sneak Bandit
- Tiny Wings HD
- Journey
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Mikey Shorts
- Reckless Racing 2
- Dishonored
Almost half of those titles are iOS games, but I think the most interesting item on the list is The Walking Dead. Telltale’s horror adventure title is the highest-rated console and PC game for all of 2012.
If Metacritic truly rewarded safe games that didn’t take any chances, then The Walking Dead wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the list. The truth is that reviewers almost universally rewarded the title for attempting something new and for having the skills to execute the design.
This is exactly the game I would want under-informed consumers to learn about and try. If they use Metacritic, then it is very likely that will happen.
If The Walking Dead doesn’t sound good to them, then they could end up trying Bastion, Person 4 Golden, Cave Story, Journey, or Xenoblade Chronicles. These are all beloved games that in no way reflect our industry’s obsession with military shooters. In the battle to expand the audiences for different kinds of games, Metacritic fights for the good guys.
I want to get a baseball game. Which one is best?
The stereotype for the under-informed gamer is typically someone who only buys one or two games a year. They want their sports games and maybe Call of Duty. It’s easy to dismiss that kind of gamer as a casual because they don’t ingrain themselves in the culture, but while traditional media outlets ignore these people, Metacritic serves their needs.
For example, two officially licensed Major League Baseball games hit the market in 2013. One from Sony and another from 2K Games. A quick search on Metacritic for “MLB” instantly reveals that Sony’s MLB 13: The Show for PlayStation 3, which scored an 87, is probably a better bet than 2K Game’s MLB 2K13, which scored a 48.
It also reveals that the PlayStation Vita version of The Show (75) isn’t quite as good as the console version, but both iterations of The Show are better than 2K’s release.
This same strategy works for licensed games in entertainment.
For example, two different games based on The Walking Dead franchise hit consoles in the last years. Fans of the show or the books might have no idea which one is the good one, but Metacritic again reveals that the Telltale game (92) is amazing while the Activision shooter, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (32), is atrocious.
I have an Xbox 360, a PlayStation 3, and a PC, which one should I get BioShock Infinite for?
For this question, I again just used Metacritic’s search tool. The only three results for “BioShock Infinite” were for the game on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. When I sorted by score, I found that Metacritic had the PC version and PlayStation 3 version of the game listed at a 94. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 variant has a 93.
Someone might believe this means that the PlayStation 3 and PC versions are on par with one another. That isn’t the case.
DigitalFoundry, a website that runs comparison tests for games on different platforms, found that BioShock for PC has a better frame rate, richer lighting, and more-detailed textures than the game running on PS3. Everything else is identical. The website also found that the PS3 version runs slightly better in very rare occasions.
In a situation like this, Metacritic is clearly capable of misinforming consumers.
There are a ton of iPhone games — what releases are actually good?
Discovering quality games on consoles is tough for a lot of people outside of the hardcore. On iPhone, that difficulty applies to just about everyone. Apple’s mobile platform has thousands of games and great products struggle to standout in that crowd.
A lot of people use the iTunes charts but those follow sales trends rather than any measurement of quality. The Games section of the iTunes App Store, on the other hand, often offers up “New & Noteworthy” games and an “Editor’s Choice” section. These can quickly lead consumers to quality titles like Rymdkapsel. Apple’s market also has a robust user-reviews system that can give gamers an idea of how other people felt about a release.
In the case of a game like Rymdkapsel, gamers could check out Metacritic to see what reviewers think. A lot of mobile games don’t get enough reviews to qualify for a Metascore, but most of the big ones do. Rymdkapsel is one of those; it scored a 90 based on the reviews of nine critics. In this circumstance, Metacritic isn’t really providing any new information. At best, it is merely confirming the App Store user reviews.
Metacritic isn’t useless for mobile games. It is still an excellent way to find out about a bunch of high-quality titles in a short amount of time. Metacritic’s iOS landing page surfaces all the best-scoring games from the last 90 days and often features games that the iTunes App Store doesn’t.
For example, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is currently nowhere on the front page of iTunes’ gaming section, but it is right at the top of the best-reviewed iOS titles on Metacritic.
I saw a commercial for Defiance the game while watching the television program. I like the show, but is the game any good?
Earlier this year, publisher Trion Worlds inundated television with advertisements for its multiplayer online shooter Defiance. The sci-fi game is a companion to SyFy’s hour-long action-drama of the same name. When that show debuted, it was one of the highest-rated premieres in SyFy’s history. That means that several hundred thousand people got to see a commercial for Defiance the game a bunch of times. Some of them probably wondered about running out to the store to check out the game. Over 1 million did, according to the developer.
Maybe a lot more (or less) would have purchased the game without Metacritic.
Defiance for PC has an average rating of 65. That means reviews were generally mixed. According to Metacritic, Defiance has five positive reviews, 32 mixed reviews, and two negative reviews. The quotes Metacritic pulled from critic reviews reveal that the game’s shooting mechanics are solid and that the title is similar to Borderlands. The quotes also often ding the game for a lack of humor and for not living up to the quality of Borderlands. In general, fans of the show would probably enjoy it if they like shooting stuff with people online.
This is the kind of information that can give a person confidence in their purchasing decision, or it could help them decide to save their money. Either way, it’s good data to have.
A useful tool for normal people
Metacritic definitely isn’t perfect. Even its creator acknowledges that it is just one tool that consumers should use to make a decision, but it is a useful tool.
When I take a step back and put myself in the shoes of a less-informed gamer, I found that Metacritic is a shortcut to getting up to speed about the relative quality of recent releases. It’s easy to understand and mostly accurate.
If you’re a hardcore gamer, it’s probably still going to make more sense for you to cultivate a relationship with a couple of critics who mirror your tastes. For anyone who doesn’t have time for something like that, Metacritic is a smart way to make game-buying decisions.
But what about the evil publishers?
One of the big criticisms against Metacritic is that publishers use it as a barometer for success and base bonus contracts for developers on whether they reach a certain Metascore threshold. That is potentially unfair, but it’s not Metacritic’s fault that game publishers have skewed the website’s purpose.
It seems silly to scold Metacritic for something it can’t control especially when it offers up such a useful service. Although, some disagree that it is truly useful.
“When we put our faith in Metacritic as an impartial, scientific measure of quality, we should probably ask ourselves whether the crowd – the crowd of journalists as well as players – is really wise or just mediocre, incapable of recognizing and rewarding the new and different,” Epic Mickey creator Warren Spector wrote in a piece slamming Metacritic. “Before you come back at me with arguments, look at the highest rated games and then we’ll talk….”
But it’s hard to see what he means. Among the highest scoring games of all time on Metacritic are Half-Life 2, World of Goo, LittleBigPlanet, Portal, Grim Fandango, and Minecraft. Games like The Walking Dead and Dark Souls placed near the top of the website’s highest-rated releases for 2012 and 2011, respectively. These games are all — or at least were — very different, and the critical consensus recognized and rewarded that.
It seems to me that Metacritic works, and that’s probably why publishers keep using it.
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Question: what is the name of the professional rating system

Critic Metacritic received mixed reviews from site critics and journalists.

what is the name of the professional rating system

Question: what kind of reviews does metacritics get

what kind of reviews does metacritics get

Question: what does the acronym metacritic stand for

what does the acronym metacritic stand for

Question: who gets the most critical reviews on metacritic

who gets the most critical reviews on metacritic

Question: what kind of reviews does metacritic get

отзывы от критиков сайтов и журналистов

what kind of reviews does metacritic get

Critic Metacritic received mixed reviews from site critics and journalists .

Критика Metacritic получила смешанные отзывы от критиков сайтов и журналистов.

Критика Metacritic получила смешанные отзывы от критиков сайтов и журналистов.

Critic Metacritic received mixed reviews from site critics and journalists.

Critic Metacritic received mixed reviews from site critics and journalists.

Defining Success: Why Metacritic Should Be Irrelevant
Warren Spector tackles the thorny issue of Metacritic's impact on the industry in his second exclusive column for GamesIndustry International
To qualify for column treatment here, a subject has to involve something I've been thinking about a lot - a problem I can't solve or a question I can't answer. This time, I started with a question that's plagued me for years (yes... even before the reviews started coming in on Disney Epic Mickey!). That question is "Why does everyone care so much about Metacritic?"
But as I started thinking about turning that question into a column actually worth reading - something that wouldn't sound like sour grapes or clichéd developer whining - I realized that the thing I was really thinking about, the thing we should probably all be thinking about, was bigger than that. The topic worth talking about was how we define success in gaming, how we measure it and how we use that measurement, for good and ill.
I started thinking about ratings and rankings, yes, but also about how reviews relate (or don't) to critical analysis and about how different parts of the game business balance art and commerce. Clearly, Metacritic is part of the answer, but it's just a part. I'll still talk about Metacritic, some, but it won't be the only thing I talk about, as I originally intended.
So, let's talk about success.
Obviously, there's personal, individual success. You know, things like Fame (people recognize you), Respect or Significance (people acknowledge your worth and recognize your contributions to your field), Wealth (people see you driving a fancy car or - ahem! - owning several houses)... These are interesting but a topic for a therapist not a game developer like me. That's not the kind of success I want to talk about here.
What I am interested in is how we define an individual game's success. With thousands of games produced and offered to players each year, this is a vital question - for developers, for publishers, for players and even for critics and historians whose job is to explain our medium to us and to future generations. How do we balance and describe commercial success vis a vis critical success and what might be called significance? How do games relate to other media? And how do we communicate how a game fits into - or stands out from - the continuum of games and media?
Needless to say, these are huge questions and that hugeness allows me to rationalize the fact that I'm not close to answering any one of them, definitively. That, of course, is where all of you come in: I'll lay out my thoughts here, hazy though they may be, and then you get to tell me where I've gone wrong. Don't let me down!
Games as Commercial Art
Clearly, games are a commercial art, and success in a commercial medium requires that we focus on the "commercial" side of the equation. A game has to generate some amount of revenue and, more important, profit.
But what about the "art" side? My personal approach to game design is to offer players a variety of ways to act and then, as much as possible, allow them to define success for themselves. Why should the various stakeholders in the creation of a game not have similar power? Well, clearly, they shouldn't. The term "commercial art" is nicely ambiguous, capturing the idea that individual stakeholders might have very different definitions of "success."
For example, most if not all publishers think first about revenue and profit - no surprise, it's their job to do so. That's a relatively simple measure of success, right? Did the game make money - yes/no? (In reality, the determination of profitability is surprisingly difficult; nothing's ever simple where an Excel spreadsheet is involved, but conceptually, you get what I'm saying...)
Players have a different definition, typically putting a variety of poorly defined characteristics at the top of their lists - "fun" (whatever the hell that means), "playtime" (duration of play and value for money), peer approval (we're all playing the same games and can experience and talk about similar experiences).
A lot of developers fall in line with publishers and put revenue and profit at the top of their definitional lists as well. Others put creativity or personal expression up there.
My point is, when you go into any project, you need to know what you're shooting for. Someone gets to make that call. If it's you, your financial backers need to know what you're shooting for. If it's the biz guys, you need to know what return on investment they're expecting. Regardless, the development team needs to know. This is a minefield that must be traversed clearly and carefully. The arc of your career (even whether you have a career) hinges on understanding this and negotiating with stakeholders until you're on the same page.
I've been lucky - or foolish enough - that I've been able to define success largely for myself. And my definition rarely begins with questions of commercial appeal, sales, revenue or profit. (Okay, to be honest, I've never started there...) Before a development deal closes I tell every money person and publisher I work with (or even think about working with) one thing:
My obligation is to sell one more copy of a game to get someone to fund my next one. (Does saying this publicly ensure that I'll never work again? Why do I do this sort of thing?)
I'm not saying that commercial considerations are beneath me. You have to make some money or it really is "career-over." But if you look at the mission statement I've used at Ion Storm and Junction Point you'll see that some things are higher priorities than the unholy trinity of Sales, Revenue and Profit.
"The fact is, few of us will ever approach that Platonic ideal of art, commerce and critical acclaim achieved in equal measures"
For example, the projects I've chosen to work on put "player expression" at the top of the list - if players aren't telling their own stories, creating unique experiences through their playstyle choices, the game just doesn't seem worth making. It doesn't matter how much money a different kind of game might make. My success definition prioritizes something above that.
Similarly critical to me is "innovation," defined as including something in the game no one has ever seen before. To my mind, it's better to fail at something new (and worth doing) than it is to succeed by executing well against a well-understood problem.
Starting a game without trying for the highest level of quality seems kind of soul crushing, though achieving what might be called "Game of the Year quality" is rare and wondrous. And great review scores are always nice. But these come somewhere after player expression and innovation, and ahead of money. For me. Your mileage may vary.
At the end of the day, we all want our work to "succeed" in every way, at all levels, with all people. We all want to create art that sells like hotcakes, makes a ton of money and wins the admiration of consumers and critics alike. Anyone who says "I want to make games that reach the smallest possible audience" is probably lying, and anyone who says "Screw making art - I just want to make a ton of money" probably has no chance of making either.
The fact is, few of us will ever approach that Platonic ideal of art, commerce and critical acclaim achieved in equal measures. And that means each of us must decide for ourselves how to define success. For me, that means achieving a kind of self-satisfaction - knowing my team accomplished the goals we set as effectively as we could, given circumstances. For me, that means living up to the priorities captured in a personal mission statement. For me, that means doing well enough, commercially, that someone will step up and fund my next game.
But over the years, review scores - even pre-release score predictions and especially post-release aggregate review scores - are, more and more, accepted as the most significant measure of success. Publishers use them to determine marketing and PR budgets, print runs and distribution plans and even developer royalties.
Pre-release, consultants are often hired these days by publishers who feel the need of impartial evaluations of games in development. Such consultants offer assessments of gameplay, story and graphics, as well as a prediction of post-release review scores. These services are typically offered by ex-reviewers whose individual opinions carried far less weight when they were writing than they do after they stop - something I'll go to my grave not understanding. To be blunt, in my experience, these consultants rarely reveal anything about gameplay, story or graphics that developers don't already know.
But publishers, who should probably trust themselves and their experience a bit more, do give great weight to these evaluations, assuming they actually reflect what will be post-release review scores. But, more important, they use these assessments to predict a finished game's likely level of commercial success.
Why does this matter? Well, as I said, such predictions drive marketing budgets and PR plans as well as expenditures that determine shelf space in stores and so on. In other words, review score predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies, with games performing as expected as a result of the use of predictions to drive plans.
After release, the assessment of a game's success passes out of consultants' hands - even out of the hands of internal testing and evaluation resources - and into the hands of two groups with different but related agendas:
First, assessment of a game's "quality" falls into the hands of gamers who, pleased or displeased enough, may express their opinions in online forums and in conversation with friends.
In addition, of course, a game's quality is assessed by game reviewers, whose opinions appear in consumer and specialist print magazines, mainstream newspapers, and on websites and television programs.
Finally, reviews are aggregated into a single "score," determined by sites like Metacritic.
Obviously, gamers have every right to evaluate games themselves, and to share their opinions with other gamers. It would be insane to argue against that, or even to think about it too much.
Reviews and reviewers? That's a very different story. We - gamers, developers, publishers and reviewers themselves - need to think more about the purpose of reviews. Only by doing this will we get better reviews and understand how best to interpret them, as business people, creators and consumers.
In gaming, there's a widely held, if largely unspoken belief that the function of a review is to tell players whether a game is "good" or "bad." There's usually enough description of genre, story and/or gameplay to inform players what kind of game they're dealing with. Reviewers typically offer reasons for liking or not liking a game.
But, fundamentally, game reviewers exist, it seems, to say whether a game is good or bad, with little concern for the success criteria I went on about earlier. The end result is a score of some kind - 96 out of 100... 8 out of 10... a B+... 3.5 stars... A game is good or bad.
Frankly, that's not good enough and it misses the point of reviews, to my way of thinking.
"When we put our faith in Metacritic as an impartial, scientific measure of quality, we should probably ask ourselves whether the crowd - the crowd of journalists as well as players - is really wise or just mediocre, incapable of recognizing and rewarding the new and different"
When I read a review by pioneering film critics (like Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, Judith Christ, etc.) or any of a number of more modern film reviewers I'm, of course, interested in their good/bad assessments. After all, these are smart people whose expertise gives them a status that makes their opinions worthwhile. However, the real value of their reviews is something very different, something more valuable - something I'd argue is largely missing from game reviews today.
That valuable thing is a consistent critical voice. Great critics don't focus on questions of good or bad. Their assessments of a film's success or failure are supported by an underlying philosophy they apply to all films. It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with their assessment of an individual film - heck, they often disagreed with one another. What matters is that, reading them, you can weigh your own likes and dislikes to determine if you will like a film, based on their review.
Frankly, the best film reviewer for me wrote for the Austin American-Statesman many years ago. He was a bad writer and I disagreed with his reviews pretty much all the time. But that was the point - I could tell reading his reviews whether I was going to like a film or not. He had a consistent voice. He loved a kind of film I knew I didn't like and hated a kind of film I loved. He didn't tell me if a film was good or bad - he told me whether a movie was right for me, something a score or numerical rating wouldn't have done. That was a hugely valuable service.
To provide that service, a critic needs a consistent voice, a philosophy applied to all games - and these characteristics need to be clear to readers. And I see all of this as being lacking in today's game review world. An enthusiastic "This game sucks!" or "The AI is bad" or "This game gets a 4 out of 5" tells me next to nothing I need to know.
So what does any of this have to do with Metacritic, the thing that got me started thinking about this in the first place?
There's no questioning the appeal of aggregating lots of individual reviews to get at some normalized measure of that subjective thing we call "quality." In today's era of Big Data, many people feel that everything can be measured, quantified and scientifically studied. To an extent, they're right.
As one developer (who asked not to be named) put it, Metacritic "is a fine cross section of established voices and existing trends, but it often misses things that reach other audiences or try new things. Too many of the sources only reward things they feel safe rewarding... We continue to believe there is a correct mono cultural taste. Bad for discoverability and bad for diversity."
By this logic, Metacritic, at best, rewards games that are conventional and well understood by players and critics alike. New and challenging things are, by their very nature, disruptive and easily misunderstood. Aggregation of opinion, at best, offers hope and guidance to people whose goal is to maximize profitability but little to people whose priorities lie elsewhere (see earlier discussion of definitions of success) or who depend on the constancy and relative predictability of the status quo.
When we put our faith in Metacritic as an impartial, scientific measure of quality, we should probably ask ourselves whether the crowd - the crowd of journalists as well as players - is really wise or just mediocre, incapable of recognizing and rewarding the new and different. (Before you come back at me with arguments, look at the highest rated games and then we'll talk...)
Beyond questions of the utility of its data, there are two aspects of Metacritic's methods that undercut its credibility in my eyes and, should, I think call its accuracy and even the validity of its data into question.
First, the aggregation of data is skewed by the selection of review sites included in the aggregation. For example, with Disney Epic Mickey, I know of several perfect scores (higher even than I would have given the game!) that were simply not listed or included in the game's average. And we're talking about high profile, well-respected sites here. By way of contrast, our worst review scores, typically from Some Guy With a Website, were integrated in the aggregation instantly. I know this sounds like sour grapes and if you want to interpret this in that way, you're welcome to do so. But with future projects, team bonuses, and so on hanging in the balance, I don't think it's inappropriate to ask for a public discussion of the reasoning behind reviews that are included in Metacritic's calculations and those that are not.
Second, the data are skewed by the weighting and summary-conversion systems employed by the people behind Metacritic's ratings. Though I have no idea what criteria are applied or the decisions made, my understanding is that certain reviews are given greater weight in determining a game's overall score. I applaud the concept here, but without knowing exactly how the weighting is applied, the validity of the score is called into question.
Similarly, the widely discussed conversion of certain reviewers' letter grades into a numerical rating is arbitrary. And the conversion of 1-10 scales and 1-5 star ratings to Metacritic's 1-100 point scale introduces a host of problems. Is a B and 80? Who decides? Is a 3 star review a 60? Again, who says? And what are the ramifications of making that decision?
Now, I realize that all of these questions about data are, to an extent, evened out when one considers that the procedural limitations apply to all games equally (at least one hopes so...). But then we're back to the question of whether the aggregation of several review scores tells us anything of value. What exactly is it measuring and does this measurement reflect one, several or none of the success criteria we can apply to a game?
Again, using my own games as examples, Metacritic provides some interesting insights.
The highest rated games I've worked on are Deus Ex and the Thief games. That's great. I'm hugely proud of the teams that made those games great (at least in my eyes!). Who doesn't like great scores, the awards that flow from them and the credibility with publishers they provide?
By contrast, the Disney Epic Mickey games are the lowest rated games I've worked on. I'm still proud of the teams and of the games themselves.
And you know what? Despite significantly lower Metacritic scores, Disney Epic Mickey is the best-selling game I've ever worked on, by a substantial margin. And the sequel, Disney Epic Mickey: The Power of Two, is the second best selling game in a thirty-year career.
Reviewers and some gamers may have preferred Deus Ex and Thief (and I have the fan mail to prove it!), but I received substantially more fan mail - and more heartfelt messages of thanks... and more fan art... and more everything - on the DEM games than on both DX games I worked on combined.
Metacritic be damned - I'll take an emotional connection with players and the praise of Disney fans any day of the week. My definition of success - notably empowering players to craft unique experiences and offering players things they've never seen or done in a game before - were well served by games that unarguably Metacritic'ed poorly.
So where does all of this leave us? I guess I'd say this:
Make sure you define success on each project you undertake as surely and precisely as you define your gameplay, technical, artistic and, yes, fiscal constraints. That definition of success will guide all your development decisions at least as much as your elevator pitch high-concept will.
If you're lucky and/or stubborn, define success for yourself and pay no heed to the desires of outside parties or the tyranny of the aggregated audience.
If you're not lucky (I assume stubbornness will be no problem for game developers!) you'll have to include collaborators in your definitional efforts, but don't let go of your agenda, even if you have to keep it hidden. Personal satisfaction depends on personal goals, and game development is too grindingly difficult to sacrifice personal satisfaction.
Whether personally or collaboratively determined, make sure everyone involved in the project understands the success criteria so results can be measured. And then make sure the appropriate measurement tools are being used. If that happens to be Metacritic, or some other review aggregation service, know that's the case going in. If the right tool is a close reading of fan mail to track player impact or emotional engagement, know that. If your goal is to influence other developers, know that, and find appropriate measures of success (citations by other developers, the opinions of trusted critical voices, etc.).
At the end of the day, understand that "success" is a word with as many meanings as there are people to define it. Choose your meaning carefully and live with the joy - and consequences - of your choice. In this way, life is like a game. If only more games were like life. Accomplishing that goal, making games more like life and encouraging others to do the same, is my definition of success - what's yours?
Warren Spector left academia in 1983 and has been making games, as well as lecturing and writing about them, ever since. You can follow him on Twitter under the user name @Warren_Spector.
Latest comments (29)
However, in answer to your question: "Why does everyone care so much about Metacritic?" let me express the impulse behind that caring.
What folks who make and sell games are desperate for is some external, objective assessment of how others (those with no vested interest) view their game. That desire might be ill-served by how Metacritic actually works, but I understand completely the wish to use Metacritic or Game Rankings or something similar.
Warren, I think you know that, but brush it off as being driven by a profit motive that has wrongly replaced a quality/expression motive. But that is not always the case. For many of us, we really are looking for a quality assessment, period.
What I tell my teams is that the only thing you can really control is the quality of what you create. The market is a queer entity that imperfectly rewards quality. So while from a business perspective, we need our games to sell, if we pervert our creative efforts to directly chase sales, we are very likely to blow it. This is the fate of most licensed games and it is a real tribute to your work, Warren, that your teams avoided those pitfalls.
But if all you can control is the quality of what you produce, then you will want to define what that is and measure it. And one measure is critical reception. Sites that aggregate critical reception therefore provide a tool and service that is (at least theoretically) useful.
Here's the flip side of completely ignoring Metacritic, Game Rankings, reviewers in general... Ego mania, self absorption and arrogance. And the reality is that those confident enough to be creators will be prone to these issues. Indeed, a certain amount of ego must be cultivated to be a creator. But we must be wary of our inherent tendency to believe in our vision despite feedback that suggests we are on the wrong track. A balance has to be found. I believe this has been issue for our industry throughout its history. As one example, for how many decades did our industry make games for ourselves and ignore the casual gamer?
I think your specific issues with Metacritic are completely valid. But ignoring the reality that we are always looking for (and need) objective feedback isn't the answer either.
1) What is the author/creator trying to accomplish?
2) How well did he or she do it?
3) Was it worth doing?
But the reviewer must always explain WHY he or she answers these questions a certain way. Otherwise the review doesn't achieve the purpose, which is to help the reader decide whether to partake of the reviewed product.
My main exposure to video game reviews is through PC Gamer and GameInformer. It's fascinating how often the reviewer assumes that his tastes match the taste of his readers, as though there was only one way to enjoy games. So they don't bother to say "this wasn't fun for me", they just say "this wasn't fun". I sometimes wonder if the reviews are so short that the reviewers don't feel they can recognize differences in taste.
Numbers can only reflect the tastes of the reviewer.
In medicine, we use meta analysis to guide our existing best policy treatment, and in games, this loosely can be useful as a tool via aggregated analysis of meta critic. However, its somewhat misguided for studios to go out and skew games to produce a good meta critic review, prior to a game launch. In addition, the FINAL product (which may have favourable metacritic scores) may not even play or mesh well altogether compared to the demo version, which does not provide a real safe landing zone for producers/ and the teams involved. It might not even translate into a commercial success.
So, at the end of the day, sure be guided somewhat by the aggregated score, but ultimately its better say Metacritic be damned & produce the most polished game you can with each iteration. And pray, it sells a copy or so somewhere. Who knows, it might be a sleeper summer hit someday, somehow - because I dont think there is a way to predict or guarantee success.
Art ought to offer the recipient some unique vision of human existence. Sure, games need to be fun- entertainment is foremost on people's minds- but, the memorable piece of art is almost always founded upon how it is different from any piece of art you have encountered before. There is a subtlety that is hard to quantify that people address in a good review, a sense of wonder, of awe at this construction that dazzles you with it's unique approach. How often does this sort of description appear when you slop all the reviews together and dumb down a game's appeal to single syllable words for common consumption?
This tendency to use broad comparisons and hanging onto conventions and genres well established in the gaming world when reviewing just narrows people's focus on what a game can accomplish. It adds up to a reliance on familiarity and the repeating of what is familiar and easily identifiable. It leads to franchises, series, and formulae,
I think that the more formalized and united the reviewing process is, the smaller and smaller the publisher core becomes. Eventually it leads to two or three big game franchises and spin-offs, and nothing else.
Creativity does not sit with the publishers and suits. They simply try and follow the dollars. If change, aesthetics, real creativity is going to be invested in new games, it's up to the the game designers and creators, and nowhere else. We need to concentrate as much as we can on offering things that have not been done before in quite the same way, despite publishers and reviewers apparently wanting more of the same. It's certain that the "creative spirit" resides with us, and nowhere else. This is why kickstarted games by creators themselves, funded by the fanbase, seems so appealing to me.
Art has always been plagued by these same problems. When the classic artisians like Michelangelo and Da Vinci worked, they faced the same damn thing, People trying to get as much work out of the guys as they could, trying to make as much money off them as possible without regard to the art. It wasn't the artist's patrons that inspired greatness. These artists could have settled for less, and made extra cash in doing so. It's up to the artist to fight against the suits who don't actually care or even know what art is.
Warren's approach is dead on. A creator needs to have the confidence in his own taste and artistic skill to commit to what he believes in, and follow his vision. Sure, there has to be a bit of grounding or maturity in understanding what can be accomplished, (as in published), but beyond this, no one but we creators are going to create.
And, I believe, astute fans will see the truth. Some consumers care more than we might think. I am often surprised when someone comes along and I find out that they know more about my creations than I do, having forgot about this idea or little nuance in my work ages ago. That feeling of....accomplishment in bringing to someone else you never met...a moment or two of bliss and his or her appreciation of your efforts is worth more than money.
So, while we sometimes fail in our commercial skills at raising millions, I can appreciate Warren's note that there is more to success than a dollar, and in some ways, that harder to describe success is the most important sort.
If you brought Da Vinci back to life, and asked him his regrets, would he complain about bowing to the almighty lira, or at putting too much attention to each creation?
The problem is that those with the power to spread the word are often the publications and websites that contain the reviews. I can't believe we have entered an age where contracts include stipulations regarding aggregate scores.
Most gamers would agree that top sellers such as the Call of Duty franchise and Assassin's Creed have gone stale as they have milked their respective engines over and again. Though their aggregate scores don't reflect that sentiment in the least.
I hope light is shed on this issue because it hurts the best and brightest developers and rewards those who seek only to separate consumers from their money. The industry as a whole has already suffered from it and it only gets worse from here.
Thanks to Mr. Spector for his unabashed assessment of this issue and to gamesindustry.biz for providing a forum to discuss it.
I look at it this way, if you were to say judge vanilla ice cream, you would have some that would say, " Yumm a taste that will be loved for centuries", But you'll also get " Yuck, vanilla sucks, chocolate rules", of course followed by the occasional' " Vanilla and chocolate are so played, tuity fruity is where its at", and of course the " Ice cream? who the hell likes ice cream?"
Which one is right? yeah, thats the problem. They all are.
Back to Metacritic, it's a total waste these days because aggregates work against a good game that might get knocked outside the score box some use to gauge a decent game (and this is another bone of contention, as one man's 70 is another man's 25, some ill-informed folks "ONLY buy" games that score an 80-85 or more on Metacritic and so forth and so on). If they just ran the damn links and didn't do any math, it might be a more trusted site in the future.
The point is, the flavor of vanilla is loved by many, but at the same time many people dont care for it. So what is true then? is it a good flavor or bad? or both? if both, how do you score that?
Edited 5 times. Last edit by Todd Weidner on 13th May 2013 10:19pm
If you do a publisher by publisher search on Metacritic you can see some awful stuff that some of them have wasted resources bringing to market. Total management ineptitude up there for all to see.
People seem to be glossing over the fact that Metacritic also encompasses the efforts of your advertising and business teams in co-promoting and increasing customer investment in the brand and is normalised by contemporary games released. If you launch a new FPS franchise against a new Halo product, you can expect to be marked by comparison.
Outliers aside, they do reflect a decent enough average opinion of a game's perceived quality, given the available data. It's not a perfect system, but then what do you expect when you attempt to compare "Dear Esther", "Amnesia", "Tribes: Ascend" and "Diablo 3" on the same scale?
Sure, it tends to cater towards the lowest common denominator, but complex and challenging games can still score well, provided they are presented so as not to drive away the intellectually timid.
I think that for variety of reason, our industry needs something like Metacritic. But it shouldn't be a commercial site operated by someone, somewhere. It should be an initiative of our industry's members. With rules agreed by everyone, from Activision to indies. With "weights" (how much the individual score matters within the aggregated score) of each media publicly known and floating. Reviewers have a big influence over our industry and it should be only fair if our industry actually rated them back. When someone reviews your game, without even finishing it, that's bad journalism and it should be reflected. When someone writes deep, insightful and fun to read reviews, his or her voice should matter more. And everyone should know that.
Nobody questions ESRB or PEGI. There are fair and well-known rules. And if you disagree with their opinion, you can appeal. What our industry needs is a similar organisation that aggregates the scores and reviews, based on known and fair rules where the voices of the best journalists writing about games are heard, regardless of whether they write for IGN, or have a small blog, and the voices of amateurs are neglected.
It is kind of a crazy dream, but I believe that someone like Warren Spector actually has the authority to make something like that happen.
Also you have those reviewers that wish they were game developers and they miss the point entirely as well, solid reviews come from gamers that can write. Unfortunately there are too few of those when you look at the entire industry.
So Metacritic is mostly based on rushed work: So if your game magazine, website or whatever is hip enough and generates enough clicks you'll be on metacritic! Although I am certain you can pay the right people to get metacritic certified ;)
But this is how the entire industry works, nothing new...
I try to think of Metacritic the same way I would Rotten Tomatoes, this is a tool for people to quickly see whether something is worth paying for. But condensing all those thoughts together for one all encompassing result is a meaningless tool to measure individual success, the idea of defining success for yourself is a comforting thought and something I'd never really considered before.
Edit: This reminds me of Obsidian's Metacritic score of 74 for Fallout: New Vegas being deemed a failure, while 75 was a pre-determined benchmark of success.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Emily Knox on 14th May 2013 9:42pm
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Hastings on 14th May 2013 11:59am
Its a bit like trip advisor. Everyone looks at it for a general consensus, and in that respect it kinda works. As with all other industries, there are some things that are just a waste of money, and its good to highlight these I think.
I was dead against the rating of individual developers though, and emailed them to remove me from it when it was being talked about a couple of years ago. That didn't reflect the way games were made. Its rarely an individual pursuit. Plus it would have been like a carrot on a stick for the wordy, work shy rock stars that live amongst the development community.
I remember someone giving us a rating of 0 percent for Wipeout HD/ Fury at Studio Liverpool, simply because they hated one feature alone. The general consensus from everyone else was good though, and the decent score made that particular reviewer look slightly incompetent at his job.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Sandy Lobban on 14th May 2013 12:59pm
I think perserverence eventually yields good results. Lots of trial error and failures. But its that time that you actually nail it and get it right that makes it all worth it. And those results can be much better than simply creating another shooter and shooting for a high meta critic score.
As for it being used by the industry, fed back into the loop, defining marketing budgets and bonuses, well that the fault of those who use it, not the fault of metacritic. It's pushing the responsibility away from folk paid to make those decisions and onto something remote and blame-able.
I find it strange what Warren said about Metacritic opening up and being more transparent in order to make it more fair on the important things it influences when it just shouldn't be used for these things.
Also, when I look up metacritic I'm not looking for what level of success it's had for the folk that made it (sales). I'm looking for information that will help me on a purchase. It'd do me no good knowing that colonial marines sold to over a million, it was irrelevant to the games quality.
This wouldn't be the same Metacritic score seen by the general public, but it'd allow publishers and developers to more easily measure success.
The people with power, on the other hand, pat them on the heads and tell them to get along.
Game designers should form a guild and make demands if they really want to change things.
As has been said before, Metacritic should serve only as a 'guide' Metacritic is not perfect (like everything else in life) but its the best we have. I always read Metacritic before a purchase (games are $80+ in Australia) to obtain information important for me, such as- 'this game has no jump', 'this game is only 4 hours long', 'the AI is dumb and won't notice you' etc Factual and relevant information.
The good thing about metacritic, is that it offers both professional reviewer and gamer score. You can find them all together there and make up your mind. Is it accurate? Definitely more accurate than reading one review! That is for a gamer who knows his way around reviews and understands, which are paid promotional reviews, which comments come from fanbois, haters etc. etc. The same applies for app store reviews.
Another point for discussion could be the fact that It is not just gamers deciding to buy a game or not, but also many studios hire based on one's metacritic average of all the titles they have worked on!
I use metacritic when buying a game i'm unsure about, but as I mentioned above, i don't simply look at the average.
I take the time to scroll down through the reviews reading high score and low score reviews, and sometimes read some user reviews as well. I like metacritic because it's a one stop shop to read all about a game I may be thinking of buying, lots of reviews in one place, and I do read reviews linked there to my favorite trusted sites.

Its influence has been repeatedly studied; a number of researchers considered it generally useful, while others — uncertain and not neutral at all.

The site won two annual Web Awards in the category “Hids/Rating/Reviews” in 2010 and 2015.

исследовалось

исследователей

Question: how many times has metacritic won a web award

Its influence has been repeatedly studied; a number of researchers considered it generally useful, while others — uncertain and not neutral at all.

The site won two annual Web Awards in the category “Hids/Rating/Reviews” in 2010 and 2015.

how many times has metacritic won a web award

Question: when did metacritic win two web awards

Question: what category did metacritic win in 2010 and 2015

Гайды / Рейтинги / Обзоры » в 2010 и 2015 годах

what category did metacritic win in 2010 and 2015

Question: when was the last time metacritic won a web award

when was the last time metacritic won a web award

Question: what are some of the different views of metacritic

ненадёжным и отнюдь не нейтральным

what are some of the different views of metacritic

Question: what is one thing that has been studied about the use of metacritic

"Его влияние

what is one thing that has been studied about the use of metacritic

Question: what is the neutral state of metacritic

Question: what is the general opinion of metacritic

целом полезным

what is the general opinion of metacritic

Its influence has been repeatedly studied ; a number of researchers considered it generally useful , while others — uncertain and not neutral at all .

The site won two annual Web Awards in the category “ Hids / Rating / Reviews ” in 2010 and 2015 .

Его влияние многократно исследовалось; ряд исследователей посчитал его в целом полезным, а другие — ненадёжным и отнюдь не нейтральным. Сайт выиграл две ежегодные премии Вебби в категории «Гайды/Рейтинги/Обзоры» в 2010 и 2015 годах.

Его влияние многократно исследовалось; ряд исследователей посчитал его в целом полезным, а другие — ненадёжным и отнюдь не нейтральным.

Сайт выиграл две ежегодные премии Вебби в категории «Гайды/Рейтинги/Обзоры» в 2010 и 2015 годах.

Its influence has been repeatedly studied; a number of researchers considered it generally useful, while others — uncertain and not neutral at all. The site won two annual Web Awards in the category “Hids/Rating/Reviews” in 2010 and 2015.

Its influence has been repeatedly studied; a number of researchers considered it generally useful, while others — uncertain and not neutral at all.

The site won two annual Web Awards in the category “Hids/Rating/Reviews” in 2010 and 2015.

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We've changed the way we review video games here at Kotaku. That makes this a perfect time to explain our approach to reviews and how the new system will work.
Two things will stand out to those who have read last week's Resident Evil Revelations review and this week's review of Final Fantasy XIII-2:
- They appear to be in two entirely different formats.
- They both have the rather large word "YES" on them, as if that was…. a… score??
Hell of a system, huh?
Here's how it works: Kotaku is staffed by talented writers whose job it is to write about a radically diverse range of games. They review role-playing games, music games, online-centric games, sports games and more, and I believe that our writers should have the flexibility to review those games in the way that best suits the game. They can review the game by writing an essay or writing bulletpoints; they can review a game with a poem or a comic strip. The format for the main part of their review will conform to whichever approach best suits the reviewer's voice and the game they're writing about. That's why the two reviews linked to above look different.
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Under this new system, I expect each Kotaku writer's reviews will become more instantly recognizable and associated with that writer. And why not? Each review can only ever be the opinion of one person, so it's all the better if regular readers can develop a sense of the reviewer's style and taste.
But many readers—most readers, I'd wager—are short on time and don't have the patience for creative writing. They just need to know if the game is worth playing.
For those readers, we will have one of three answers: YES / NOT YET / NO.
Every Kotaku review will include one of those three answers atop a sidebar that cuts to the chase. If you are in a hurry, the sidebar is the only thing you need to read. It will tell you who made the game (though, intentionally, not who published the game), what it's like, when it's out, how much we played of it and which two things the reviewer most liked and most disliked about the game. It will answer that worth-playing question and tell you, succinctly, why.
Each review sidebar will also include a collection of made-to-order back-of-box quotes, because … because they're funny.
So, yes, we are finally scoring our reviews. For the longest time, Kotaku avoided putting a number on reviews. The editorial team was worried that people would just read the number and skip the words. They feared that the meaning of that number would be warped and that passionate readers would ascribe reasons for that number that had nothing to do with the reviewer's feeling about the game.
In short, they worried that the number would undermine the review.
Screw the number. You really only have one question about these games, anyway: Is it worth playing? And we have those three possible answers for you.
I expect that we'll say YES to many games. After all, we're kind people here and we think many games are worth dabbling with in some way. You might prefer that we tell you whether the game is worth buying—or whether we'd buy it. But the problem with the first, we've learned, is that we don't know how much money you have. The problem with the latter is that, as reviewers, we probably didn't have to buy the game we reviewed in the first place… so what would we know?
We may not say NO a lot, because how bad does a game have to be to be not worth playing? And if it's that awful, maybe it is worth playing (remember, we will explain why we're giving an answer).
I predict we'll use NOT YET a lot, as a way to ward people off from games that feel not worth full price (income caveats notwithstanding) or is too buggy and in need of patches or has an online component we've not yet been able to assess. Reviews labelled NOT YET may evolve into YESes or NOs, and we'll notify readers of changes when they kick in.
Reviews will be timely, but we don't want to make the Assassin's Creed mistake. A few years ago, Mike Krahulik (Gabe) over at Penny Arcade zeroed in on a potential reason for the negativity in many reviews of the first Assassin's Creed:
Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like to a reviewer especially right now. How many games do they have piling up on their desks? A game like Assassins Creed isn't meant to be played under a deadline. You shouldn't be trying to beat it as fast as you can so you can move on to Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy. As soon as I gave myself a deadline all of a sudden I understood all their complaints. It was like a fucking Escher painting. I had put myself in their shoes and suddenly the landscape flipped and I could see games from their perspective. In the end I wasn't angry at them for their bad reviews. I actually just felt bad for them.
Mike was right. Sometimes, when you're reviewing a game on deadline, you start to resent the game, because you are reviewing it on deadline.
I'm not guessing this. I know this, because it has happened to me.
If I get a copy of a new game from a publisher and have a few days to play it before the obligatory day-one review, sometimes I find myself still playing it at 2am the night before the game review needs to run. I'm fed up with the game by then, just wishing it will end so I can get some sleep and then write the review already. If I was you—if I'd bought the game and had no deadline—I'd be delighted to discover there's a whole extra chapter or that what I thought was the final boss battle was just a fake-out leading to a bigger tussle. But, as a reviewer on deadline, I hate that kind of thing. I just want the game to be done. I've been there, and I don't want to risk that these kind of feelings will contaminate our reviews.
Yes, our reviews will be timely. Yes, they will be timed to run when a game comes out or as soon as a publisher who sent an early copy allows early reviewers to collectively run their reviews—whichever comes first. But if the game is too long—if it's just beating up me or one of my colleagues—we will delay the review. We will not risk penalizing a game because we had to play it in an unnatural rush. If it's a big game and we feel we have played enough to say something about it, we might run a NOT YET review and be crystal clear that we're not done with the game. We would update the review later. But that will be a rarity.
I'm proud of how we've reviewed MMOs, and we will be expand a version of that approach to more games. For any big MMO, we would wait a month to review the game, writing diaries in advance. We did this because we accepted that MMOs evolve and are shaped by their online communities. The same is true for more and more shooters and other online-connected games. Our reviews must take this kind of evolution into account.
You can therefore expect that games that have some evolving or major online-centric component will be flagged with a notice that indicates that the review will be updated a week later. Those reviews may have a NOT YET, though if you consider a game like last year's Assassin's Creed: Revelations I would have YESed it for its fun single-player but still included a note that I'd add a fuller assessment of its multiplayer a week later. Any additions or changes made to the review will be marked clearly.
A few years ago, it would have been sacrilege to say we'd be willing to update our reviews. But if games can evolve week by week, so too can our reviews. For now, we will confine that evolution to one week, as we check in on a game a week later if the structure of the game merits that. If we think we need to check in on games beyond that, then we'll… evolve this policy, too!
I hope you will enjoy and appreciate our approach to reviewing games. I'm not so worried about whether it is better or worse than how other outlets run reviews. I'm focused on whether our new, refined approach suits the values I have for reviews:
Reviews must be interesting.
Reviews must be honest.
Reviews must be timely.
Reviews must be easy to consume if you just need some shopping advice.
Reviews must be worth reading.
And, sure, reviews would be better if they had some ready-made back-of-box quotes in them.

Question: what is the rating system for game reviews

what is the rating system for game reviews

Question: what rating does metacritic have on games

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what rating does metacritic have on games

Question: what two gaming sites abandoned their assessment of games

what two gaming sites abandoned their assessment of games

Question: what part of game reviews did some sites stop using

словесном описании

what part of game reviews did some sites stop using

Question: what is the name of one of the gaming sites that abandoned their assessment of games

what is the name of one of the gaming sites that abandoned their assessment of games

Question: what type of description does metacritic use

what type of description does metacritic use

Question: what is the name of the gaming website whose reviews were taken off of metacritic

what is the name of the gaming website whose reviews were taken off of metacritic

Question: what did some gaming sites stop doing with their reviews

словесном описании игр

what did some gaming sites stop doing with their reviews

As a result of the negative impact on the industry , some gaming sites , including Kotaku and Eurogamer , abandoned reviews with assessment and began to focus on the verbal description of the games so their reviews could not fall on Metacritic .

Kotaku refers to cases where Metacritic reviews were used by publishers to avoid paying bonuses to developers.

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Bugs in Fallout: New Vegas might have eaten your save file. Maybe they took away a few hours of progress, or forced you to reset a couple of quests. Maybe game-crashing bugs pissed you off to the point where you wished you could get your $60 back. But they probably didn’t cost you a million dollars.
[This article was originally published on April 11, 2013.]
Perhaps you’ve heard the story: publisher Bethesda was due to give developer Obsidian a bonus if their post-apocalyptic RPG averaged an 85 on Metacritic, the review aggregation site. It got an 84 on PC and Xbox 360, and an 82 on PS3.
“If only it was a stable product and didn’t ship with so many bugs, I would’ve given New Vegas a higher score,” wrote a reviewer for the website 1up, which gave New Vegas a B, or 75 on Metacritic’s scale.
“It’s disappointing to see such an otherwise brilliant and polished game suffer from years-old bugs, and unfortunately our review score for the game has to reflect that,” said The Escapist’s review, which gave the game an 80.
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If New Vegas had hit an 85, Obsidian would have gotten their bonus. And according to one person familiar with the situation who asked not to be named while speaking to Kotaku, that bonus was worth $1 million. For a team of 70 or so, that averages out to around $14,000 a person. Enough for a cheap car. Maybe a few mortgage payments.
Those sure were some costly bugs.
This is not an anomaly: for years now, video game publishers have been using Metacritic as a tool to strike bonus deals with developers. And for years now, observers have been criticizing the practice. But it still happens. Over the past few months, I’ve talked to some 20 developers, publishers, and critics about Metacritic’s influences, and I’ve found that the system is broken in quite a few ways.
There is something inherently wrong with the way publishers use Metacritic.
Why Metacritic Matters
Hop into a debate with some video game fans on your favorite message board, and there’s one subject that will always come up: review scores. Which game scored the highest? Which scored the lowest? Which are the best review websites? Which are the worst?
Inevitably, at some point, someone will jump into the fray and say something like “lol review scores mean nothing anyway.” To some people, maybe that’s true. But to the people who make and sell video games, review scores are more important than many casual fans realize. Mostly because of Metacritic.
For the uninitiated: Metacritic is an aggregation website that rounds up review scores for all sorts of media, including video games. The people who run Metacritic take those scores, convert them to a 100-point scale, average them out using a mysterious weighting formula (more on that later), and spit out a number that they call a Metascore, meant to grade the quality of that game. The Metascore for BioShock Infinite, for example, is currently an 94. Aliens: Colonial Marines? 48.
To people who work in gaming, these Metascores can mean a lot. Say you’re a developer who needs money. You’ve got some ideas to pitch to publishers. You take some meetings. They’re going to ask: just how good have your games been?
“Typically, when you go into pitch meetings and whatnot, publishers are going to want to know your track record as far as Metacritic,” said Kim Swift, a game designer best known for helping create games like Portal and Quantum Conundrum. “As a company, what is your Metacritic average? As an individual, what is your Metacritic average?”
Swift works for Airtight Games, an independent studio that is tied to no publishers. Their Metacritic history: Dark Void, which has a 59 on Metacritic, and last year’s Quantum Conundrum, which sits at 77. [UPDATE: In 2014, a year after this article was originally published, Airtight shut down. Swift now works for Amazon Games.]
In order to survive, studios like Airtight have to negotiate deals with big companies like Capcom and Square Enix. Often that means talking about Metacritic. Sometimes that means wearing their history of Metacritic scores like a scarlet letter.
This is common. An employee of a well-known game studio told me about a recent pitch meeting with a publisher, during which the publisher brought up the studio’s last two Metacritic scores, which were both average. The studio employee asked that I not name the parties involved, but claimed the publisher used the Metascores as leverage against the studio, first to negotiate for less favorable terms, and then to turn down the pitch entirely.
Often, developer bonuses or royalties are tied to game review scores. Fallout: New Vegas is one high-profile example, but it happens fairly often.
“It’s pretty common in the industry these days, actually,” Swift told me. “When you’re negotiating with the publisher for a contract, you build in bonuses for the team based on Metacritic score. So if you get above a 90, then you get X amount for a bonus. If you get below that, you don’t get anything at all or get a smaller amount.”
In other words, a developer’s priority is sometimes not just to make a good game, but to make a game that they think will resonate with reviewers, which could mean anything from artificially extending a game’s length or adding superfluous features that they believe reviewers like.
“When you’re working on a game, part of what you want to do is have a high score,” said Swift. She said she’d never seen a developer change part of a video game just for the sake of raising scores, but the influence is undoubtedly there.
“It’s usually some other thing like, ‘Hey, we could use another couple hours on this game because people perceive a longer game to be a higher value,’” Swift said. “It’s never directly pointing back to, ‘This is gonna improve our score by X number of points.’”
Matt Burns, a longtime game designer who worked for a number of big shooter companies and now makes indies with his company Shadegrown Games, wrote about his personal experiences with Metacritic back in 2008. Burns said he watched firsthand as a development studio worked as hard as possible to make a game that would snag high review scores.
“Armed with the knowledge that higher review scores meant more money for them, game producers were thus encouraged to identify the elements that reviewers seemed to most notice and most like–detailed graphics, scripted set piece battles, ‘robust’ online multiplayer, ‘player choice,’ and more, more of everything,” Burns wrote.
“Like a food company performing a taste test to find out that people basically like the saltiest, greasiest variation of anything and adjusting its product lineup accordingly, the big publishers struggled to stuff as much of those key elements as possible into every game they funded. Multiplayer modes were suddenly tacked on late in development. More missions and weapons were added to bulk up their offering–to be created by outsource partners. Level-based games suddenly turned into open-world games.
“Before you cry in despair, keep in mind that all these people wanted in the end was the best game possible–or, more precisely, the best-reviewed game possible.”
And then there’s this wry joke by Warren Spector, talking about the words that influenced his career during a talk at the DICE conference earlier this year. Powerful words. Legacy. Mentor. And...
While chatting with Obsidian head Feargus Urquhart for the profile I published in December of 2012, I asked him about what had happened with Fallout: New Vegas. For legal reasons, he couldn’t get into the specifics.
“I can’t comment on contracts directly,” he said. “But what I can say is that in general, publishers like to have Metacritic scores as an aspect of contracts. As a developer, that’s challenging for a number of reasons. The first is that we have no control over that, though we do have the responsibility to go make a brilliant game that can hopefully score an 80 or an 85 or a 90 or something like that.”
According to Metacritic’s rating scale, any game above a 75 is considered “good,” but realistically, according to multiple developers I spoke with, publishers expect scores of 85 or higher. Sometimes, Urquhart told me, the demands can get unreasonable.
“A lot of times when we’re talking to publishers–and this is no specific publisher–but there are conversations I’ve had in which the royalty that we could get was based upon getting a 95,” Urquhart said. “I’ve had this conversation with a publisher, and I explained to them, I said, ‘Okay, there are six games in the past five years who have averaged a 95, and all of those have a budget of at least three times what you’re offering me.’ They were like, ‘Well, we just don’t think we should do it if you don’t hit a 95.’”
That’s the developer’s perspective. Now let’s look at this from the other side. Say you’re a publisher. You’re about to sign a seven- or eight-figure deal with a development studio, and you want to make sure they’re not going to hand you a clunker. Why not use Metacritic as a security blanket in order to minimize risks and ensure you get yourself a great game?
Here’s some very reasonable rationalization from a person who worked at a major publisher and asked not to be named:
“Let’s say that [a publisher] wanted to pay $1 million up front (through milestone payments over the course of development), but the developer wanted $1.2 million. If they wouldn’t budge, sometimes we would offer to make up the difference in a bonus, paid out only if the game hit a certain Metacritic [score].
“That conversation could happen during development too. Maybe a developer wanted more time and money in the middle of the production, to make a better game. So the counter was, ‘If you’re so sure it will make the game better, we’re gonna tie the additional funds to the Metacritic score.’ It was a way to minimize risk.”
But a different person who once worked for major publishers (and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on this issue) says that Metacritic scores are just an excuse publishers use in order to deprive developers of the bonuses they deserve.
“Well, generally the whole Metacritic emphasis originated from publishers wanting to dodge royalties,” that person said. “So even if a game sold well, they could withhold payment based off review scores... The big thing about Metacritic is that it’s always camouflaged as a drive for quality but the intent is nothing of the sort.”
Multiple developers I spoke to echoed similar thoughts, although nobody could share hard evidence to back up this theory. I reached out to a number of major publishers including Activision, EA, and Bethesda, but none agreed to comment for this story.
Marc Doyle, the former lawyer who co-founded Metacritic in 2001 and keeps it running every day, told me during a phone conversation last week that he feels no responsibility for what video game publishers or developers do with his website.
“Metacritic has absolutely nothing to do with how the industry uses our numbers,” he said. “Metacritic has always been about educating the gamer. We’re using product reviews as a tool to help them make the most of their time and money.”
But gamers aren’t the only ones who use Metascores. Not by a long shot. Even the massive Japanese publisher Square Enix recently cited Metacritic as one of the factors they used to predict sales for their games.
“Let’s talk about Sleeping Dogs: we were looking at selling roughly 2~2.5 million units in the EUR/ NA market based on its game content, genre and Metacritic scores,” former Square Enix president Yoichi Wada wrote in a recent financial briefing. “In the same way, game quality and Metacritic scores led us to believe that Hitman had potential to sell 4.5~5 million units, and 5~6 million units for Tomb Raider in EUR/ NA and Japanese markets combined.”
“Review scores are a part of our industry and it’s something we pay attention to as developers,” said Swift. And they lead to trends. “Review scores of this year are gonna drastically affect what’s gonna be seen next year,” she said.
Even big retailers like Walmart and Target ask publishers for Metacritic predictions when deciding whether or not to feature certain games. “One of the criteria [retailers] have is, ‘What’s the review score gonna be?’” said Tim Pivnicny, vice president of sales and marketing at Atlus USA. “That comes up a lot... They’re concerned if it’s going to be a good game.”
Metacritic has a significant influence on the way games are produced today. That’s a problem.
Why Metacritic Shouldn’t Matter
When I first heard about the Fallout: New Vegas bonus, I wrote an editorial about how silly it is for publishers to use Metacritic as a measure of quality. Video games are personal experiences, and they can’t be evaluated objectively, especially through some sort of arbitrary numerical score that means different things to different people. (Go ahead and try to explain the qualitative difference between an 81 and an 82.)
That’s the obvious reason. But there are others. For one, people are gaming the system. On both sides of the aisle.
There’s the story of the mocked mock reviewer, for example. Some background: game publishers and developers often hire consultants or game critics to come into their offices, play early copies of games, and write up mock reviews that predict how those games will perform on Metacritic. Often, if possible, publishers and developers will make changes to their games based on what those mock reviews say. Mock reviewers are then ethically prohibited from writing consumer reviews of that game, as they have taken money from the publisher.
One developer–a high-ranking studio employee who we’ll call Ed–told me he hired someone to write a mock review, then just shredded it. Ed didn’t care what was inside. He just wanted to make sure the reviewer–a notoriously fickle scorer–couldn’t review his studio’s game. Ed knew that by eliminating at least that one potentially-negative review score from contention, he could skew the Metascore higher. Checkmate.
(In case you’re wondering, Kotaku writers are prohibited from doing mock reviews or taking any work from the publishers we cover.)
When I asked Metacritic’s Doyle about practices like this, he admitted that he had heard similar stories. He said he works closely with all 140 review publications that he aggregates on Metacritic, and he said he constantly evaluates and examines each one. “Trying to prevent people from gaming the system is something I always think about,” Doyle said.
But it’s still happening.
“Anything we can do to optimize the score, we’re gonna do,” Ed told me.
Sometimes it’s subtle things: lavish review events that force game critics to review games on a studio’s terms; review embargoes that become more flexible when a score is higher; swag that gets sent to offices and discarded oh-so-often, like Gears of War beef jerky and Legos based on sets from Lego City Undercover. So long as Metacritic has an effect on the people who make games, the people who make games will find ways to influence it.
Those most susceptible to pressure from video game publishers may be the smaller websites that need traffic from aggregate sites like Metacritic in order to survive–websites that might make sketchy deals in order to get that traffic. Jeff Rivera, a game journalist who worked as an editor for a group of websites called Advanced Media Network (which later became Kombo.com), told me he saw one of those deals back in 2006.
“We had an agreement with Sega that we would run a week-long special with our top stories on the DS channel being dedicated to Super Monkey Ball,” Rivera said in an e-mail. “I was handling the review, and on the night before we were going to publish, I got an IM from a co-worker asking what I was going to score the game.
“I told him that I didn’t know yet and wondered why I was being asked, as it was something I’d never had happen before. He went on to tell me that PR said that our review would be guaranteed exclusive for a day if my score was to be 8.0 or better.”
Rivera said he had already written his review at that point, and that he had scored the game an 8.1. (The review is no longer online, but it’s still listed under Kombo on GameRankings.)
“I told them I that didn’t know what I would give it, because I didn’t want them feeling like they ‘bought’ my review score,” he said. “More pressure came to divulge my score, and I kept saying that I didn’t know, but that 8.0 was the ball park range.”
When I asked Sega for comment on this story, they sent over a statement: “Sega has a strict internal policy against soliciting high scores in exchange for early reviews and against the practice of influencing reviewers.” But Rivera said this had happened in 2006. I asked Sega when they’d enacted this policy, but the publisher never got back to me.
From conversations I’ve had with developers and other press, it seems like this sort of thing occurs less often these days. But there are always stories and whispers. Developers begging reviewers to change their scores. PR people intentionally sending out late review copies when they know a game is going to be bad, or sending early copies to websites known for handing out higher scores.
If you read about games online, you’re probably familiar with some of the websites on Metacritic: outlets like IGN and GameSpot are well-established publications that pay their writers and have solid reputations. But other names on Metacritic’s large list of publications are less recognizable. Some are run by volunteers; others are lesser-known to American gamers.
In order to give more importance to the bigger websites, Metacritic uses a weighting system that puts more emphasis on the heavy-hitters, making their scores count for more. But Doyle and his team won’t give any details about the system they use. This opaqueness has led to some controversy over the years: most recently, a Full Sail University study made headlines when the people behind it claimed to have modeled Metacritic’s formula, but their model turned out to be wrong. The event led many to ask: why doesn’t Metacritic just tell us how they weigh outlets?
“We’re transparent about everything on Metacritic except for the critic weightings,” Doyle told me. “That may seem like a drastic thing, but I’m just telling you that, in my opinion, it’s not. If you simply stripped out all the weights, it wouldn’t have a huge effect on that number.”
Doyle gave me a few explanations: for one, he said he doesn’t want publishers pressuring the highest-weighted publications. Another reason: Metacritic tweaks the system frequently, and they don’t want to have to talk about it every time they do, potentially embarrassing a publication whose weight they’ve just lowered.
But people find it hard to trust what they don’t understand. And nobody understands how Metascores are computed.
One of Doyle’s other big policies has also been in the news recently: Metacritic’s refusal to change an outlet’s first review score, no matter what happens. It’s a policy they’ve had for a while now, Doyle told me. He enacted it because during the first few years of Metacritic, which launched in 2001, reviewers kept changing their scores for vague reasons that Doyle believes were caused by publisher pressure.
“I decided that if we can, as an aggregator, act as a disincentive for these outside entities, whoever they may be, to pull that kind of stuff, and we can protect our critics by backing up their first published and honest opinion, then we’re gonna do what we can to do that.”
Sometimes, however, this leads to some skewed Metacritic results. In late 2012, GameSpot pulled their review of Natural Selection 2, which had been written by a freelancer. The review contained multiple factual inaccuracies. A different writer then reviewed the game, giving it an 8. But the original score–a 60–remains on Metacritic to this day.
More recently, the website Polygon, which uses an adjustable review scale, gave SimCity a 9.5 out of 10 before it launched. On launch day, when crippling server errors rendered the game unplayable for most, Polygon changed their score to an 8. A few days later, as the catastrophic problems continued, they switched it to a 4. It’s currently a 6.5. Yet anyone who goes to SimCity’s Metacritic page will still see the 9.5.
Still, Doyle stands by his policy.
“Metacritic scores really are that snapshot in time when a game is released, or close to after it’s released,” said Doyle, “when the critics decide, ‘I’ve played this enough, I can evaluate this now fairly, and here’s the score.’”
Another problem for developers: outlier scores. What happens when tons of people like a game, but for one or two reviewers, it just doesn’t click?
“The problem is the scale,” said Obsidian’s Urquhart. “There’s an expectation that a good game is between 80 and 90. If a good game is between 80 and 90, and let’s say an average game is gonna maybe get 50 scores, if you wanna hit that 85 and someone gives you a 35, that just took ten 90s down to 85... Just math-wise, how do you deal with that? Some guy who wants to make a name for himself can absolutely screw the numbers.”
One reviewer well-known for aberrant scores is Tom Chick, who runs the blog Quarter To Three. Chick is listed for having the lowest Metacritic score on BioShock Infinite (a 60) and Halo 4 (a 20), among others. He uses a 1-5 scale that Metacritic converts into multiples of 20, so Chick’s “I liked this game,”–3 out of 5–is converted into a 60, which most Metacritic readers see as a bad score.
But Chick is okay with this system, and when I asked him his thoughts on how Metacritic uses his numbers, he defended the aggregation site.
“An aggregate is only as good as its individual components,” Chick said in an e-mail. “And I feel that a lot of the data fed into Metacritic is of questionable value for how it clusters ratings into a narrow margin between seven and nine. But that’s not a Metacritic problem. That’s an IGN problem, a Game Informer problem, a GameSpot problem. And part of how we get past that problem is by recognizing more varied data. That’s ultimately one of the reasons I’m on Metacritic: I believe a wider range of opinions can add to its value.”
Chick uses a totally different scale than many other websites on Metacritic: Game Informer, for example, describes their 6/10 as follows: “Limited Appeal: Although there may be fans of games receiving this score, many will be left yearning for a more rewarding game experience.” Chick, on the other hand, says his 6/10 means something else entirely. “I believe strongly in using the entire range of a ratings scale, so three stars means that I like a game,” he said. “Quite literally. We have a ratings explanation on Quarter to Three that explains that three stars means ‘I like it.’ It’s that simple.”
Yet Chick’s 60 and Game Informer’s 60 are averaged together. They both affect developer bonuses. They both have an impact on contract negotiations. And they both change the way video games are made.
“The nature of an aggregate system is that multiple scores are aggregated,” Chick said. “You might as well blame IGN for giving a game a 92 instead of a 96. As for how I feel about a studio losing its bonus because the publisher has set an arbitrary number, that’s not my responsibility. My responsibility is solely to my readers.”
Chick’s message is admirable, and his criticism is always sharp, but his scores illustrate one of the biggest problems with how publishers and developers use Metacritic today: inconsistency. When Chick’s scale is so drastically different than Game Informer’s, how can any outside observer look at an average of the two and think that number has any meaning or significance?
There are other points to think about, too. If one person loves a game, and another person hates a game, is it an *average* game? Or just a game that one person loved and another person hated? If two people score a game 100 and two people score it 0, it’s not worth a 50–it’s just polarizing.
The system doesn’t work. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Outside Voices Weigh In
“Metacritic’s usefulness as a consumer aid is clear and obvious,” said longtime critic and Gears of War: Judgment writer Tom Bissell. “That the game industry has internalized its values, however, and uses its metrics, apparently uncritically, as a valuable source of self-appraisal, has to be one of the great mysteries of modern industry. It cannot be a coincidence that the form of modern entertainment most self-conscious about its status as an art form is also so slavishly attached to Metacritic.”
“It bastardizes the editorial process for reviews,” said Justin Kranzl, an ex-game critic and current PR rep for Square Enix. “We’re conditioning readers to skip the copy or the video and just get the score. For people who love a dynamic and varied media landscape–and any self respecting PR person should fall into that category–that’s terrible.”
“I think Metacritic is something only publishers care about,” said Monkey Island designer and longtime game developer Ron Gilbert. “The devs I know only care about it to the extent that a publisher bonus has been tied to the game’s Metacritic score (which is a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do). I’ve never looked up the Metacritic score for any game I’ve worked on. It’s completely irrelevant to me.”
“Metacritic encourages the fallacy that all opinions should be weighted equally, and that a ‘bad’ review is an unenthusiastic review,” said Bissell. “But that’s not true. There are some games I am *more* likely to play when a certain critic gives them what Metacritic regards as a ‘bad’ review. Metacritic leaves no room to discuss, much less pursue, guilty-pleasure games, noble failure games, or divisive games. Everything’s just a 7, or an 8, or a 6.5. That’s the least interesting conversation I can imagine.”
(Metacritic game hubs do include blurbs from each of the reviews they aggregate.)
“Rating a game is so subjective,” said Airtight’s Kim Swift. “I think one of the scarier things for a developer is when a reviewer opens up with ‘I typically hate this type of game’ and you’re like ‘Oh, crap.’”
“I don’t want to carry that burden... these are people with children and families,” said longtime critic Adam Sessler, an ex-TV host who now produces videos for Revision 3 Games. “It is a horrible feeling that what I’m saying–I’m giving my subjective evaluation of an experience that will not be the same experience as other people are going to have–that somehow withholds food and resources... To me it is noxious in the extreme.”
“In fact I would encourage more outlets to employ scoring scales that are incompatible with Metacritic,” said Kranzl, “and I’m always down to discuss with them different ways of getting there.”
“I’ll say this,” said Sessler. “I have considered not doing this job before because of this, because I think there’s something so morally questionable and repugnant about it.”
“I wish it would go away, but if not Metacritic, then some other service would pop up,” said Gilbert. “We humans love to quantify stuff. I wonder what the Metacritic of the Mona Lisa was. I heard it hung in King Louis XIV’s bathroom for many years.”
Perhaps it’s in our nature to make numbers out of everything. And it’s hard to deny that Metacritic is a useful tool for measuring how a small group of people felt about a game at one particular point.
But it’s not a useful tool for much else. There are too many variables, too many people trying to manipulate the system. There’s too much subjectivity in the review process for anyone to treat it like an objective measure of quality. Video games are designed to be personal experiences, and it is disingenuous for publishers to act like review scores are any more than the quantification of those personal experiences. It’s harmful to everyone. Everyone.
It’s harmful to critics, who have to deal with PR pressure and the guilt of taking money out of peoples’ pockets.
It’s harmful to developers, whose careers can be tied to the whims of a critic who may be in a bad mood when he or she plays their game.
It’s harmful to publishers, who must be concerned that they have to put so much value on a website that won’t tell anyone how they calculate their review score averages.
Most importantly, it’s harmful to gamers, because it has a palpable negative impact on the way our video games turn out every year. When developers change games because they think that’s what reviewers will want to see, nobody wins.
Metacritic is a useful tool, but video game publishers have turned it into a weapon. And something’s gotta change.
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.

Question: what is the rating of a game on metacritic

отрицательного

Kotaku refers to cases where Metacritic reviews were used by publishers to avoid paying bonuses to developers.

what is the rating of a game on metacritic

Question: what is the name of a gaming website that uses metacritics

what is the name of a gaming website that uses metacritics

Question: what two gaming sites stopped using the metacritic system

what two gaming sites stopped using the metacritic system

Question: what part of the game does metacritic focus on

словесном описании

what part of the game does metacritic focus on

Question: what gaming website uses the metric system to rate games

what gaming website uses the metric system to rate games

Kotaku refers to cases where Metacritic reviews were used by publishers to avoid paying bonuses to developers .

Kotaku ссылается на случаи, когда оценки на Metacritic были использованы издателями для того, чтобы не выплачивать бонусы разработчикам.

As a result of the negative impact on the industry, some gaming sites, including Kotaku and Eurogamer, abandoned reviews with assessment and began to focus on the verbal description of the games so their reviews could not fall on Metacritic. Kotaku refers to cases where Metacritic reviews were used by publishers to avoid paying bonuses to developers.

Kotaku refers to cases where Metacritic reviews were used by publishers to avoid paying bonuses to developers.

It was also criticized how Metacritic deletes user reviews and blocks their authors – without notification and the right to appeal.

подвергалось

пользовательские

Question: what does metacritic delete

пользовательские рецензии

It was also criticized how Metacritic deletes user reviews and blocks their authors – without notification and the right to appeal.

Question: how do authors get their rights with metacritic

уведомления и права на апелляцию

how do authors get their rights with metacritic

Question: what does a reviewer get with a metacritic rating

права на апелляцию

what does a reviewer get with a metacritic rating

Question: who does metacritic block on its site

Question: how does metacritic respond to complaints about user reviews

how does metacritic respond to complaints about user reviews

Question: what right do authors have in metacritic

what right do authors have in metacritic

Question: how does metacritic block authors

удаляет пользовательские рецензии

It was also criticized how Metacritic deletes user reviews and blocks their authors – without notification and the right to appeal .

Также критике подвергалось то, как Metacritic удаляет пользовательские рецензии и блокирует их авторов — без уведомления и права на апелляцию.

Также критике подвергалось то, как Metacritic удаляет пользовательские рецензии и блокирует их авторов — без уведомления и права на апелляцию.

It was also criticized how Metacritic deletes user reviews and blocks their authors – without notification and the right to appeal.

It was also criticized how Metacritic deletes user reviews and blocks their authors – without notification and the right to appeal.

Critics and developers noted that all products are subjected to user manipulation—both lowering ratings through review-bombing and turning ratings with one-time accounts, making the products seem more popular than they really are.

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пользовательские

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Gaming
Metacritic has a review bombing problem. Here are 6 ways to fix it.
The Last of Us Part II is the latest major release to draw the wrath of right-wing armchair critics.
Critics and fans have come to regard a Metacritic score as an essential measure of a game’s quality. But Metacritic has an increasingly glaring flaw in its system.
The Last of Us Part II is the latest example of “review bombing” on the review aggregation site, which is owned by CBS Interactive. The phenomenon refers to a deluge of negative reviews — often from politically right-wing users — who intend to hurt sales of a product they decide offends them or is otherwise culturally or politically objectionable. These negative ratings are almost always applied by users when the product -- a video game or a movie, typically -- is very new or even unreleased. Other widely reported cases in recent years include Rian Johnson’s divisive 2017 Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi and 2019’s Captain Marvel.
Like those movies, The Last of Us Part II is drawing ire from gamers for what they see as its “SJW political agenda.” In this instance, Metacritic user reviews object to developer Naughty Dog’s decision to show queer relationships and gender non-conforming characters. Others straight-up admit they haven’t actually played the game.
As of June 24, more than 75,000 user reviews of The Last of Us Part II had been posted on Metacritic. Almost 44,000 were negative. The game only came out June 19, and takes around 25 hours to complete, but the first user reviews appeared just after the option to post user reviews unlocked, which appears to happen around midnight on release day. This suggests many early reviews came from people who have not actually played the game but want to discourage others from doing so, thereby “punishing” Naughty Dog for its creative choices.
Metacritic has been cagey about how its aggregation process works. In its FAQ section, an entry asking for details about critical weighting is answered with a snarky “Absolutely not.” Elsewhere on its website, Metacritic describes the process in the following vague terms:
Metascore is a weighted average in that we assign more importance, or weight, to some critics and publications than others, based on their quality and overall stature. In addition, for music and movies, we also normalize the resulting scores (akin to "grading on a curve" in college), which prevents scores from clumping together.
It’s not clear what “quality” and “overall stature” refer to here. Is it a particular number of readers each month? Flowery prose? There are several quantifiable metrics one could use to determine it, but Metacritic doesn’t disclose what those are, even for news outlets interested in getting its reviews included in the score. Most outlets need to apply to be included on Metacritic, and must score game reviews to be considered.
Since 2015, Kotaku and Eurogamer have opted out of scoring reviews in response to what they see as Metacritic’s undue influence on the industry, but that’s a luxury smaller outlets often cannot afford. Getting on Metacritic may mean more readers, greater visibility to publishers and developers, and thus better access to early copies of games and embargoed information.
In May, Metacritic’s audience size was 2.3 million, according to Comscore, which is the industry’s go-to source for site traffic. Kotaku was 3.9 million and Eurogamer was 5.3 million on Comscore in May. (For transparency's sake, Inverse’s Comscore count was 15.7 million in May.)
While the process of becoming an official Metacritic-approved outlet is obtuse, there are hardly any barriers to entry for armchair user reviews. If you can bother to spend about one minute setting up a user account, you’re good to go — and review-bomb, if you so wish.
User-generated content is likely a lynchpin of how Metacritic draws traffic and therefore makes money, so it’s probably not going anywhere. Bringing more people to the platform — even if it’s to write a hateful shitpost about Abby from The Last of Us Part II or Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel — gives Metacritic leverage to set higher ad rates, both to advertise directly on the Metacritic homepage or to use aggregated scores in promotional materials for games or movies. There’s nothing particularly nefarious about this business model; attracting users to relevant ads is how many websites work. But it is also probably a reason why the site has been slow to address the problem.
Metacritic says it takes score manipulation seriously and enforces numerous policies to maintain score integrity. A moderation team regularly reviews the site and removes offensive entries. Users can also report abusive posts and flag unusual behavior for the moderation team for review and possible removal. Even so, a lot is slipping through the cracks. While most review bombers have enough common sense not to say the quiet part loud, unambiguously offensive content still gets through. 70,000+ reviews is a lot for any team to read over in just a few days.
CBS Interactive declined to respond to specific questions relating to TLOU 2 or future plans to limit review bombing, but we have a few ideas of our own. Here are six suggestions for addressing the problem, some of which have proven successful on other platforms with a lot of user-generated content.
1. More human moderators
All that’s required to post a Metacritic user review is an account and an email address. User review posts go live on the site immediately. A team of human beings should evaluate user reviews before they go live, weeding out baseless claims and one-off comments to make review bombing less effective.
It’s not feasible to make this happen for every single game, but you can usually spot the ones that are likely to attract this kind of attention a few weeks out. In the case of The Last of Us Part II, this icky conversation has been going on since major story details leaked in April. Metacritic could reach out to editorial staff at its approved media outlets to flag up potential upcoming targets for review bombing and plan ahead to allocate mods for reviews of a specific game.
2. Incentivize reviewers to engage long-term
Twitch gamifies progression on its platform, allowing newbie streamers to unlock achievements to access new functions, most notably the ability to solicit paid subscribers. A simplified version of this for Metacritic could involve writing a small number of mod-approved reviews before getting instantaneous publication access, to discourage one-off flame posts. User badges indicating high number of reviews and positive community feedback could be helpful, too.
3. Prohibit super-early user reviews
Some games are relatively short experiences or lend themselves to being played in quick bursts, like fighting games and platformers. The Last of Us Part II takes 25-30 hours to beat, so there’s little chance thousands of people can fully evaluate the game just a few hours after launch. (Rotten Tomatoes did something similar after Captain Marvel, removing the ability to leave a user review before a movie’s release.) Pushing back the timeline for posting user reviews wouldn’t eliminate the problem, but may discourage it to a worthwhile degree.
Update (July 17): Metacritic has quietly extended the period of time before users can review a game until 36 hours after launch. The page for the new PS4 game Ghost of Tsushima, out today, contains a note that says "Please spend some time playing the game. Come back to review it starting at 12:00pm PST on July 18." Original story follows.
4. Confirm ownership of the game
This could be an opt-in functionality for avid armchair reviewers to expedite a more rigorous moderation process, allowing them to share their digital storefront credentials to confirm they actually own a copy of the game before reviewing. Making it mandatory probably wouldn’t work due to privacy concerns, but adding it as an option can let readers know when those sharing their opinions have actually experienced the game for themselves.
Amazon gives “Verified Purchase” reviews higher placement on an item’s page, and a similar verification feature on Metacritic could enhance the visibility of high-quality user feedback.
5. Make media outlet selection more transparent
Suspicion of media outlets is a key motivator behind review bombing, given the implicit incentives from publishers to score a game favorably in order to ensure continued early access to future games for coverage purposes. This is an industry-wide problem that’s far bigger than TLOU 2 or Metacritic.
That said, if Metacritic were more upfront about its selection criteria for media outlets and how those scores are weighted, it may help to inspire greater trust in aggregated critics scores. This won’t solve the many underlying issues surrounding access in games journalism, but would provide Metacritic users worthwhile context.
6. Remove user reviews altogether
There’s already a site that does this — OpenCritic. OpenCritic's cofounder and CEO Matthew Enthoven tells Inverse that one of the site's aims was to be a games-only alternative to Metacritic.
"When we launched, we saw numerous gaps with what Metacritic was offering," he explains. "That's why we launched with features such as crediting authors, including non-scoring reviews, and displaying both the percent recommended and overall percentile ranking."
Though OpenCritic plans to add user reviews at some point in the future, Enthoven says "review bombing is absolutely the reason" the site has not yet done so. "We don't think we can have an effective user review system without some level of moderation," he adds. The site has considered several ideas for how to do so, without opening the door to review bombing, such as moderating all user reviews, requiring a minimum account age, and blocking user reviews until two weeks post-launch.
"We want to make sure that our system supports users who put in serious thought and effort, while minimizing or eliminating low-effort or fake reviews," Enthoven explains.
These are just a few solutions among many possibilities. None of them are perfect fixes or easy to implement overnight, but any one of them would demonstrate that this is an issue Metacritic takes seriously. Right now, it’s not doing enough.
Until review bombing is dealt with, review aggregation platforms like Metacritic will continue to be yet another battleground in an exhausting culture war, rather than a reliable resource for recommendations on a new game like The Last of Us Part II.
Tomas Franzese contributed reporting to this story.

Question: what is wrong with metacritic ratings

манипуляциям со стороны пользователей

Critics and developers noted that all products are subjected to user manipulation—both lowering ratings through review-bombing and turning ratings with one-time accounts, making the products seem more popular than they really are.

Question: how many accounts are there on metacritic

одноразовыми аккаунтами

how many accounts are there on metacritic

Question: what is the process of changing ratings on metacritic

ревью - бомбинга

what is the process of changing ratings on metacritic

Question: how does metacritic respond to user complaints

how does metacritic respond to user complaints

Question: how do users manipulate ratings on metacritic

занижению оценки посредством ревью - бомбинга , так и накрутке рейтингов одноразовыми аккаунтами , благодаря чему продукты кажутся более популярными , чем они есть на

lowering ratings through review - bombing

how do users manipulate ratings on metacritic

Question: what does metacritic delete from its site

пользовательские рецензии

what does metacritic delete from its site

Question: what does a reviewer get with metacritic

права на апелляцию

what does a reviewer get with metacritic

Critics and developers noted that all products are subjected to user manipulation — both lowering ratings through review - bombing and turning ratings with one - time accounts , making the products seem more popular than they really are .

It was also criticized how Metacritic deletes user reviews and blocks their authors – without notification and the right to appeal. Critics and developers noted that all products are subjected to user manipulation—both lowering ratings through review-bombing and turning ratings with one-time accounts, making the products seem more popular than they really are.

Critics and developers noted that all products are subjected to user manipulation—both lowering ratings through review-bombing and turning ratings with one-time accounts, making the products seem more popular than they really are.

President and creative director of Signal Studios, Douglas Albright, described Metacritic as “a non-standard site.”

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одноразовыми

Supergiant Games and Signal Studios were in awkward positions earlier this month, after the average user review score for each game plummeted overnight and seemingly without justification.
It was unclear who was responsible for the sudden change, and there are limited tools for those affected that don't come across as...weird.
The developers of Bastion and Toy Soldiers: Cold War asked fans to submit reviews to Metacritic, which resulted in a slight bump for each but an average score ultimately much lower than it was previously.
After speaking to Supergiant and Signal, I ran a story earlier this week about the challenges the studios faced in addressing these issues.
Metacritic has since identified the users responsible, both banning the users themselves and removing their scores putting things out of balance.
The users were targeting certain games, and hitting them with zero scores without a written review, raising eyebrows.
"A publisher of a different game let us know that he noticed that his game had been 'bombed' by a bunch of zero ratings in an unusually short period of time," said Metacritic co-founder Marc Doyle in an email to me today. "While investigating those ratings, we noticed a group of user accounts and activities that were clearly illegitimate and violated our terms of use."
Doyle's team found a group of users had been coordinating similar attacks on other games within Metacritic's database, allowing Metacritic to fix the "bombings" that had been targeted at other games.
Metacritic is often used to determine royalty and bonus payouts for developers, though its exact use varies from publisher to publisher. I've never heard of a publisher leveraging user reviews as a metric for payment because of situations like this, but especially for small studios, perception is king, which is why user reviews remain very important.
Signal Studios president and creative director Douglas Robert Albright III had proposed a fix to the problem.
"The way to fix Metacritic user reviews is to simply require a written review and verify user accounts," he said. "If it was just some random blog I'd say whatever. But this is a major news review aggregator that should have better oversight and some standards."

Question: who is the president and creative director of signal studios

Дуглас Олбрайт

President and creative director of Signal Studios, Douglas Albright, described Metacritic as “a non-standard site.”

who is the president and creative director of signal studios

Question: what is wrong with the ratings on metacritic

манипуляциям со стороны пользователей

what is wrong with the ratings on metacritic

Question: what is the name of the company that publishes metacritic

what is the name of the company that publishes metacritic

Question: how many user accounts are there on metacritic

одноразовыми аккаунтами

how many user accounts are there on metacritic

Question: who is the president of metacritic

Question: what does it mean for a rating to be more popular than it really is

более популярными

what does it mean for a rating to be more popular than it really is

President and creative director of Signal Studios , Douglas Albright , described Metacritic as “ a non - standard site . ”

Президент и креативный директор Signal Studios, Дуглас Олбрайт, описывал Metacritic как «сайт, не имеющий стандартов».

Critics and developers noted that all products are subjected to user manipulation—both lowering ratings through review-bombing and turning ratings with one-time accounts, making the products seem more popular than they really are. President and creative director of Signal Studios, Douglas Albright, described Metacritic as “a non-standard site.”

President and creative director of Signal Studios, Douglas Albright, described Metacritic as “a non-standard site.”