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Type of site | Review aggregator |
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Owner | Red Ventures [1] |
URL | www |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Free/subscription |
Launched | January 2001 |
Current status | Active |
OCLC number | 911795326 |
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of green, yellow or red summarizes the critics' recommendations. It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site for the video game industry. [2] [3]
Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to the critic's fame, stature, and volume of reviews. The website won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation website. Criticism has focused on the assessment system, the assignment of scores to reviews that do not include ratings, alleged third-party attempts to influence the scores, and lack of staff oversight of user reviews.
Metacritic was launched in January 2001 [4] by Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts, and a classmate from the University of Southern California law school, Jason Dietz, after two years of developing the site. Rotten Tomatoes was already compiling movie reviews, but Doyle, Roberts and Dietz saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media. They sold Metacritic to CNET in 2005. [5] CNET and Metacritic were later acquired by the CBS Corporation. [6] In 2020, Metacritic and other CNET titles were bought by Red Ventures. [1]
Metacritic has been used by businesses to predict future sales. In 2007, Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal wrote that Metacritic "influence[s] the sales of games and the stocks of video game publishers". He explains its influence as coming from the higher cost of buying video games than music or movie tickets. Many executives say that low scores "can hurt the long-term sales potential". Wingfield wrote that Wall Street pays attention to Metacritic and GameRankings because the sites typically post scores before sales data are publicly available, citing the respective rapid rise and fall in company values after BioShock and Spider-Man 3 were released. [5] In an interview with The Guardian , Marc Doyle cited two major publishers that "conducted comprehensive statistical surveys through which they've been able to draw a correlation between high metascores and stronger sales" in certain genres. He claimed that an increasing number of businesses and financial analysts use Metacritic as "an early indicator of a game's potential sales and, by extension, the publisher's stock price". [7] However, a 2015 study analyzing over 88 Xbox 360 and 80 PS3 games from 2012 found that Metacritic scores did not impact actual sales. [8]
Controversially, the website has been used by game publishers as a means of determining whether a game's developer receives additional royalties. One notable example is the 2010 game Fallout: New Vegas , which received an average Metascore of 84—one point too short of Bethesda's, the game's publisher, 85-point requirement. As a result, its developer, Obsidian Entertainment, received no additional bonus. Columnists took issue with the company's use of Metacritic, with one suggesting that this makes game critics ultimately accountable for deciding the developer's profits and another pointing out that a Metascore of 84 is not significantly lower than 85. The latter also pointed out the impressive sales of five million sold units and US$300 million in revenue, and also noted a series of Obsidian's layoffs in 2011 and 2012. [9] [10]
The website has also been used by columnists and commentators as a general reference for critical reception, [11] and by publishers as a tool of improving their products. Along with other executives, in 2008, John Riccitiello, then CEO of Electronic Arts, showed Wall Street analysts a chart illustrating a downward trend in the average critical ratings of the company's games. He took the ratings seriously and stressed the need for the company to bounce back. [12] Also in 2008, Microsoft used Metacritic averages to delist underperforming Xbox Live Arcade games. [13] [14]
Scores are weighted averages. Certain publications are given more significance "because of their stature". [5] Metacritic has said that it will not reveal the relative weight assigned to each reviewer. [15]
Games Editor Marc Doyle was interviewed in 2008 by Keith Stuart of The Guardian to "get a look behind the metascoring process". Stuart wrote: "The Metascore phenomenon, namely Metacritic and GameRankings, have become an enormously important element of online games journalism over the past few years". [7] Doyle said that because video games lead to a greater investment of time and money, gamers are more informed about reviews than are fans of film or music; they want to know "whether that hotly anticipated title is going to deliver". [7]
Indication | Video games | Films/television/music | |
---|---|---|---|
Universal acclaim | 90–100 | 81–100 | |
Generally favorable reviews | 75–89 | 61–80 | |
Mixed or average reviews | 50–74 | 40–60 | |
Generally unfavorable reviews | 20–49 | 20–39 | |
Overwhelming dislike | 0–19 |
In June 2018, Metacritic established the "Must-See" label for a movie that "achieves a Metascore of 81 or higher and has been reviewed by a minimum of 15 professional critics". [17] In September 2018, it added the "Must-Play" certification for video games attaining a score of 90% or more, and a minimum number of 15 reviews from industry professionals. [18] [19]
The standalone highest-rated game of all time on the site is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , with a 99. The three games with a 98 are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 , Grand Theft Auto IV , and Soulcalibur [20] There are eight movies that have received a 100, including The Godfather , Citizen Kane , Rear Window , Casablanca , Boyhood , Three Colors: Red, Vertigo, and Notorious . [21] There are five TV Show Seasons that have received a 99, including Season 4 of Rectify , Season 4 and Season 6 of The Larry Sanders Show , Season 1 of Murder One , and Season 5 of Breaking Bad . [22] The standalone highest-rated album of all time on the site is Ten Freedom Summers by American trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith, with a 99. [23]
On the other hand, the standalone lowest-rated game of all time is Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing , with an 8. [24] There are eleven films that have received a 1, including Bio-Dome , 10 Rules for Sleeping Around , Chaos , inAPPropriate Comedy , Not Cool , The Singing Forest , The Garbage Pail Kids Movie , Death of a Nation , Hardbodies, Mother's Day and United Passions . [25] The standalone lowest-rated TV show of all time is The 1/2 Hour News Hour , with a 13. [26] The standalone lowest-rated album of all time is Playing with Fire by Kevin Federline, with a 15. [27]
Metacritic received mixed reviews from website critics, commentators, and columnists alike. Its efficacy has been analyzed, with conclusions finding it to be generally useful [28] or unreliable and biased. [29] The website won two annual Webby Awards for excellence in the "Guides/Ratings/Reviews" category, in 2010 and 2015. [30] [31]
Metacritic has been criticized for converting all scoring systems into a single quantitative percentage-based scale. For example, an "A" score equates to the value of 100, an "F" the value of zero, and a "B–" the value of 67. [7] Joe Dodson, former editor at Game Revolution, criticized Metacritic and similar sites for turning reviews into scores that he found to be too low. [5] Doyle defended the grading system, believing that every scale should be converted directly to that of the website, with its lowest possible score being 0 and the highest 100. [7] Further criticism was directed to the website's refusal to publicize how it aggregates scores. [8]
According to Doyle, publishers often try to persuade him to exclude reviews they feel are unfair, but he said that once a publication is included, he refuses to omit any of its reviews. [5] A Washington Post review of Uncharted 4 was assigned with a rating of 40/100 by Metacritic; this was the only negative review of the game. [32] Readers who disapproved of the review petitioned Metacritic to remove the Post as a trusted source. [33] As a result of its perceived negative influence on the industry, several reviewing sites, including Kotaku and Eurogamer , have dropped numerical reviews that would appear in Metacritic, instead favoring a qualitative assessment of a game. [34] [35] Kotaku also highlighted a practice alleged to be used by some publishers who use Metacritic scores as a way to leverage more favorable terms for the publisher or deny developers bonuses should they not reach a certain score. Doyle countered this by saying "Metacritic has absolutely nothing to do with how the industry uses our numbers... 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." [36]
Metacritic has also been criticized for how it handles banning users and their reviews, with no notice or formal process for appeal. [37] Critics and developers have pointed out that a product can suffer from rating manipulation by users, as by garnering low ratings that purposely damage its reputation or by receiving high ratings from throwaway accounts to make it appear more popular than it actually is. [38] [39] Signal Studios president and creative director Douglas Albright described the website as having no standards. [40] In July 2020, Metacritic added a 36-hour waiting period for user reviews to be posted for video games at launch in an effort to reduce user score review-bombing during that period by users that haven't or barely played the game during a period when most players haven't finished the game. [41]
Some have noted that Metacritic scores for modern video games may not be accurately reflective of a game's state in the future due to post release updates and patches as well as most press reviews of games taking place around its launch. For example, the metascore for MediEvil (2019) was mixed mainly due to performance issues around the time of the games launch. However these issues where later fixed in post-release patches that make the game run smoothly which would have led to a higher metascore in its current state. [42] Another example is online games such as Final Fantasy XIV Online and Warframe which both received mixed to negative metascores at launch but later became much more well received following improvements made after launch. [43]
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games in the United States and Canada. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, in response to criticism of controversial video games with excessively violent or sexual content, particularly after the 1993 congressional hearings following the releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap for home consoles and Doom for home computers. The industry, pressured with potential government oversight of video game ratings from these hearings, established both the IDSA and the ESRB within it to create a voluntary ratings system based on the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system with additional considerations for video game interactivity.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is a skateboarding video game and the third installment in the Tony Hawk's series. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision under the Activision O2 label in 2001 for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color and GameCube. In 2002, it was published for the Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64, and Mac OS. It was the first game released for the PlayStation 2 supporting online play and was a launch title for the GameCube in North America.
GameSpot is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which purchased CNET Networks in 2008, was the previous owner of GameSpot through 2020, while the site has been sold to Red Ventures. In addition to the information produced by GameSpot staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums.
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a 2004 construction and management simulation video game. It is the third installment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 places players in charge of managing amusement parks; rides can be built or demolished, terrain and scenery can be adjusted, and prices can be controlled to keep visitors or "peeps" happy.
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a 2003 racing video game developed by Stellar Stone and published by GameMill Publishing. The player controls a semi-trailer truck and races a stationary opponent through checkpoints on US truck routes. Stellar Stone, based in California, outsourced the game's development to Ukraine, and the game was released on November 20, 2003. Due to a multitude of bugs and lack of proper gameplay, Big Rigs was critically panned, became the worst-rated game on review aggregator websites Metacritic and GameRankings, and has been frequently cited as one of the worst video games of all time by gaming publications. The game has also attracted a cult following since its release.
Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the sixth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and the eleventh instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City, based on New York City, the single-player story follows Eastern European war veteran Niko Bellic and his attempts to escape his past while under pressure from high-profile criminals. The open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main islands, and the neighbouring state of Alderney, which is based on New Jersey.
GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff being merged with the similar aggregator Metacritic.
Cars is an open world racing video game, based on the 2006 Pixar film of the same name. Developed by Rainbow Studios, it was released for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Microsoft Windows, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PSP in June 2006, with versions for the Xbox 360 and Wii released later that year. The Wii version, developed by Incinerator Games, includes functionality geared towards its Wii Remote controller, and was a launch game for the system.
Tony Hawk's is a skateboarding video game series published by Activision and endorsed by the American professional skateboarder of the same name. The series was primarily developed for home consoles by Neversoft from launch to 2007, until Activision transferred the franchise to Robomodo in 2008, who developed the franchise until 2015 when Activision and Hawk's license expired, leaving the future of the series uncertain. In 2020, the series returned under Activision with a remake of the original two games in the series, with development handled by Vicarious Visions. The series has spawned a total of 20 games.
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services. This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users can view the reviews, selling information to third parties about consumer tendencies, and creating databases for companies to learn about their actual and potential customers. The system enables users to easily compare many different reviews of the same work. Many of these systems calculate an approximate average assessment, usually based on assigning a numeric value to each review related to its degree of positive rating of the work.
FIFA 09 is a football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. It was released in October 2008 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Xbox 360 and Zeebo. It was later in November 2008 released for the N-Gage 2.0 and mobile phones.
The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective. Players use firearms and improvised weapons, and can use stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus in the genus Cordyceps. In the online multiplayer mode, up to eight players engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Rayman Legends is a platform video game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft. It is the fifth main title in the Rayman series and the direct sequel to the 2011 game Rayman Origins. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and PlayStation Vita platforms in August and September 2013. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were released in February 2014, with a Stadia version released in November 2021. A Nintendo Switch port, titled Rayman Legends Definitive Edition, was released in North America, Europe and Australia on September 12, 2017.
Sudden Strike is a real-time tactics computer game set in World War II and the first game in the Sudden Strike series. The game was developed by Fireglow based in Russia and published by CDV software of Germany. The player selects a faction and gains control of many varied units such as infantry, tanks and artillery. The games focus primarily on tactics, eschewing traditional real-time strategy resource gathering and base development.
Souls is a series of action role-playing games developed by FromSoftware. The series began with the release of Demon's Souls for the PlayStation 3 in 2009, and was followed by Dark Souls and its sequels, Dark Souls II and Dark Souls III, in the 2010s. The series' creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, served as director for each of them with the exceptions of Dark Souls II and the externally developed Demon's Souls remake.
OpenCritic is a review aggregation website for video games. OpenCritic lists reviews from critics across multiple video game publications for the games listed on the site. The website then generates a numeric score by averaging all of the numeric reviews. Several other metrics are also available, such as the percentage of critics that recommend the game and its relative ranking across all games on OpenCritic.
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A review bomb is an Internet phenomenon where a large number of people—or in rarer cases, a few people with multiple accounts—leave negative user reviews online. The target can be a published work, a business, a product, or a service, and review bombs are made in an attempt to harm its sales or popularity. While a review bomb may be a result of customers criticizing the poor quality of the product, it can also be associated with perceived political and cultural issues around the product, its vendor, or related works. This is often done to draw wider and mainstream attention to that issue, especially if the vendor does not have an open communications channel or seems unresponsive to direct feedback. It may also be as a means of mass-driven coercion or simply a result of trolling. Review bombing is a similar practice to and shares characteristics of vote brigading.
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