Metacritic

**Metacritic** is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, they average the scores from each review (a weighted average). Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle created Metacritic, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999 to provide an excerpt from each review and hyperlink to its source. Green, yellow or red colours summarize the critics' recommendations. It's the top online review aggregation site for the video game industry.

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 averaging them, they weigh the scores according to the critic's fame, stature, and review volume. 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.

## History

Metacritic was launched in January 2001 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 media range. They sold Metacritic to CNET in 2005. The CBS Corporation later acquired CNET and Metacritic.

### Influence

Businesses use Metacritic 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 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. In an interview with *The Guardian*, Marc Doyle noted two significant publishers that "conducted comprehensive statistical surveys through which they've been able to draw a correlation between high metascores and stronger sales" in specific 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." However, a 2015 study analyzing over 88 Xbox 360 and 80 PS3 games from 2012 found that Metacritic scores did not impact actual sales.

Controversially, game publishers use the website to determine 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, 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.

On the other hand, columnists and commentators use the website as a general reference for critical reception and by publishers to improve their products. Along with other executives, in 2008, John Riccitiello, the 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. Also, in 2008, Microsoft used Metacritic averages to delist underperforming Xbox Live Arcade games.

## Metascores

Scores are weighted averages. Certain publications are given more significance "because of their stature." Metacritic has said that it will not reveal the relative weight assigned to each reviewer.

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." Doyle said that because video games lead to a more excellent 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."

Score index
 Generally favorable reviews
 Overwhelming dislike

In June 2018, Metacritic established the "Must-See" label for movies that "achieve a Metascore of 81 or higher and has been reviewed by a minimum of 15 professional critics". 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.

## Reception

Metacritic received mixed reviews from website critics, commentators, and columnists alike. Its efficacy has been analyzed, with conclusions finding it to be generally useful or unreliable and biased. The website won two annual Webby Awards for excellence in the "Guides/Ratings/Reviews" category, in 2010 and 2015.

### Criticism

Many criticize Metacritic for converting all scoring systems into a single quantitative percentage-based scale. For example, "A" scores equate to 100, "F" equates to zero, and "B–" equates to 67. Joe Dodson, the former editor at Game Revolution, criticized Metacritic and similar sites for turning reviews into scores that he found to be too low. Doyle defended the grading system, believing that every scale should be converted directly to the website, with its lowest possible score being 0 and the highest 100. Many put further criticism to the website's refusal to publicize how it aggregates scores.

According to Doyle, publishers often try to persuade him to exclude reviews they feel are unfair. Still, he said that he refuses to omit any of its reviews once they include a publication. A *Washington Post* rated *Uncharted Four* 40/100 by Metacritic; this was the only negative review. Readers who disapproved of the review petitioned Metacritic to remove the *Post* as a trusted source. 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 favouring a qualitative assessment of a game. *Kotaku* also highlighted a practice alleged to be used by some publishers who use Metacritic scores to leverage more favourable terms for the publisher or deny developers bonuses should they not reach a specific 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."

Some criticize Metacritic for handling banning users and their reviews, with no notice or formal process for appeal. Critics and developers have pointed out that a product can suffer from rating manipulation by users by garnering low ratings that purposely damage its reputation or receive high ratings from throwaway accounts to make it appear more popular than it is. Signal Studios president and creative director Douglas Albright described the website as having no standards.