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[D.Final]

I agree with your sentiment, but the problem is deeper. Quantifying an experience on a linear scale of bad-good is idiotic. There is no room for nuance, challenging experiences, subversion, etc.

In Slavoj Zizek's new book Sex And The Absolute, he makes the observation that, it's in the gap we see between the flaws and the ideal that perfection exists - and it's the only place it can exist.
Should something 'correct' it flaws, it only becomes ordinary.

Xenoblade Chronicles X, for example, is a deeply flawed game. It's easy to point out where it fails, and easy to knock points. Yet, the experience is transcendent. If it corrected for all it's warts and idiosyncracies, it'd be Horizon: Zero Dawn, or something equally 'good' - and utterly mediocre. As it is, we can see the most rich and ambitious open world game ever made buried underneath the flaws, and in that sense, we grasp perfection, if only in moments.

In fact, in the end, it's all subjective.

But I decided to express what seemed to me to be a predominant aspect of the "condition" in which the players find themselves in today's society.

For example:

what would you say, on a purely media level, if games like The Last of Us Part 2, the new Zelda Breath of the wild 2 (or Breath of the Darkness) or even Death Stranding, if they received an average of Metacritic and Opencritic score much less than 90?
For example:

The Last of Us Part 2 - 82 Metacritic and 81 Opencritic
Zelda BoTW 2 - 78 Metacritic and 79 Opencritic
Death Stranding - 70 Metacritic and 74 Opencritic

At the very least there would be a collapse of gigantic proportions at the media and visual level for anyone who produces and distributes these games.
But, secondly, as well as fans of the aforementioned games, one would ask oneself: "why are they considered worse than other previous games".
By exponentially reducing their importance meter.
But considering them anyway, for a part of those who have played them, however, good games.

 

[Jack Videogames]

I think you're mostly right. Back in the day, I used to purchase games depending on my own tastes, and yes, I played quite a few turds, but I know I enjoyed lots of games I would not play today just because they don't get great reviews. I have to admit, though, that the opposite is also true - there are games that I wouldn't have tried if they didn't get rave reviews, like Sekiro, so there's that too.

But currently, it's hard for me to play a game that is less than 80+ in OpenCritic, unless it's something I got for cheap. I'm here F5's OpenCritic to see how Outer Worlds fares and I'm quite annoyed at the fact that Trails of Cold Steel III descended from 87 to 85 in two days, even though I loved the first two games and I'm sure to love this one too. This isn't healthy, and it's seriously putting a dampen on my hype.

 

[MiguelItUp]

If we were in a world where neither existed I can't help but assume something else would exist to take its place. People thrive on reviews, some don't even bother touching products without reading a review first, and it being above or below a specific number warrants them touching it or not. It's pretty crazy to me.

 

[Dane]

I think you're mostly right. Back in the day, I used to purchase games depending on my own tastes, and yes, I played quite a few turds, but I know I enjoyed lots of games I would not play today just because they don't get great reviews. I have to admit, though, that the opposite is also true - there are games that I wouldn't have tried if they didn't get rave reviews, like Sekiro, so there's that too.

But currently, it's hard for me to play a game that is less than 80+ in OpenCritic, unless it's something I got for cheap. I'm here F5's OpenCritic to see how Outer Worlds fares and I'm quite annoyed at the fact that Trails of Cold Steel III descended from 87 to 85 in two days, even though I loved the first two games and I'm sure to love this one too. This isn't healthy, and it's seriously putting a dampen on my hype.

Here's a tip, buy on sale or borrow.

 

[zenspider]

In fact, in the end, it's all subjective.

But I decided to express what seemed to me to be a predominant aspect of the "condition" in which the players find themselves in today's society.

For example:

what would you say, on a purely media level, if games like The Last of Us Part 2, the new Zelda Breath of the wild 2 (or Breath of the Darkness) or even Death Stranding, if they received an average of Metacritic and Opencritic score much less than 90?
For example:

The Last of Us Part 2 - 82 Metacritic and 81 Opencritic
Zelda BoTW 2 - 78 Metacritic and 79 Opencritic
Death Stranding - 70 Metacritic and 74 Opencritic

At the very least there would be a collapse of gigantic proportions at the media and visual level for anyone who produces and distributes these games.
But, secondly, as well as fans of the aforementioned games, one would ask oneself: "why are they considered worse than other previous games".
By exponentially reducing their importance meter.
But considering them anyway, for a part of those who have played them, however, good games.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "the media level", but I think I understand what you mean.

One of two things is most likely: either you are swept up in the media narrative and decide to agree - you align your values with thiers, or you decide the media does not value what you value which is obviously more difficult.

Because the media is saavier than us and built for this, that will never happen.

Those big titles that predicatably score 85+ prop up the media narrative. It's almost like an easy bet for credibility - most people will like it, thus they'll like our score.

Think of what has to happen for a big title to fail scoring - consumer betrayal (technical issues, monetization schemes), fanboy narrative betryal, media narrative betryal, or the new groove, political narrative betryal.
Shy of that, scores reliably map to genre popularity or gem finding "cred".

There are always outliers (Yahtzee from ZP does this reliably), but we're happy to call them trolls because it's safer and more comfortable for the institutions and ourselves.

* * *

I think everyone who has come to the conclusion that numbers are bullshit knows this on some level - we all likely have a game (or several) that the media didn't value what we valued, and we decided they were wrong, and deeply so. We still might look to see what version of "narrative betryal" a game transgressed, and if we care.

Tl;dr I think a low score for a hyped game would be a welcome crisis for thoughtful gamers (and media, if there is such a thing), but they are too cowardly to ever shift taste en masse from a linear 'bad-good' model.

We're on our own.

 

[zenspider]

I don’t think they need to go away, but the advice I would offer to all players is this:

See if a concept and the thought of playing it excites you. Or see if your friends and peers at a community like this one, or the wider gaming community, really dig something. Investigating further, take a look at a bit of a YouTube playthrough, and see how it resonates with you.

That alone should be enough to cut through most of the crap. If you still have doubts, or want to make sure, then maybe take the @DunDunDunpachi method of grabbing a few positive and negative Metacritic reviews, reading them, and seeing what you think.

Don’t just trust arbitrary numbers, especially when the gaming media veers further and further from reality and respectability every year.

My only issue here is that criticism colors my perspective - I've too long been a 'fan' of gaming journalism from the 90's to not have an critical/enthusiastic eye.

No Man's Sky is the best example of this for me: I adored the first 20 hours I played (day 1 launch), until the overwhelming negativity made it's way past my barriers. Afterwards, my inner critic was writing a defense for the game, not playing or 'merely' enjoying it.

I take my lickings at 60 bucks a pop, and more often than not now I can intuit what I will love and like.

 

[shoegaze]

Do you want us to start buying inferior products, waste money, and help the proliferation of shovelware?... Why?

 

[Danjin44]

Do you want us to start buying inferior products, waste money, and help the proliferation of shovelware?... Why?

If you decide which is "inferior products" base on score alone in my opinion you would miss out some fantastic games. Especially theses days when a reviewer could give low score to game just because he/she finds "sexy design" offensive.

 

[zenspider]

If you decide which is "inferior products" base on score alone in my opinion you would miss out some fantastic games. Especially theses days when a reviewer could give low score to game just because he/she finds "sexy design" offensive.

This. There's a million reasons to knock a game - none are perfect - but none of them, unless you write reviews, are yours. Even then, unless you play with deadlines and force a critical eye, you're not capturing the experience of playing, only of reviewing.

Maybe we're too busy reviewing games in oue heads and not actually playing them?

Ultimately, if you like only like what's determined to be good, and don't like what's determine to be bad, you have average, ordinary taste in games.

Our good taste is defined by how we disagree with the lowest common denominator i.e. the Metacritic score, and the dopes who canonize them.

 

[iorek21]

To be truthful, I always found Metacritic’s score to be very close to what I can expect out of a game/movie

For movies: 60 or more = great (except for cases like the Joker movie which got bashed by soyboys)

For games: around 85 = great game
90+ = must play

 

[-Arcadia-]

To be truthful, I always found Metacritic’s score to be very close to what I can expect out of a game/movie

For movies: 60 or more = great (except for cases like the Joker movie which got bashed by soyboys)

For games: around 85 = great game
90+ = must play

Why wouldn’t you be truthful? It seems very strange to lie about your opinion of Metacritic’s scores being very close to what you can expect out of a game/movie.

 

[sid2vicious]

Luckily I'm a pc gamer, buying games never been easier, not only are they super cheap, but all I need to do is take a peak at steam reviews and see what the general consensus is. Even then I don't care because 50% of scores are based on user experience, which can be dictated by their inability of using a computer (computer illiterate), or using a underpowered pc way lower than the minimum requirements (their fault), so that has nothing to with the game itself. In the end I play the games that look interesting to me, and then check reviews to see if people agree with me. I don't care if I'm the black sheep, it's better than liking a game because some journalists got paid under table to show favoritism on certain companies *cough* Nintendo *cough*, rather than the games themselves. That's why I think critics is the most useless job in existence and should cease to exist.

 

[Shai-Tan]

aggregate review scores are useful to put games in different classes of quality not stand in for individual judgements or compare relative quality of games that are in the same class. it’s just useful (due to some degree of shared or intersubjective judgement) to separate bad from mediocre from good games with limited time to go look up opinions, YouTube footage etc. the people trying to elevate relative scores are misjudging the ordinal “commensurability” of scores. at best you get a very partial ordering

edit: there’s a separate question of critic divergence from player or audience. I don’t think it’s significant in games but I’ve seen evidence for movies that imdb scores are more predictive than critic driven sites like rotten tomatoes. if you diverge more from the average reviewer on whatever site then it will be less useful - consider for example on imdb that a lot of men review movies appealing to women (“chick flicks”) with low scores more than women rate movies that appeal to men with low scores - luckily imdb allows limited breakdown by demographic for movies that tend to skew like that. Similarly there are genre in games that the average reviewer dislikesthat might require looking into more niche reviews/impression if you find yourself in that niche

 

[TYRiAX]

whenever I see score-bombing on a product in metacritic I always think to myself "so what? who bases their consumption on the homogenised opinions of the masses?". fucking loads of people as it turns out. but in the end i dont think it matters too much, metacritic may make it easier for these users to jump on the bandwagon but they'd probably still end jumping on it if there was no metacritic.

 

[Keihart]

Yeah, idk, i have never checked metacritic before buying a game. I think it is more of a "in hindsight" type of stuff, like after the game settles in a score people just use it to talk shit to each other about which games they like.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

WWE 2K20

For the first time ever in WWE 2K, play as both a male and female MyPLAYER in MyCAREER as you journey through the twists, turns and storylines on the path to WWE excellence - featuring cutscenes and voiceovers from your favorite Superstars.

www.metacritic.com

Literally the most broken game in the last 10 years and it only has ONE critic review out. How much is 2k paying the critics to not put out a review?

 

[Verchod]

I've never used either. I guess it's what you're accustomed to. I've spent decades reading games previews and reviews and from that you can get idea whether you'll like a game. Even more so nowadays being able to watch videos of gameplay it makes it easier. Those are the only things you need really.
Not everyone like the same thing, and who's to say that someone else will appreciate or dislike a certain quirk or attribute of a game in the same way that you will.

If you're interested in a game, just read a bit about it, watch some footage. That'll give you the best idea of whether you'll like something.

 

[Golgo 13]

Strongly disagree. Metacritic is an invaluable tool for gaining a ton of information very very quickly — what you do with that information is up to you. if reviews don’t matter to you, then why are you even ON Metacritic to begin with? Just simply ignore the site. But if you think reviews and Metacritic scores don’t matter in this industry — You’re dead wrong.

They dictate bonuses.

They drive sales.

They spur word of mouth.

They’re a vital part of this industry (for better or worse).

They also invite healthy discussions and debate, and to me, add to the fun.

Most importantly, they aren’t going anywhere.

 

[ZywyPL]

I remember a gaming magazine back in the day (~20 years ago), that had IMO the best scoring model out there - there were three categories: Presentation, Gameplay, Fun Factor, where they gave 5 stars/half-stars in each category, and the final score was based on average of the three, +- half a star based on reviewers taste/judgement.

The presentation reflected everything within the audio-visual sphere, things like the graphics, framerate, animations, physics, sounds, soundtrack, ambient sound etc. So a game that maybe wasn't a technical marvel, a new benchmark to look up to, could still get a high score because how fluid it was, how believable the animations are, how the audio us building the atmosphere, and so on, while a game that was pushing billions of pixels and particles could get a lower score because it's a stutterfest, the animations are clunky etc.

The gameplay, as the name suggests, was related to how the game plays, how it feels - the controls, their responsiveness, the game mechanics, the difficulty level, AI, physics, if/how the gameplay progresses within the playthrough, etc.

The fun factor was all about how engaging the game was, this involved the overall gameplay, the story, storytelling, multiplayer and co-op modes if there were any, and so on, so a game with even the best, most enjoyable gameplay out there could get a lower score here if there wasn't a story that would make you want to actually finish the game, same for a game with most intriguing story that is chore to play, while a game that's not the best in any aspect, but has a right mix of the two would actually score higher.

And such a system basically forced you to actually read the review itself, in order to get to know why the game got such a high/low/average ratings in each category, and nowadays? All you get is just a huge wall of text and this single 1-10 scale, so why even bother reading the reviews where everything is put all together into one bag? Especially when modern journalism's narration suggests there are only three stances a game can belong to - average/below average = 8/10, great = 9/10, and GOTY/GOAT = 10/10, so no wonder people just look at the culmination of all the overall ratings out there.

 

[Kadayi]

I give them a glance generally to get a feel for the mood in terms of what's been said, but I don't take them super seriously. Ever since ME3 or GTA IV I've learnt to *Doubt.Gif* pretty much anything the gaming press says. These people are largely tourists for the most part.

 

[Rest]

Reviews and review scores are arbitrary and mean nothing on a largescale basis. One reader has to be familiar with one reviewer to know if that reviewers opinions are relevant to them.

If you look at the case of movie reviews, my opinions on movies were the opposite of Roger Ebert 90% of the time. I always knew that if he liked a movie I probably shouldn't waste my time with it. If he didn't like a movie, there was a good chance I'd enjoy it. Aggregate reviews are meaningless.

 

[Dane]

Strongly disagree. Metacritic is an invaluable tool for gaining a ton of information very very quickly — what you do with that information is up to you. if reviews don’t matter to you, then why are you even ON Metacritic to begin with? Just simply ignore the site. But if you think reviews and Metacritic scores don’t matter in this industry — You’re dead wrong.

They dictate bonuses.

They drive sales.

They spur word of mouth.

They’re a vital part of this industry (for better or worse).

They also invite healthy discussions and debate, and to me, add to the fun.

Most importantly, they aren’t going anywhere.

Fact, Obsidian is a prime example, got snubbed of bonus because of one point on NV, and Outer Worlds pre orders skyrocketed thanks to the early reviews with great scores.

Even if Metacritic didn't exist anymore, someone would create another one in weeks, people want to know in fast and easy if its worth or not.

Now, I agree that nowadays the score notion is skewed, one of the reasons that could be, its because in Rotten Tomatões, a 65% average is considered positive, while in Metacritic, its 75 for games and 60 for movies. Another is what i've said on page 2, school scores, a shitty paper will grant you the minimum, a mediocre an above for that. I myself love many games that are 6-7.9.

 

[DESTROYA]

Don’t give a damn for either.
For real reviews I watch vids from people that know how what I’m looking for.
Just look at the review bombing of Astral Chain.

 

[s34ab]

I honestly can't remember the last time I looked at a review for a game.

 

[bumleforce]

I hate them both. I noticed it a lot on the gears 5 review. Everyone was makeing a big deal of the metacritic. Its all they cared about. What bothers me about it is you can have smaller sites that are ran by trolls who hate a certain console so they always lower scores on its games and praise bad games on the system they like yet these all get taken into the same pool.

I'm not saying this is better but mayne if there was a way to make it so certain sites scores matter most like ign game spot. Then u have smaller sites like toms games etc still counting but counting less. What do u guys think?

 

[yurinka]

The OP doesn't make sense. There are tons of games and tons of sites to get reviews.
Metacritic and Opencritic are useful for players and devs to get a quick idea of the reception by the gaming media.

Yes, these sites can be improved by covering a more complete coverage by adding more sites and by removing the troll/attention whore reviews who give a too low score compared with the other ones. But life wouldn't be better without metacritic/opencritic.