Do we need a new / better Meta scoring site?

[Bryank75]

I've long been dissatisfied with Metacritic and even Opencritic, even though it is an improvement.

My issue is quality. Some of the sites they allow on these meta sites are nothing but advertising arms of the publishers and others are just fanboys that would give any slop a 90+.

Then you have attention seekers and trolls, that use their scores to get easy traffic with a ridiculously low score.

I would love to see a meta site that removes statistical outliers and only allows trusted reviewers to be included.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas to improve the meta scoring situation?

 

[Zzero]

I am fine with metacritic. Though there are issues that arise in their scores from time to time I think that is more on reviewers than on Metacritic and is unlikely to change with any replacement.

 

[KvallyX]

I've long been dissatisfied with Metacritic and even Opencritic, even though it is an improvement.

My issue is quality. Some of the sites they allow on these meta sites are nothing but advertising arms of the publishers and others are just fanboys that would give any slop a 90+.

Then you have attention seekers and trolls, that use their scores to get easy traffic with a ridiculously low score.

I would love to see a meta site that removes statistical outliers and only allows trusted reviewers to be included.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas to improve the meta scoring situation?

I would prefer one similar to what you mentioned, and then for user scores, it requires a PS/Steam/Gog/Xbox login to verify you own the game before you can post a review.

 

[Doncortez77]

Once the integrity is lost in the gaming community, it's hard to regain. I feel that the gaming media often spreads misinformation and injects personal politics into their reviews, making it difficult to know who to trust. Even relying on aggregator sites for scores doesn't seem reliable.

Additionally, the data sample is too small to represent the overall opinion. It's frustrating that a small group of people (usually 150-200) are considered tastemakers of what gamers should like. This situation makes it challenging for me to trust the current state of the gaming community. I prefer to form my own opinions and choices without being influenced by others."

 

[Gediminas]

I've long been dissatisfied with Metacritic and even Opencritic, even though it is an improvement.

My issue is quality. Some of the sites they allow on these meta sites are nothing but advertising arms of the publishers and others are just fanboys that would give any slop a 90+.

Then you have attention seekers and trolls, that use their scores to get easy traffic with a ridiculously low score.

I would love to see a meta site that removes statistical outliers and only allows trusted reviewers to be included.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas to improve the meta scoring situation?

When almost all for the grabs, it is impossible to sort it to make it objectively.

Maybe make it like in old days?

gameplay/combat, story/storytelling, music/sounds, setting/immersion, performance/accessibility.

Make it proper use of 10 out of 10 scale.

 

[Bryank75]

When almost all for the grabs, it is impossible to sort it to make it objectively.

Maybe make it like in old days?

gameplay/combat, story/storytelling, music/sounds, setting/immersion, performance/accessibility.

Make it proper use of 10 out of 10 scale.

YES, I love the old breakdowns. It really made it more transparent.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

My issue is quality. Some of the sites they allow on these meta sites are nothing but advertising arms of the publishers and others are just fanboys that would give any slop a 90+.

While it is annoying, I assume that a lot of those are heavily weighted against when they review games published by whichever the outlet is a fan of.
It's not perfect of course.

Then you have attention seekers and trolls, that use their scores to get easy traffic with a ridiculously low score.
I would love to see a meta site that removes statistical outliers and only allows trusted reviewers to be included.

Reviews are already a narrow group of people, I feel like narrowing it even further is not the way.

Additionally, the data sample is too small to represent the overall opinion. It's frustrating that a small group of people (usually 150-200) are considered tastemakers of what gamers should like. This situation makes it challenging for me to trust the current state of the gaming community. I prefer to form my own opinions and choices without being influenced by others."

The only way to parse through a game's rating is to know the general critics' taste and how it aligns with yours.
Like if somebody only plays the usual console blockbuster titles, then the rating of games is probably quite aligned.
But go into more experimental games/PC centric games/AA games and then a MC/OC is less useful.

Even in the usual genre space there's some disparity.

One of the more clearer example is any game that is Ass Creed or follow its formula.
These games sell a gazillion amount of copies and yet is generally on the low 80s. Which is still a fine score all things considered, but doesn't reflect the fact that tens of millions of people will buy every one of those games.
Kind of like a blockbuster Movie might get a rotten score(like Mario) and still generate an absurd amount of revenue.

Personally, I'm quite a fan of unscored reviews. Tell me if you recommend the game or not and explain yourself.


But really, it's like movie critics. It's all about finding individuals that have similar tastes.
For example, one can have a specific RPG reviewer for all things RPG.

YES, I love the old breakdowns. It really made it more transparent.

I think that it can be great but it would it can disproportionately force a lower rating on lower budget games because some part of the package would not be as "good/polished" as a big triple A game.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Review aggregators themselves don't matter much at all in reality, they are just a way to get a general idea of critic reception.

Trying to manipulate them is something only a truly out of touch company like Xbox would do, since they are obsessed in manipulating metricts of success to try and look good instead of actually fixing the issues that would make their games successful.

An idiot going out and buying something like Hellblade 2 because it scored 80+ due to a bunch of fan sites MS set up will only lead to frustration.

 

[Sircaw]

I've long been dissatisfied with Metacritic and even Opencritic, even though it is an improvement.

My issue is quality. Some of the sites they allow on these meta sites are nothing but advertising arms of the publishers and others are just fanboys that would give any slop a 90+.

Then you have attention seekers and trolls, that use their scores to get easy traffic with a ridiculously low score.

I would love to see a meta site that removes statistical outliers and only allows trusted reviewers to be included.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas to improve the meta scoring situation?

All reviews should have a section next to the score, fully disclosing any perks or benefits the reviewer gets from the game developer or game company.

For example.(rough)

Did you receive a free copy of this game to review: yes/No
Is this a sponsored product? Yes/no
Have you been paid any form of compensation for reviewing this product, ie, tickets to Blizzcon.
Do you have 5 Xboxes in your cupboard?
Where did that £2000 chair you are sitting on come from?

 

[voke]

Too many reviewers are accredited. It should be be no more than 75 reviews IMO.

Also, the infamous 90+ score isn’t attributed to how good a game is. It’s mostly attributed on how much hype said developer is currently getting. Critics won’t hesitate to give Rockstar a 10, same goes with Zelda, or From software. You can make the highest quality game possible and still swim in 8s and 9s because you haven’t gotten to that level of prestige that only hype unlocks.

To simplify, if an unknown game dev delivers an amazing game, critics will likely say “wow that was incredible, easy 9!” While a dev with pedigree they’ll just slap a 10 on it. It’s why I believe theirs honestly no real difference in games ranging from 80-100.

 

[Nym]

It's not really a meta look if you are excluding outliers. The landscape is what it is. Read the reviews not the meta analysis.

 

[arvfab]

There are multiple issues regarding reviews:

* The scoring system has become useless for a long time, with paid media, fanboy pages and publishers dictating conditions when providing review copies

* The scale is useless as well, partly due to how the public has been conditioned in thinking anything below an 8 is shit

* Publishers give too much weight on the scores (further aggravating the above points)

* Reviewers never disclose how much time they actually played a game before writing their reviews and giving a score

Gaming would be healthier if "critics" would abort the scoring system and give just their "pros and cons" shortlist at the end of their detailed reviews.

 

[toucandela]

I think scores are the problem. There will never be consistency from different sources.

All you need is YES / NO / MAYBE

This is why I find steam reviews are generally more helpful, even though it doesn't have a 'maybe' option.

 

[Ico]

I dont really care about reviews from sites, players reviews are what mostly matters to me, and I would like to see those sites adding a new rule where you have to connect your Steam/PS/Xbox/Nintendo acc to prove you have the game to review it

 

[Shadow2027]

They just need to purge all the obvious biased reviewers on all platforms. When an xbox game drops, there are always 10 giving it a 100 like their history shows for every other game. Could be some for other platforms but this is the most prevalent.

 

[Yurinka]

I think they should make an effort to include all reviews from decent websites/channels, to make a straight average after having removed the top and bottom 5% of the scores to remove attention seekers and fanboys.

I'd also have a system where it counts the amount of times a website/channel did put a score in these polarized scores and at the same time has a too big difference from the average. Meaning, scoring a 100 or a 60 ot a game that has an average (not counting polarized) of 80 that would be ok. But giving a 100 to a game that has 60 average, or giving a 30 to a game with 80 average would be counted as negative for that medium. I wouldn't count these shitty fanboy reviews.

Once a website/channel gets flagged for a certain number (let's say 5 or 10 of these shitty reviews), then I'd remove that medium from the website ignoring future reviews.

Regarding user reviews, I'd remove them unless they find a way to verify that the user bought that game and spent a certain amount of hours playing the game. Something I assume won't happen, so I'd remove them.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

1: No game can have a MC entry unless a guaranteed baseline of reviews are provided. This baseline should change based on the size of the game (i.e indies need less reviews, big AAA games need more) as well as its publisher (i.e a game from Devolver or NIS should have a lower entry requirement than a game from Microsoft, Nintendo, or SIE)

2: Outlet weight in the aggregate shouldn't be fixed; it should be based on the game being reviewed, the type of reviewer selected by the outlet to review the game, and whether the reviewing outlet's reviewer aligns with the goal of the game (i.e please hardcore fans only, please genre fans, expand the IP's appeal etc.)

3: Publishers need to specify what the goal of the game is market-wise. If it's mainly to please hardcore fans of the IP, then most of the reviews shouldn't focus or harp on the game not appealing to a larger audience. That clearly isn't what the game is aiming for.

4: Depending on the game's market goals, the distribution of review types should be accordingly set. The primary market goal can be one of the following: appeal to the hardcore fanbase of the IP (smallest niche), appeal to general core audience of the IP, appeal to fans of the specific genre type, modest expansion of IP appeal to non-IP fans, modest expansion of IP to non-genre fans, major expansion of IP appeal to non-genre fans (largest niche).

5: Every market goal should be paired with a creative goal of the game. Combination of market goal + creative goal should inform aggregate to determine the ratio of reviews for each of the market goals that are allowed. It's like a sliding scale, i.e if market goal = "appeal to hardcore fanbase of IP", then those reviews should make up the majority, while those that are of "major expansion of IP appeal to non-genre fans" should make up the smallest amount. Additionally, the former should have the most weight to the score, the latter the least weight.

6: After aggregate is informed of the market goal + creative goal of game and the scales/weights for review types are in place, review outlets can determine what particular review styles to submit that fit the desired bracket. Each outlet can submit multiple reviews if they want but only one per outlet is selected. Since the weight is determined by review type in relation to market + creative goal type set by publisher, an outlet's review's weight in the aggregate depends on what review type they submit and which review is actually approved.

This removes the built-in "system-gaming bias" that certain review outlets with fixed weights to the aggregate can utilize to manipulate review scores undeservedly positively or negatively.

7: To make things fair for review outlets, all qualified outlets receive review codes at the same time.

8: To curb unwarranted scores, all review outlets must have a fair mix of OBJECTIVE and SUBJECTIVE analysis in their reviews. The former can be measured against technical, performance, & mechanical standards (i.e visual resolution, framerate, geometry density, post-processing effects, frame pacing, foliage density etc.) as per the genre type (fighter, survival-horror, RPG, sim racer etc.), format type (traditional single-player, traditional co-op, PvE MP GAAS, PvP F2P etc.), and budget scale (indie, AA, AAA etc.). The latter can be measured against peer sentiment and related sentiment of similar games of that type (both for impact and consistency).

9: It should be the duty of the aggregate, with assistance from the publisher, to determine if reviews meet the Objective & Subjective requirements. This does NOT mean Objectivity & Subjectivity targets have to correlate with a high or low score, nor does this mean a review should be rejected simply on basis of providing a score a publisher feels is unfavorable.

10: A review outlet that feels their review has been unfairly rejected should have recourse to contest the objection of their review with a separate part of the aggregate that handles review disputes. If the outlet is found in the right, the aggregate must re-consider allowing the review into the aggregate. If the aggregate is found in the right, they are allowed to uphold the rejection of that review into the aggregate.

So yeah, basically that is my solution to the problem.

 

[anonpuffs]

The current game critic industry is broken and incentivizes stretching the truth for incendiary hot takes. That said the aggregates can still have a bit of value for indie games.

 

[mibu no ookami]

I've long been dissatisfied with Metacritic and even Opencritic, even though it is an improvement.

My issue is quality. Some of the sites they allow on these meta sites are nothing but advertising arms of the publishers and others are just fanboys that would give any slop a 90+.

Then you have attention seekers and trolls, that use their scores to get easy traffic with a ridiculously low score.

I would love to see a meta site that removes statistical outliers and only allows trusted reviewers to be included.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas to improve the meta scoring situation?

I desperately want a verification system and frustrated that it isn't happening. I don't know who's fault that is, whether that be metacritic or the platform holders, but it should be easy enough to do.

There should also be a system that uses AI or an algorithm to way your own reviews against someone else's.

Like if someone is just giving 100% to every game a company makes, I don't see much value in their reviews, but if you adjust their score based on the reviews of the same games I reviewed and suggest what my score would be based on that, that would be really impressive.