During my morning coffee/ Twitter scroll, I came across a good post analysing the perceived bias against Xbox at the Game Awards. Of course it’s nonsense, but this poster has done the homework proving it as such….
Text incase Twitter doesn’t load….
Wanted to speak on this "Xbox Tax" conversation over #Starfield not getting a GOTY nomination.
It's true GOTY nominations don't necessarily correlate to metacritic scoring, and there are definitely genre skews where certain genres of games are far more likely to be nominated than others (narrative heavy games with emotional resonance tend to impact more).
That's not a platform thing, but a genre one, and often shared by users too.
One game can also have a higher meta average than another, despite fewer outlets scoring it as highly, due to it having less negative outlier reviews.
In that sense, more than the meta average itself, it's the number of outlets among the voting jury that truly loved a game and thus scored it very high, that can make a difference.
Starfield on Metacritic across all platforms, has 19 perfect scores out of 168 reviews. Every other game that got nominated for Game of the Year, has far more.
Even Alan Wake 2, the game with the fewest perfect scores among the nominee's, has 42% more perfect scores than Starfield, despite 40 fewer reviews overall. Alan Wake 2 also has 10 more 90 and above scores, despite far fewer total reviews. So more outlets, including among the voting jury, truly loved it.
This isn't just a critic only thing either, if you look at user reviews of Starfield where there has to be a confirmed purchase, on Steam it has 7/10 average and on Xbox 3.4/5 average. So contrary to what some of the Xbox fandom believes, the overall reception just hasn't been super strong even among users, despite some loving it.
I heard @Septic_Sauce on his livestream discussing this topic, and he brought up Gears 5 vs Death Stranding in 2019, which is a great example of a point I made above.
Gears 5 has an ever so slightly higher meta than DS (by 2 points), but the make up of that average is very different. Death Stranding was a marmite title, where some truly loved it and others hated it, hence many super low scores brought down the average.
Look at the number of perfect scores for each game (PC+Xbox for Gears 5, and PS4 only for DS, as PC release wasn't out at the time);
Death Stranding - 21
Gears 5 - 6
Even though Gears 5 had a higher meta average, FAR fewer outlets found it truly stand out, hence there was always a strong chance it wouldn't get nominated for GOTY vs DS or other titles that year.
Ultimately, no, I don't think there is any Xbox Tax, it's simply that far fewer outlets adored the Xbox first party titles as much as other picks, as also reflected in critic reception in volume of highest scores.
And since this year in particular has far more quantity of quality, Starfield (or Hi-Fi Rush) just came short, not because of any tax ot bias. Other years they'd likely have been in the running.
I also think Starfield specifically, didn't quite match its hype, and that it is a solid but quite flawed and in places somewhat archaic title, that perhaps some of the Xbox fandom are championing beyond its actual merit. #TheGameAwards
Text incase Twitter doesn’t load….
Wanted to speak on this "Xbox Tax" conversation over #Starfield not getting a GOTY nomination.
It's true GOTY nominations don't necessarily correlate to metacritic scoring, and there are definitely genre skews where certain genres of games are far more likely to be nominated than others (narrative heavy games with emotional resonance tend to impact more).
That's not a platform thing, but a genre one, and often shared by users too.
One game can also have a higher meta average than another, despite fewer outlets scoring it as highly, due to it having less negative outlier reviews.
In that sense, more than the meta average itself, it's the number of outlets among the voting jury that truly loved a game and thus scored it very high, that can make a difference.
Starfield on Metacritic across all platforms, has 19 perfect scores out of 168 reviews. Every other game that got nominated for Game of the Year, has far more.
Even Alan Wake 2, the game with the fewest perfect scores among the nominee's, has 42% more perfect scores than Starfield, despite 40 fewer reviews overall. Alan Wake 2 also has 10 more 90 and above scores, despite far fewer total reviews. So more outlets, including among the voting jury, truly loved it.
This isn't just a critic only thing either, if you look at user reviews of Starfield where there has to be a confirmed purchase, on Steam it has 7/10 average and on Xbox 3.4/5 average. So contrary to what some of the Xbox fandom believes, the overall reception just hasn't been super strong even among users, despite some loving it.
I heard @Septic_Sauce on his livestream discussing this topic, and he brought up Gears 5 vs Death Stranding in 2019, which is a great example of a point I made above.
Gears 5 has an ever so slightly higher meta than DS (by 2 points), but the make up of that average is very different. Death Stranding was a marmite title, where some truly loved it and others hated it, hence many super low scores brought down the average.
Look at the number of perfect scores for each game (PC+Xbox for Gears 5, and PS4 only for DS, as PC release wasn't out at the time);
Death Stranding - 21
Gears 5 - 6
Even though Gears 5 had a higher meta average, FAR fewer outlets found it truly stand out, hence there was always a strong chance it wouldn't get nominated for GOTY vs DS or other titles that year.
Ultimately, no, I don't think there is any Xbox Tax, it's simply that far fewer outlets adored the Xbox first party titles as much as other picks, as also reflected in critic reception in volume of highest scores.
And since this year in particular has far more quantity of quality, Starfield (or Hi-Fi Rush) just came short, not because of any tax ot bias. Other years they'd likely have been in the running.
I also think Starfield specifically, didn't quite match its hype, and that it is a solid but quite flawed and in places somewhat archaic title, that perhaps some of the Xbox fandom are championing beyond its actual merit. #TheGameAwards
