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[s0]

Imo metacritic is the most useless for AAA games. Every big name release is going to get a very high score for a number of reasons (not necessarily payola) and if theres some minor controversy surrounding the game itll get "metabombed" by a vocal minority as a "protest", dragging the user score down to absurd lows.

Btw the influence metacritic has is actually bad for games and game criticism as a whole, so i would strongly advise against taking metascores too seriously to begin with.

[Alec S.]

demos damage profit

They won't if the game is really good. Oh, shi-

Demos are pretty much a lose-lose proposition for a developer.  It's an entire new build of the game that needs to be put together, tested and promoted.  If it's bad or mediocre (and some times a good game can have a poor demo) it will hurt game sales.  If it's good, it could sate some of the excitement people had for the game, and they may be contented to just play the demo rather than buy the full game (and, in addition, if you can't transfer your saves to the full game, the through of replaying the opening might discourage people from buying the full game right away).  So it's a substantial drain of resources that could be likely to hurt rather than help sales (even if the game is good).

As for Metacritic, personal taste is much more important to me than sheer popularity.  There have been plenty of games that have scored over a 90% of metacritic that have completely bored me, and many things that score in the 70% range that I love.  The key is not only to read reviews, but find reviewers who's taste aligns with yours or who has enough skill in describing a game that their review gives you a good indication of whether or not you'll like the game. 

And, of course, as has been mentioned, there are the many ways Metacritic, and the game industry/culture's relation to Metacritic does a lot of damage.  Developer's salary/bonuses being tied to metacritic numbers, people yelling at reviewers for "skewing the metacritic rating" by writing reviews that don't agree with the popular consensus/marketing hype. 

[Slowminder]

Imo metacritic is the most useless for AAA games. Every big name release is going to get a very high score for a number of reasons (not necessarily payola) and if theres some minor controversy surrounding the game itll get "metabombed" by a vocal minority as a "protest", dragging the user score down to absurd lows.

Btw the influence metacritic has is actually bad for games and game criticism as a whole, so i would strongly advise against taking metascores too seriously to begin with.

Somebody should develop some kind of ID-system for metacritic. For instance - you have to input your already activated Steam-key. So only people who actually bought the game would be able to review it. Yeah, I know - it's utopia. Nobody will share their key databases.
----

demos damage profit

They won't if the game is really good. Oh, shi-

Demos are pretty much a lose-lose proposition for a developer.  It's an entire new build of the game that needs to be put together, tested and promoted.  If it's bad or mediocre (and some times a good game can have a poor demo) it will hurt game sales.  If it's good, it could sate some of the excitement people had for the game, and they may be contented to just play the demo rather than buy the full game (and, in addition, if you can't transfer your saves to the full game, the through of replaying the opening might discourage people from buying the full game right away).  So it's a substantial drain of resources that could be likely to hurt rather than help sales (even if the game is good).

I've played Doom demo, and I'm definitely gonna buy it. Btw, I've played multiplayer beta and didn't enjoy it at all.
But I get what you're talking about. In games like Assassins creed, you can show 1 hour of gameplay, and that's it - you basically know what all the game is about.
It's quite interesting that developers of Metro 2033 have made massive demos of both games. Those demos are like 1/3 of the original game. Yep, I'm gonna buy it too, though I've already completed both games on PC.

[Superb Joe]

seems like that web site is bad. going to see what t says about stuff and talk later

[Superb Joe]

the best game of the last generation is grand theft auto 4, usurping the king for the previous two generations, Tony HAwk. resident evil 5 is 10% less good now that it costs less. bioshock infinite is widely beloved. all seems eminently reasonable.

[and0]

Well I've looked around and read what people on Metacritic say about people on Metacritic. The results:

• Critics giving good reviews are corrupt
• Critics giving bad reviews are pretentious idiots
• Users giving good reviews are 12-year old fanboys
• Users giving bad reviews are 12-year old haters

Doesn't sound like a trustworthy bunch.



Seriously though, I don't care about Metacritic. I think it's a toxic site that shouldn't have the relevance it has nowadays.

[Superb Joe]

if theres one thing ive learned from people complaining about politicians since the dawn of representative democracy, its that everybody loves distilling the views of a population into one singular point and its always really successful

[Schoq]

to be fair though, thinking is very very hard

[Shine Klevit]

It should be trusted like any other source of information. With a grain of salt, along with many other sources of information, and as nothing more than a general guide.

Personally, I think the best way to navigate anything is to just find out the traits of it that you like, and simply look for things that are advertised with comparable traits.

[s0]

I don't trust metacitric but i certainly trust the world's top meat critics.

[Alevice]

they will say that meat is good when in truth it will only do you harm. get your proteins elsewhere

[Superb Joe]

i trust web sites unconditionally

[Jondog]

There's not much to trust when the website has hidden biases that prioritise some sites scores over others.

Even if it lacked those biases it still doesn't work because the score scales on each site is different and reviews themselves are very subjective.

[Jordgubben]

Metacritic is probably trustworthy in the sense that they are answering their question truthfully. I see no reason to suspect that they are tampering with the numbers behind the scenes.  It is hoever relevant to point out that they are answering the question "What is the average review score of <insert thing>?", not "Is <insert thing> actually any good?".

Also, all proteins fair better with some salt, and preferably a dash of chilli flakes.

[readyplaygames]

I don't know much about the site, do they assign weight to different review sites? I would imagine "Joe reviews games sometimes" wouldn't be as well researched as some of the big sites.

[s0]

they have a curated pool of sites and magazines they aggregate scores from. they don't aggregate literally every review site ever.

[Superb Joe]

I don't know much about the site, do they assign weight to different review sites? I would imagine "Joe reviews games sometimes" wouldn't be as well researched as some of the big sites.

THEN THEY'RE FUCKING FOOLS!!!

[Superb Joe]

lets compare the joecritic top 5 of the last generation to meta critics

1. transformers: devastation
2. resident evil 5
3. bionic commando rearmed
4. streets of rage 2 on x box live arcade
5. i don't remember

1. Grand Theft Auto IV
2. Grand Theft Auto V
3. BioShock
4. The Orange Box
5. Mass Effect 2

[s0]

"I Don't Remember", a touching interactive narrative experience about regret, fatherhood and 80s robot cartoons.

[ProgramGamer]

I though "I Don't Remember" was that one really meta game about a publisher forgetting the name of the game he was supposed to publish and then he has to track down the dev who is in vacation in the bahamas or something. Except it turns out the dev is actually a man made of evaporated water and his game reflects his image perfectly, making for quite the "coup the theatre".