PAULINK
I microwave steaks.
Why is that ?
Don't consumers deserve to know if a game is mediocre or not ?
Certainly, it's the reason why we have user reviews. Metacritic as a whole is a flawed idea, and putting out on spotlight like this just gives game reviewers more power to influence the outcome of a purchase or not (based on a fucking number).
Amazon user reviews were nice, people are not getting paid to do these reviews, they are just amateur musings of people where you can get a good idea on the general consensus of a game. And I would be lying if I said I don't read professional reviews by the press, quite the contrary. But compressing every single review into a quantifiable number that people will interpret on several different levels, it's just nonsense.
And for those who say "but steam has had it", yes, you're right. There are several things though that i'd like to point out: steam is limited to pc games and while it is arguably one of the biggest pc game dd retailers, amazon sells more than just pc games, in fact it spans out to every platform on the market. It's impact (in my opinion) will be on a much larger scale. Second, look at steam's implementation and then Amazon, and then tell me which one catches your eye first. A common consumer is likely to see the amazon implementation sooner because it's a lot more pronounced, is right there without needing to scroll or anything.
Metacritic deserves to exist but it shouldn't overshadow user reviews, something I can see happening.