A story I would be interested in is a story on how much pull Metacritic has on gaming outlets and how they determine scoring scales, timeliness of reviews, and whether to include scores in reviews at all?
How big of a commercial incentive do sites have to cater to Metacritic? I know Giant Bomb said in the past that they received copies of games later because their 5 star review system made dissuaded companies from risking their Metacritic score at launch. Also, I know reviews make up a large percentage of page views for traditional gaming websites. How much of those page views are generated from links on Metacritic?
Are there any articles that examine how Metacritic affects the way writers perform their job and what editorial concessions must be made to be listed on the site. Considering bonuses often depend on Metacritic scores, you would have to imagine being eligible to be placed on Metacritic as well as following traditional scoring guidelines would place an outlet in a better position to gain access to review copies.
I know Kotaku isn't part of that mess since they don't give scores, but how exactly does that process work behind the scenes. There have been stories on how it affects publishers and developers. How does it affect the editorial content many consumers use to base their purchases off of and many analysts and investors use to determine which publisher has a title that has the potential to be a cash cow franchise.
