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[DarkLordMalik]

Since this is brought up a lot, I saw this article posted by Finder.com who have done a lot of case study for Metacritic. It was posted recently and appears to have a lot of insightful data and graphs for your interest showing the metacritic average.

20 years of Metacritic scores shows a steady decline in 90 and above titles

Some graphs

 

[KZXcellent]

Critics have gotten better and have been more critical. There's also a lot more of them so one or two outliers can tank a score and vice versa. Also, yikes 2015 was rough.

 

[Kaelan]

Along with reviews getting more harsh then generation, it's not too surprising. Too many games being rushed, patches being held, wanting to be a "service" model. Things like this happen

 

[More_Badass]

What came out in 2001?

 

[higemaru]

but I thought gaming media were shills and couldn't be trusted /s

This is good to see though. 9/10s were given out a lot and it kinda made the whole concept of a rating system a joke. We get a lot of 8/10s now but that feels accurate for a lot of games personally. A lot of games are just very well made and enjoyable, I.e. a 7.5 or 8.

Now when is Metacritic gonna make everything 70 and up green.

 

[nbnt]

2001 was lit

 

[GhostTrick]

Critics have gotten better and have been more critical. There's also a lot more of them so one or two outliers can tank a score and vice versa. Also, yikes 2015 was rough.

Or games just got worse and less polished.

 

[BocoDragon]

I think this reflects more on the increasingly discerning games media more than the games' quality itself decreasing.

During the last PS360 generation, quality assurance and AAA budget demands needing to recoup costs meant more games were competent and full of content than ever before. There are increasingly fewer bad games than in olden days.

 

[Phediuk]

Score inflation was pretty ridiculous last decade. Reviews in general have improved since then and read less like product reviews (here's the graphics paragraph, here's the story paragraph, here's the sound paragraph, etc.) I also feel that, in the early days of "AAA" gaming, reviewers were more likely to fall into lockstep with a game's hype cycle and marketing push.

Not a chance in hell would something like LittleBigPlanet get a 95 Metascore today.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I am not seeing a visual depiction of a steady decline.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

What came out in 2001?

Go to the article and they have a table of every 90+ game. Sort by release year.

97	Grand Theft Auto III	8.5	2001
97	Halo: Combat Evolved	8.6	2001
96	Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty	8.7	2001
95	Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec	8.4	2001
94	Devil May Cry	8.5	2001
94	Madden NFL 2002	7.9	2001
93	Mario Kart Super Circuit	8.3	2001
93	Paper Mario	9.2	2001
93	NBA 2K2	7.7	2001
92	SSX Tricky	8.9	2001
92	NHL 2002	8.5	2001
92	Advance Wars	9	2001
92	Super Smash Bros. Melee	9.1	2001
92	Final Fantasy X	8.7	2001
92	Conker's Bad Fur Day	9.2	2001
91	Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil	9.1	2001
91	IL-2 Sturmovik	8.8	2001
91	Twisted Metal: Black	8.4	2001
91	Golden Sun	9.3	2001
91	Castlevania: Circle of the Moon	8.5	2001
90	ICO	8.8	2001
90	Tennis 2K2	8	2001
90	Black & White	7.7	2001
90	Dance Dance Revolution	8.8	2001
90	Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy	8.7	2001
90	Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II	8.6	2001
90	NCAA Football 2002	8.7	2001
90	Unreal Tournament	8.6	2001
90	Sid Meier's Civilization III	8.4	2001
90	NFL 2K2	8	2001
90	Flight Simulator 2002	8.4	2001

 

[Mohasus]

No wonder we see so many "is this gen the worst only for me?" threads.

 

[Timeless]

Doesn't mean much. Outlets change over time, as do reviewers, as does which outlets are included in Metacritic. Individual games are also more niche and specialized and fewer outlets care about "objective" reviews. Brad Shoemaker of Giant Bomb might give Dota 2 a 5/5 but other people on that same site wouldn't rate it that high.

There can only be one jump to 3D. VR might be a second chance at that high excitement, but thus far, the press has had more muted response to it than the 3D jump, and there aren't that many traditional or lengthy gaming experiences in VR.

I would be much more interested in present-day user ratings of games throughout history.

 

[BocoDragon]

Or games just got worse and less polished.

Games are infinitely more polished than ever before. When you have a broken game in today's landscape (Aliens Colonial Marine or Afro Samurai 2 come to mind), it's a big controversy, even if it's a niche release.

Not every game in the rose coloured rearview mirror was an OoT or Chrono Trigger. There were more shovels full of crap in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.

2001 was lit

 

[massoluk]

Hmmmm. I swore 1996 was the peak awesome year, but it is the low? My mind is playing trick on me.

Or the cut off at 90%

 

[yophlow]

Games are infinitely more polished than ever before. When you have a broken game in today's landscape (Aliens Colonial Marine or Afro Samurai 2 come to mind), it's a big controversy, even if it's a niche release.

Not every game in the rose coloured rearview mirror was an OoT or Chrono Trigger. There were more shovels full of crap in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.

Pretty much. Games are way better quality than ever. It's just easier to find, discuss and complain about small bugs, which makes games seem way jankier than they are.

Games are just as good as they ever were, if not better. There's simply more of them, so the unique, generation defining experiences that push some mega 90+ scores are a bit less frequent.

 

[takriel]

This statistic needs the total amount of games released per year for a more complete picture.

 

[GhostTrick]

Games are infinitely more polished than ever before. When you have a broken game in today's landscape (Aliens Colonial Marine or Afro Samurai 2 come to mind), it's a big controversy, even if it's a niche release.

Not every game in the rose coloured rearview mirror was an OoT or Chrono Trigger. There were more shovels full of crap in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.

Take a release like FFXV. Why a game serie which used to score to the likes of 90 and beyond is now sitting at 82 ? Because it's less polished and less good.

 

[BocoDragon]

Hmmmm. I swore 1996 was the peak awesome year, but it is the low? My mind is playing trick on me.

Or the cut off at 90%

That was quite a lull year. I wonder what you'd even be talking about.... Super Mario RPG and Mario 64? Diablo I suppose? It wasn't a golden year.

 

[Cartman86]

I'm sure this takes into account WHO reviewed in 2001 (and if they continue to) and how many outlets there were. Using reviews from before the existence of Metacritic itself is useless if you want to compare to reviews post Metacritic.

 

[gblues]

It would be nice if they had data for total number of games released per year to go with the number of 90+ scores the same year. It's hard to come to any meaningful conclusions without that. It also conflates three generations of hardware into a single plot which makes the per-vendor breakout useless as well.

Seems like fluff with numbers to me.

 

[idwl]

2016 Nintendo's first year without a 90+ game

 

[Theslammer]

Or games just got worse and less polished.

Many of those 90+ games were not polished back in the day.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

I am not seeing a visual depiction of a steady decline.

Yeah, I'm seeing a more logical approach to things.

There's far more games being made now than 2001, with far more critics rating them than in 2001, with far more critical rating since 2001, and far less moneyhatted reviews than in 2001, and far less bias towards good graphical titles.

 

[massoluk]

That was quite a lull year. I wonder what you'd even be talking about.... Super Mario RPG and Mario 64? Diablo I suppose? It wasn't a golden year.

Duke, Quake, Pokemon, Tomb Raider, Civ II, Resident Evil, Tekken 2, Wave Race 64.

 

[Stumpokapow]

This statistic needs the total amount of games released per year for a more complete picture.

If we presume that SKU count decrease is playing a role, it's unclear if it should raise, lower, or neither the count statistic. It might raise it by ensuring that resources are concentrated on the best ideas; it might lower it by lowering long-shot hits which would not be predicted to be any good but beat the odds; it might do either if the SKU count decrease was explained by, say, a rapid drop in licensed titles with little impact on the types of development that generate 90+ MC games.

 

[brickarts295]

Go to the article and they have a table of every 90+ game. Sort by release year.

[B]97	Grand Theft Auto III	8.5	2001[/B]
[B]97	Halo: Combat Evolved	8.6	2001[/B]
[B]96	Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty	8.7	2001[/B]
[B]95	Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec	8.4	2001[/B]
[B]94	Devil May Cry	8.5	2001[/B]
94	Madden NFL 2002	7.9	2001
[B]93	Mario Kart Super Circuit	8.3	2001[/B]
[B]93	Paper Mario	9.2	2001[/B]
93	NBA 2K2	7.7	2001
92	SSX Tricky	8.9	2001
92	NHL 2002	8.5	2001
92	Advance Wars	9	2001
[B]92	Super Smash Bros. Melee	9.1	2001[/B]
[B]92	Final Fantasy X	8.7	2001[/B]
[B]92	Conker's Bad Fur Day	9.2	2001[/B]
91	Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil	9.1	2001
91	IL-2 Sturmovik	8.8	2001
[B]91	Twisted Metal: Black	8.4	2001[/B]
91	Golden Sun	9.3	2001
91	Castlevania: Circle of the Moon	8.5	2001
[B]90	ICO	8.8	2001[/B]
90	Tennis 2K2	8	2001
90	Black & White	7.7	2001
[B]90	Dance Dance Revolution	8.8	2001[/B]
[B]90	Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy	8.7	2001[/B]
[B]90	Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II	8.6	2001[/B]
90	NCAA Football 2002	8.7	2001
[B]90	Unreal Tournament	8.6	2001[/B]
[B]90	Sid Meier's Civilization III	8.4	2001[/B]
90	NFL 2K2	8	2001
90	Flight Simulator 2002	8.4	2001

Jesus H Christ, what godly year.

 

[BocoDragon]

Take a release like FFXV. Why a game serie which used to score to the likes of 90 and beyond is now sitting at 82 ? Because it's less polished and less good.

XV is a complete oddball release and says more about one odd company and one odd 10 year troubled project. It's not typical of modern gaming.

 

[Celine]

Dat flat Sega line (after the DC brief spike) ;_;

 

[BocoDragon]

Duke, Quake, Pokemon, Tomb Raider, Civ II, Resident Evil, Tekken 2

Not my holy grails. Kind of the secondary games that pad out the landscape.

Look to 1998, 2001 or 2004 for a real winner's year.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

That was quite a lull year. I wonder what you'd even be talking about.... Super Mario RPG and Mario 64? Diablo I suppose? It wasn't a golden year.

It also had Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. It was a pretty important year. I'd argue it was the year that really kicked off that generation of consoles. It might not have had an overall quality of the years to come, but the big games of that year were BIG.

You really cant understate the importance of games like Mario 64, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

Jesus H Christ, what godly year.

Indeed, it was up there in the ranks of best years for gaming ever.

 

[acm2000]

Considering the sheer amount of review outlets these days compared to then how is this surprising?

 

[Skux]

Critics have gotten better and have been more critical. There's also a lot more of them so one or two outliers can tank a score and vice versa. Also, yikes 2015 was rough.

Yeah. The "metagame" of reviews has become far less needlessly glowing and a little more critical. Gamers were tired of reviews reading like advertising, and the whole Doritogate thing really brought to light a lot of the biases and conflicts of interest that many people used to gloss over. Also, outlier reviews have increased alongside the clickbait generation. Many outlets will go against the grain and give a great game bad reviews just for hits.

 

[AzureFlame]

Gaming quality is in decline for me personally as well.

 

[Randomizer123454444]

I think people have just gotten more critical. Maybe one day we will use the 0 - 100 scale properly, where 50 is an average game instead of current "average game" of 75-80 points or so.

 

[TheWorthyEdge]

Doesn't mean that the quality of the best games have gone down. Just less of them and also totally different playing fields for games and critics.

 

[BocoDragon]

It also had Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. It was a pretty important year. I'd argue it was the year that really kicked off that generation of consoles. It might not have had an overall quality of the years to come, but the big games of that year were BIG.

I'll take 97, 98, 99 or 2000 over 1996 anyday. I don't need to get into list wars, but games like FF7, SotN, OoT are the kind of high bar games I think of.

 

[Dash_Riprock]

What came out in 2001?

.

 

[Basileus777]

If we presume that SKU count decrease is playing a role, it's unclear if it should raise, lower, or neither the count statistic. It might raise it by ensuring that resources are concentrated on the best ideas; it might lower it by lowering long-shot hits which would not be predicted to be any good but beat the odds; it might do either if the SKU count decrease was explained by, say, a rapid drop in licensed titles with little impact on the types of development that generate 90+ MC games.

Is there even a SKU count decrease? This is counting digital only titles. There are too many variables to compare number of releases here in a useful way.

 

[Crayolan]

Nintendo with the zero in 2016. Not that they released much last year anyway.

 

[Greatest Ever]

It's almost like this is a medium where there's no academic standards for critique, resulting in poor writing, reviews, blatant fanboyism, a general lack of regard towards a game past its launch, bloated scoring, shallow reviewing methods, etc.

Medium's critics have stunk for a long time now. Good to see them reeling it in.

 

[JesseEwiak]

More critics, harsher critics, higher expectations, more wide variety of views. It's not that surprising. In 1998, there was what, a few dozen websites and a couple magazines on Metacritic for games?

 

[Acquiescence]

Games aren't getting worse, critics are getting tougher. We're well past the days where a borefest like GTA IV can soar to 98 on Metacritic now.

 

[Hidden One]

2016 Nintendo's first year without a 90+ game

2016 was a evil year.

 

[BocoDragon]

More critics, harsher critics, higher expectations, more wide variety of views. It's not that surprising. In 1998, there was what, a few dozen websites and a couple magazines on Metacritic for games?

Now that you mention it, there was technically no Meteoritic until 1999 (and no one noticed it for years after that). It raises an interesting question of what sites/mags they retroactively considered.

They surely didn't count my 11/10 freelance review for Final Fantasy Tactics on some website I can't remember the name of now

 

[massoluk]

Not my holy grails. Kind of the secondary games that pad out the landscape.

Look to 1998, 2001 or 2004 for a real winner's year.

Each to his own, SM64 and Civ 2 made 1996 it for me

 

[BocoDragon]

Each to his own, SM64 and Civ 2 made 1996 it for me

I played those in 1996. Good games but I guess I don't consider them as part of a larger golden era. To each their own, as you say.

 

[bj00rn_]

I feel that With a flood of blog type reviewers (compared to a few years ago when the scores came from a few biggest sites and magazines) that sometimes speculates in giving low scores for the attention there has clearly been a shift. Are there any signs that gaming sites that has been in the industry for a long time has changed their ways btw?

 

[spineduke]

Yet we had significantly more game releases than ever in 2016 - something doesn't add up. Statistically, we should be seeing more games in the 90+ range, not less.