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Amazon now displays Metacritic Score

T

Toxi

Banned
Does this increased importance of Metacritic mean we'll have more devs doing royalty contracts with their publishers depending on Metacritic score like with Obsidian and Bethesda?
 
C

cchum

Member
Amazon user reviews are a better indicator of how much I'll like a game personally. Meta critic slams some games I love and praises many I hate. In other words, games journalism does nothing for me, if anything they reduce the chances of me having good games to play and promotes mechanics that I've grown to hate.
 
S

sjay1994

Member
Htown said:
There's already an aggregated number based on the opinions of a bunch of random people on Amazon pages. It's called the Amazon review score.

Not sure why this is so much worse.
Click to expand...

Because its a lot easier to look at a number, rather than read the reasons why a game got that number.

Its why I hate the word "overrated" because it means "people liked something a lot more than I did" its overrated.
 
T

teruterubozu

Member
Raw64life said:
I had to stare at the pics in the OP for a solid 10 seconds before I noticed it.
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I don't know why OP used that pic, but it's actually way more in-your-face, like this:

Pnl6KVT.png
 
Pop

Pop

Member
Any critic score is just awful. Why in the world would any base their purchases off someones else opinion.

Hell, isn't that what the review section is for.
 
P

PoloBlue28

Banned
Why would they do this? People won't buy products with shit reviews.

Also, Metacritic is a joke. Both on the critic side and the user side, which is just infested with fanboy hate. Exhibit A - Titanfall. Exhibit B - Second Son.
 
H

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
nailbombxx said:
If I'm not mistaken, Journalist reviews on Metacritic have greater influence on the overall score than the common user. Even certain journalist sites don't have the same amount of weight or importance. It is not a level playing field like Amazon's own rating system.
Click to expand...

Good thing they didn't remove Amazon's system, then. Now you have both a critic/weighted average and a user average.

Sounds fine to me.
 
T

test_account

XP-39C²
MetroidPrimeRib said:
Because slapping together 1-5, 1-10, 1-00 into an aggregate of 1-100 as just a plain number with no written review with big reviewers and reviewers nobody has heard of trying to make a name on Metacritic by being the lowest scorer is really really dumb.
And then there's the user reviews, equally as useless and written only in black and white 0/1s or 10/9s with either massive fellating of the game or massive shitting on it
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I think this is the biggest problem indeed. Metacritics should only have accepted review sites that used a 0-100 scale for grading (that includes sites that uses 1-10 with decimal as well, like Gametrailers.com). A review site that works on a 1-5 scale, giving a game 3/5 will give a Metacritic score of 60. If the same reviewer had used a 1-100 scale instead, the result might have been noticeably different, maybe they would have given it a 75/100 instead.

Personally i dont care about review scores though. If i want to play a game, i play it regardless of what other people's opinion is about the game. But when working with a scoring system, i think they should try to make it more fair and equal.
 
R

ReturnOfTheRAT

Member
Is this an April Fools joke? because if it isn't, this is a terrible decision that gives even more power to score aggregator sites like MetaCritic and RT that I've already blocked.
 
K

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
I can certainly understand doing it. I don't have much of a problem with it. Amazon probably sees it as a helpful tool. It also shows that Metacritic is more popular than we all like to believe it is.
 
E

Empty

Member
probably better for encouraging quality games than just letting people go by name or brand recognition but i hate making metacritic more prominent because it privileges bland games that do everything competently and are all things to all people over individualistic, divisive risk-taking games. retail games already go for the former to a ridiculous degree, this just exacerbates things.
 
B

boeso

Member
Naked Snake said:
While I don't necessarily support having metacritic scores on Amazon, I sincerely don't understand the strong hate for metacritic on GAF. It seems irrational to me, especially when "review threads" are usually all the rage for every game here.

It's an aggregate score of a large number independent reviews, what's the big deal? I mostly use metacritic to glance at review scores (and read the blurbs) from individual sites that I care about; it's a convenient way of accessing them all in one place. But I still find the overall "metascore" useful; not in the sense that it would convince me that a game scoring 85 is "better than" one scoring an 80... But surely there's some merit behind it.
Click to expand...

One of my big issues with Metacritic is that it slaps a single number on a game and makes it really easy to compare games that are completely different. It just throws logs into the console war fire. I prefer Amazon's star review average because its less precise and takes some reading to actually understand it. Doesn't really affect me, but it might affect sales and might influence how new games are pitched.
 
T

test_account

XP-39C²
Altered Juice said:
amazon trying to alert consumers that they're about to buy a shit game? i don't see the problem.
Click to expand...
Review scores arent key answers to if a game is good or not though. They are just one or several of people's personal opinion about something. But that goes for every review score, not just Metacritics.
 
T

TheSlySoul

Member
boeso said:
One of my big issues with Metacritic is that it slaps a single number on a game and makes it really easy to compare games that are completely different. It just throws logs into the console war fire. I prefer Amazon's star review average because its less precise and takes some reading to actually understand it. Doesn't really affect me, but it might affect sales and might influence how new games are pitched.
Click to expand...
I have to agree with you. I never pay attention to the scores on Metacritic. I do like how they post a summary of the review. It is like Rotten Tomatoes. I don't see a problem with it though. Now on Firefox, it is way too big. Chrome's way of showing it is fine by me.
 
W

wildfire

Banned
corn_fest said:
Who cares? It saves consumers a step.
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Amazon user reviews are better than metacritic scores. It's not a big deal but it's odd that they would bother with this. I would rather see "consumer report" reviews also published on Amazon if they are going this route.
 
A

AyaisMUsikWhore

Member
jwk94 said:
People are going to look at reviews anyway. This just saves them some time.
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tokkun said:
The fact that individual reviews are not reliable is the whole point of why metacritic is valuable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd
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hey_it's_that_dog said:
Human beings are unique in their ability to learn and benefit extensively from the judgment of others. It would be dumb to waste it.
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SalsaShark said:
uhm. People who care about reviews already google them before buying something. I don't really trust nor use reviews to decide my purchases either but I don't see how this adds or detracts to anything. It saves a step for consumers who care about that.

Saying I dont think this is bad or wrong doesnt mean I suddenly like Metacritic
Click to expand...

The difference here is the numbers game that is continuing to plague this video game industry. Why couldn't they do what Zappos does and have a little review giving a pros and cons? Why rely on Metacritic that applies a number to a number of ratings that distorts the message. A number does not tell you the full story and that's my issue with it. A 70 could mean a lot of things, but how much of that thing matters to you? That's my issue with it. It's a lazy approach that hurts developers more than they do customers.

And to add to this. Star reviews actually represent real people and how they felt which some people value more than a publication giving a half hearted review because business as usual. How many of you buy an expensive product (ie, Speakers, Household electronics, Car parts) reading a publication review vs the person who actually bought the item and can tell you in detail how it worked out for them. It makes a huge difference
 
E

emag

Member
Naked Snake said:
It's an aggregate score of a large number independent reviews, what's the big deal? I mostly use metacritic to glance at review scores (and read the blurbs) from individual sites that I care about; it's a convenient way of accessing them all in one place. But I still find the overall "metascore" useful; not in the sense that it would convince me that a game scoring 85 is "better than" one scoring an 80... But surely there's some merit behind it.
Click to expand...

Pfft. Conformist.

A true gamer doesn't consider professional game reviewers' opinions, but instead forms one's own opinion (based on marketing and GAF cheerleaders).

/s
 
C

Cipherr

Member
GoodCoffeeJoey said:
Steam has done this for years. No-one cares.
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I disliked that when I first saw it. But I can understand that some might feel its a great thing.


I have a personal issue with those aggregate sites though. I don't like boiling games down to a fucking number, that shit sucks. People need to read reviews if they really want to know what they are buying. The more something puts the focus on a number the more I will dislike it.
 
F

flkraven

Member
So I guess the big pubs have even more reason now to pay off journos and embargo game reviews until launch. Great times
 
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