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Clear evidence of metacritic platform favoritism. Same game, different scores for each platform🙃

kingfey

Banned

Ps5 11 reviews: 79 metacritic.


Pc 4 reviews: 71 metacritic


Switch 5 reviews: 67 meta critic


Xbox series X 4 reviews: 57 metacritic


Ps5 example reviews.
Screen rant 90 metacritic
"Greak is yet another great Metroidvania that manages to make the genre feel fresh and empowering. While the world of this story is dark, the feeling players are left with is one of joy, and its well-paced runtime leaves room for both a sequel and replay value."

Gamespew: 60 metacritic
"With a fairly short running time, at least Greak: Memories of Azur doesn’t require much commitment to see it through. I just can’t help but feel that if your companions were computer-controlled and actually assisted you in combat, or at least tried to keep out of the way of your enemies rather than simply standing motionless, my review would be much more glowing. As it is, for every few minutes of joy I had with Greak: Memories of Azur, I generally had another filled with some level of frustration. Ultimately that lead to a great deal of disappointment, which is a real shame."

Xbox series x example.
MondXbox: 74 metacritic
"A truly original game in its genre but enjoyable, but unlikely to remain in your head over the years due to some gameplay flaws."

Nme: 40 metacritic
"Greak: Memories of Azur is tantalisingly close to being a good game, but multiple design decisions pull it back from a recommendation. Despite a gorgeous art style and pretty soundtrack, actually playing this one is too often a fiddly and imprecise lesson in frustration."

Switch example.
Eurogamer: 80 metacritic
Quotation forthcoming."

Nintendo world report: 55 metacritic

"At first glance, it’s completely understandable to be entranced by the gorgeous environments and backgrounds of Greak: Memories of Azur. Don’t be lured unaware by its siren call! While there is a decent experience underneath, some inexplicable design decisions, the uninspired sidequests and serviceable story don’t buoy the adventure enough to make up for how badly implemented the game’s primary mechanic is. If you came away from the eShop demo impressed or you’re able to overlook a very obvious fatal flaw, you might be able to derive some pleasure out of Greak’s mission. Don’t expect to find me spending much time reminiscing about these memories."
Pc example reviews
Pc invasion 80 metacritic
"Short, but unique and satisfying despite some frustrating elements, Greak: Memories of Azur is a winning actiony puzzle-platformer with some of the best 2D visuals you can find."

Slant: 50 metacritic
"By himself, Greak feels like a dull carbon copy of so many protagonists from recent action-exploration games, namely Hollow Knight. Having Adara and Raydel eventually accompany him, so that you’re simultaneously controlling three characters, adds a superficially more creative, if awkward, layer to the game, a multi-character gimmick that Greak never fully utilizes. But the puzzles tend toward the rote, as in one character needing to hold down a pressure plate or crank open a door to facilitate the path forward for everyone in the group."


edit: My point with this post is to show, that metacritic reviews is pointless. Its not about my platform that, or this.

most people will look at the score and judge the game.

if you are an xbox player, you will get the idea, that the game is garbage and not worth buying. Thus affecting the game's sales in the xbox platform.

these are the issues of relying metacritic for judging games. And most of time, good games gets lost that way.
 
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SJRB

Gold Member
w4As0wE.gif


It's all a big conspiracy I tell ya
 

Shubh_C63

Member
It's not strange and I would say it is more prefferable. Xbox like minded people can follow reviewers that think like them, making xbox, PC, PS centric reviewers better.

There is no one absolute rating for anything.
 

kingfey

Banned
I almost hope this is a troll thread?

Different outlets review games on different platforms, which always leads to different platform scores. There's no "favoritism".
Even if you take it that way, the 79 overall ratings vs 57 rating tells different things.

When you are a gamer and see this kind of score, your first thought would be, this game is bad on this console.

This is what this these rating is creating.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
MC like the gameawards ..... are nonsense antics and obviously, for a very banal law of the market, they will always favor the platform with the largest number of users and for this reason their credibility (from the point of view of what they would like to represent) borders on zero. period
 
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b6a6es

Banned
You could’ve done the same exact thing with Switch VS PS4 in Multiplat MC scores for games like NEO TWEWY & The Great Ace Attorney being in favor of the Switch, but nooooo this needs to be about (muh xbox conspiracy theory thread)
 
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If you can show a larger pattern it could point to reviewers for certain platforms might just have a different idea of what a 7 game is. A 7 on Xbox could be different than a 7 on switch.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Maybe... just maybe... some games ARE better or worse on specific platforms.
That isnt the case with the game OP is pointing out.

The game technically is the same on all the platforms.
For instance the way IGN and Gamespot do reviews they would give this game the same score on all platforms because it is actually the same experience on all platforms.

We arent talking Bayonetta PS3 shit here.

But tis why I dont bother with Metacritic.
 

packy34

Member
maybe ....but ..honestly no
I'm sure something like Immortals: Fenyx Rising is just as good on Switch as it on PC then, right?
That isnt the case with the game OP is pointing out.

The game technically is the same on all the platforms.
For instance the way IGN and Gamespot do reviews they would give this game the same score on all platforms because it is actually the same experience on all platforms.

We arent talking Bayonetta PS3 shit here.

But tis why I dont bother with Metacritic.
Then this is just cherry-picking. OP found an extreme example of a game (which doesn't have many total reviews across all platforms anyway) to try and make some weird victimization point, when in reality things are much simpler and obvious.

The reviewers who played it on Platform X liked it more than those who played it on Platform Y. And since Platform Y has significantly less reviews, the disparity appears larger. There's no malicious intent on anyone's part here, and to suggest otherwise is frankly asinine.
 

kingfey

Banned
Different reviewers on each platform along with the fact that there's a different number of reviews contributing to the aggregate on each platform.

What's your point?
The point is what do these numbers tell to gamers.
Especially those who look at the game reviews.

The game is being hurt by the platform, which it has low reviews score. Especially, if you are one platform person.
 

GHG

Gold Member
The point is what do these numbers tell to gamers.
Especially those who look at the game reviews.

The game is being hurt by the platform, which it has low reviews score. Especially, if you are one platform person.

So what's the solution then? Forcing a single reviewer to play and review all platforms of the game simultaneously?

Where are you even going with this?
 

packy34

Member
The point is what do these numbers tell to gamers.
Especially those who look at the game reviews.

The game is being hurt by the platform, which it has low reviews score. Especially, if you are one platform person.
Are you suggesting that this practice is widespread? You have one example here, and it's a game with barely any reviews, relative to what you would see for a bigger third-party title. At best, this thread is totally misguided. At worst, it's intentionally misleading.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
The same game doesn't necessarily has to be the same on every platform, CP2077 being the very best example here, so it's fully understandable there are some differences here and there.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
I'm sure something like Immortals: Fenyx Rising is just as good on Switch as it on PC then, right?

Then this is just cherry-picking. OP found an extreme example of a game (which doesn't have many total reviews across all platforms anyway) to try and make some weird victimization point, when in reality things are much simpler and obvious.

The reviewers who played it on Platform X liked it more than those who played it on Platform Y. And since Platform Y has significantly less reviews, the disparity appears larger. There's no malicious intent on anyone's part here, and to suggest otherwise is frankly asinine.

Ohh im not disputing that or even really on the OPs side with this.

Simply pointing out that while indeed we do get situations like Bayonetta where a game is clearly better on one platform over another.
In this case and many case where the games are effectively the same regardless of platform you still see scores varying widely.

Its just a failure in Metacritic i dont think its a conspiracy but it certainly is something to consider whenever you use Metacritic to make decisions.
If Metacritic is your go to, read the reviews of Game X on every platform.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I don't think this is all that strange.

Could be different reviewers, could be that the game is better optimised on one platform, could be that the game has more content on one platform for whatever reason etc. etc.

Mainly just seems like a difference in opinion about the game from different people in this case though.

But maybe they should have an average for the game itself on Metacritic, something that isn't system specific and considers all reviews on all platforms.
 
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kingfey

Banned
So what's the solution then? Forcing a single reviewer to play and review all platforms of the game simultaneously?

Where are you even going with this?
When you buy a game, what do you look for?
Most people look at metacritic to judge it.
This is the issue.
You have a game, which tells 2 different stories.
One 1 platform. Its very good. On other, it's meh.

I dont want reviews to review the game for all platforms. Since that would be impossible to do it.

I am just disappointed that this type of reviews are what holds the game down.
 

kingfey

Banned
Different number of reviews and reviver writers.
What is your thought of overall score?

Would that impact your decision for buying the game?

Let's say the game is sitting at 57 on Playstation, would you buy the game? Or would you ignore it, because the game has low rating, and not worth your time?
 

Kilau

Gold Member
Am I wrong or isn't metacritic just a dumb website that regurgitates reviews from recognised review sites verbatim?
They have their own formula but essentially yes they take individual review scores and treat them as a panel of judges with an averaged score.
 

reksveks

Member
Firstly pull a db of the 2020/2021 games GitHub - JaeguKim/Metacritic-Python-API: You can parse user-score, critic-score, and other information using this API.

- pivot the games by platform to get score per platform
- pivot the games by platform by multiplatform status
- pivot the games by reviewers/domain

I am sure there is a couple of more graphs that would be helpful, you wouldn't be able to figure out issues like performance optimisations but you might be able to gain some insights.

Finally you should ignore people using metacritic for console warring or comparing library of games.
 

bender

What time is it?
What is your thought of overall score?

Would that impact your decision for buying the game?

Let's say the game is sitting at 57 on Playstation, would you buy the game? Or would you ignore it, because the game has low rating, and not worth your time?

I'd probably look at the number of reviews per platform and realize that outlier reviews, both negative and positive, are going to have a much larger impact on the average score the fewer review scores that are submitted for any given title.
 

kingfey

Banned
Firstly pull a db of the 2020/2021 games GitHub - JaeguKim/Metacritic-Python-API: You can parse user-score, critic-score, and other information using this API.

- pivot the games by platform to get score per platform
- pivot the games by platform by multiplatform status
- pivot the games by reviewers/domain

I am sure there is a couple of more graphs that would be helpful, you wouldn't be able to figure out issues like performance optimisations but you might be able to gain some insights.

Finally you should ignore people using metacritic for console warring or comparing library of games.
I have played alot of good games, which had shit metacritic.

Metacritic is useless, when you judge how good a game is.

Reviews often use hard as dark souls, and other games, when reviewing a simple game.

My moto is, watch YouTube gameplay, and judge yourself if the game is good for you or not.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
When you buy a game, what do you look for?
Most people look at metacritic to judge it.
This is the issue.
You have a game, which tells 2 different stories.
One 1 platform. Its very good. On other, it's meh.

I dont want reviews to review the game for all platforms. Since that would be impossible to do it.

I am just disappointed that this type of reviews are what holds the game down.
Opencritic is basically a better version of Metacritic.
Unless there are serious differences between versions of game Metacritic should just have a game be listed once or rather regardless of platform selected the aggregate is of all reviews for said game.
If the Switch version is vastly different it can get its own page/listing.

Otherwise if a game is effectively the same why have multiple pages for it?

P.S Use Opencritic instead of Metacritic, hopefully publishers who issue bonus based on reviews have already started using Opencritic instead of Metacritic.
 

ethomaz

Banned
What is your thought of overall score?

Would that impact your decision for buying the game?

Let's say the game is sitting at 57 on Playstation, would you buy the game? Or would you ignore it, because the game has low rating, and not worth your time?
I find Metacritic very useful for my purchases… you just need to learn how to use it.

For example when I want to play a new JRPG I go on Metacritic and start to to read the reviews summaries of the games with best scores until find something that I have desire to read… after got my interest I watch some gameplay videos and set the deal with that game.

Sometimes I end getting a 80ish… others a 70ish… even 60ish I played in the past… so the low score doesn’t really make me avoid a game.

It is all about if I got interested in the titles or not… and Metacritic aggregation is pretty useful for that.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
Opencritic is basically a better version of Metacritic.
Unless there are serious differences between versions of game Metacritic should just have a game be listed once or rather regardless of platform selected the aggregate is of all reviews for said game.
If the Switch version is vastly different it can get its own page/listing.

Otherwise if a game is effectively the same why have multiple pages for it?

P.S Use Opencritic instead of Metacritic, hopefully publishers who issue bonus based on reviews have already started using Opencritic instead of Metacritic.
I find Metacritic way better and easier to use than OpenCritic.

Said that I’m just looking for PS reviewers of a game so Metacritic nails it… I review of a game on PC or Switch doesn’t interest me making OpenCritic sometimes a waste of time.

OpenCritic aggregation without weight is more fair imo but the difference in scores should be 1-2 points in most cases… the weighted Metacritic’s should not be drastically chanced without it.

BTW games vastly diverse in quality across platforms… so not separating it feel really weird.
 
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reksveks

Member
My moto is, watch YouTube gameplay, and judge yourself if the game is good for you or not.

I do listen to reviews but only the reviewers that have seemed to previously have similar taste to myself. The giantbomb crew was very much similar to myself for taste.
 
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