tsweez

I mostly agree. A good sample of reliable critiques is the best judge of quality, but that's relative. Take casual games for example, or the "Potter" type releases that game trade outlets often pan for their simplicity. But more consumer related outlets like NY Times, or Family Circle, or some syndicated columns i.e. Associated Press may recognise quality differenty. It might be less about the character archetypes or storyline for them, and more about ease of use. Remember the old game "Black" by Criterion? No story line really, no mutiliplayer, so game trades overall waffled on the quality. On the consumer front, they dug the graphics, and just like shooting stuff. Two very different opinions to quality. The best you can really do is take the largest sample possible and let all this stuff work itself out. I a perfect world, you'd have a gamer index, and a consumer index which would apply to the audience you are targeting. And yes, I agree about your observations that often business people want numbers for everything. I have to take pause with some of the requests I get for that very reason. Cheers, Tim

I completely agree, the tighter the better. The point that I'm trying to make is that if the industry wants to use an existing index, Metacritic is just fine as the point spread is negligable overall. The challenge for those of us who try to figure out trends over time, is that MC's weighting system has changed dramatically (for the better). Still, it's likely not appropropriate to use the weighted numbers for a historical analyis as you are talking apples and oranges. The highest deviance between the MC Score and the actual average of the media outlets is fourteen points, but that was years ago. You can imagine how plotting genre, platform, developer, ESRB, or publisher performance could get wildly skewed. The point I try to make in my article is that the industry needs an index. We all do. Granted, for the season gamer, their mashups are often in their heads vs MC or GameRanking. They know which outlets to trust, and which hold more weight. The game companies needs trusted sources too, but within the industry their are different applications for those numbers. For example, I read some opinions why using MC is a joke because the rating doesn't apply until after the game is released. Not true. As a game developer you start running a series of mock reviews once it hits alpha or so. These mock reviewers need to communicate what's good and bad about the game. While the document may be 10's of pages long, end the end, it's their Metacritic assumption that carries a good deal of influence. If the publisher thought they had a game worthy of 80, and the mock reviewer says no, it's really a 70, then that affects the projected revenue for that title. Rarely are publishers surprised at a MC score when the game is released. What the industry often doesn't recognize is the nuances of the data. Thats really what I try to do is give them context and advocate a more appropriate solution. Later Gators, Tim

Actually, in the long run, Metacritic is only 1.2 points more conservative on average than GameRankings. In 2008, 19% of their ratings were effected by their weight system, compared to about 70% in 2001 so things are much tighter now. The thing is, we may not agree with the industries selection of a scoring index, but they do need one. If they just used sales numbers as a marker of quality vs. a scoring index, I think we'd be even more disappointed. If you want some more insight here, check GameQuarry.com and look for the video report on their weighting system. You'll also find a video report comparing Metacritic to Gamerankings and an article about how the Video game industry needs a new scoring index, and what that might look like. I'm an industry scoring analyst and I really couldn't care which index is used as my job is the same. And yes, I'm one of the those guys creating powerpoint presentations for the industry. I too have issues, so I'm not trying to change anyones minds here, just providing some context. Here are some links if you are interested: Comparing Metacritic to Gamerankings Uncovering Metacritics Weighting System An Alternative Scoring Index for the Gaming Industry Cheers, Tim