fighter said:
Absolutely none of you have been able to come up with a better indicator of quality than metas. And it seems you are not even trying. That alone makes my point.
Everyones point has been that it's still not a good measure of quality. It's the best of an incredibly bad bunch. That doesn't make it a good measure.
Still, as I have faith in the human kind I'll still grant you a few other enlightments :
Publishers and the whole industry take them into account. They are proud of having high scores and disappointed when not, but not only for the effect it will have on sales, also for the pure win.
It makes for decent PR when your games have higher meta ratings. The "pure win" comment just shows the immaturity of the industry as a whole.
Metas being an aggregation of reviews, the pressure of Publishers PRs on journalists is disminished. The smarter people will have noticed that early reviews are higher than the ones later. That's because the exclusivity of an early copy or of an early deenbargo onthe publication of the review comes at the price, more or less implicit, that the review must be favorable ('if you believe that the game deserves an 8.7 we would be glad to let you publish this week intead of the next" is a common tactic")
I'm not sure how this is a good thing. If anything it shows that meta ratings and scores are open to certain forms of bribery and manipulation. This doesn't in any way show it's a good measure of quality, actually quite the opposite. Do you honestly think this makes meta scores accurate representations of quality?
Last but not least, these metas are simply the most efficient indicator possible. Professionals and not amateurs. Non-selling entities instead of publishers' PR (god knows how fans of a game can buy everything a company says for years and then claim reviewers are the mistaken ones) XD
I've already made the point that they're nearly all amateurs. Enthusiast press does not equate to professionals, especially when a lot of publishers serenade reviewers. Many publications are simply an extension of PR especially when they're paying for adverts on these supposedly professional websites.
Anyway, thanks for confirming my point 
http://gametheoryonline.com/2010/07/07/why-metacritic-matters/
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