Enough with Metacritic!

[Normando]

arcelonious said:
I don't think that there is anything majorly wrong with the Metacritic system. The website is essentially trying to provide a means for people to become more informed about entertainment before spending money. It's not perfect, as they sometimes include websites that don't have in-depth review criteria (e.g., some review systems are simply based on like, dislike, or hate, rather than more elaborate criteria such as design or technical performance), as well as review sites with more elaborate review criteria not included, but for the most part, it can usually give an individual a decent perspective on a particular game.

The problem is with how people use the data. Using metacritic to help you make a decision about purchasing a game that you are unsure of is a good way of using the site. However, using metacritic to fuel internet forum arguments, or as a way to hurt a company is when it gets ugly, but that issue is more on the people that use metacritic in that manner, rather than the site.

For myself, I tend to only use metacritic when I'm unsure about a purchase. For example, I'll look up a particular game that I'm debating on whether or not I should purchase, and read a few glowing, mixed, and negative reviews (typically from sites that I've come to respect) before coming to a decision. In contrast, I try my hardest not to look at metacritic and reviews of a game that I know I will purchase beforehand, because I don't want to prime myself of any positive or negative elements in the game. I also avoid user reviews, because more often than not, metacritic users tend to rate games in order to influence a game's mean (resulting in extreme scores, particularly on the negative side), rather than honestly rating a game according to a particular set of criteria.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Metacritic itself is a problem or that people shouldn't use it to help them make decisions. I'm saying that I don't think we should be using Metacritic to replace any real debate about one game being better/worse than another.