Predict Metroid Prime 4’s Metacritic Score

[Fight-the-Streets]

Metacritic.com and Opencritic.com are the most popular sites for aggregated game review scores. However, especially with Metacritic.com, which has been around since 2001, I wonder whether today’s reviews can still be compared to those from the past, and whether their scoring system even makes sense anymore.

Years ago, both gaming magazines and review websites typically used either a 100-point (percentage) system or a 10-point system — often with decimal points, making it effectively equivalent to a 100-point scale. These days, many reviewers only use a 5-point system, or even just a 4-point one. And when they do use a 10-point system, it usually doesn’t include decimals.

In other words, 10 out of 10, 5 out of 5, or 4 out of 4 all translate to 100% on Metacritic and OpenCritic. This makes it much easier for genuinely good games to reach the high 90s compared to the past — because with a 5-point or 4-point system, how else are you supposed to rate a really good game other than giving it the maximum score?

On the other hand, merely good or average games end up being either overrated or underrated compared to earlier years. A 4 out of 5 equals 80%, and a 3 out of 4 equals 75%. A game that might previously have received a nuanced 73% or 7.3 would now simply be a 70% under a whole-number 10-point system. A nuanced 78% or 7.8 becomes a flat 80%.

Another major difference compared to the past is that there are far more reviews today that feed into Metacritic and OpenCritic’s calculations. This also means there are many more shallow or low-quality reviews — written by people who either deliberately want to be controversial, lack expertise, or are simply fanboys/girls or haters. This further distorts the aggregated scores on Metacritic and OpenCritic.