Ill add that its wierd you dont include GameInformer as its the most subscribed gaming mag on the planet

Lol, my scientific calculation of the top 10 was simple. I typed in TOP 10 video game websites into google and made a list of the ones that do reviews consistantly. Yeah, it's not scientific, but what's Metacritic's method? Seems like they let any idiot with a website jump on board.

Metacritic should weight the mean with the importance of the magazine/site, or should take out of the mean computation the scores which are too distant from the mean. If they want to be taken seriously that is...

Oh yeah. That's a good one. I'd love to add it, but it's a top ten so something has to go. Which website should I dump in favor of GameInformer? I'm leaning toward UGO or Gamefront.

Yes a person who rates a game 20/100 should not be taken serious at all unless the game is a complete broken smoking pile of dog sh-t . I highly doubt that the game is that bad. You got more trusted sites giving it a 10. So really they are looking for the hits to the website. Thats sad and should be seen as a one way ticket out of the trusted group of reviewers. Also should not be taken into account or even a part of the metacritic system.

this is ridiculous, why cant people just accept that it isnt performing as high as they expected? every game gets its fair share of bad reviews. you guys are literally saying "lets take out all the bad reviews because we dont agree with them" and the op is saying "lets choose which reviews we want to take, and get the average out of the reviews we picked". is metacritic perfect? no, but guess what, all games go through the same thing, all reviews are taken and average is taken from the scores, whether its mario, halo, uncharted, CoD, or games like pitfall. the same rules apply to all.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: If you only count 10 reviews you basically makes it even easier for big publishers to bribe/extort excellent metascores. Also, 10 is a way too small sample size to calculate an average of. I do think however, that review sites should be reviewed for consistency and objectivity and excluded from the system if need be. A 2 out of 10 for Halo 4 is obviously a steaming pile of bullshit, even I as a Halo hater can admit that without having played any Halo, ever.

Edit: I voted yes because everything is flawed.

Yes the same rules apply, but the same reviewers aren't used. The only review sites that get tallied every time are the top ones that go out of their way to employ enough reviewers to review all the latest games. Halo 4 is getting what amounts to troll shots because a few websites are using it to garner hits.

As for your the top 10 websites in the OP. I didn't pick them so much as grabbed them from a list of top gaming websites. I didn't choose the scores and find the websites. I grabbed well respected websites and found the review scores for the list.

What I'm proposing is that a set of 10 websites be used for ALL future arrogates. That way we don't have huge divides in the quality of the reviews uses to average it out. The same top websites will always produce quality reviews with integrity. I find it a little insulting, but really not that insulting, that you would think I went out and found the best scores I could. If I wanted to list ten perfect Halo scores I could.

I agree, everything is flawed. But I don't believe there is a vast pay for score conspiracy.

Who the heck are BigPond GameArena and Quarter to Three? I've never heard of them in my life. Are they actual publications, or are they just bloggers?