Here's an interesting article i came across.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/05/29/low-metacritic-costs-developers/

In case you are too lazy to read it, the gist  is that it claims that some developers withhold part of the royalties paid to the developers if the game fails to achieve a certain Metacritic score, regardless of how many copies the game sells.

Makes it a little easier to understand why certain publishers might be willing to spent extra cash advertising casual games.  If the game fails to achieve a certain score then the publishers can use the money that would have been paid to the developers as royalties for advertising. This could it turn help to generate additional sales and additional profit, without affecting the game's total buget .

It also makes me wonder which developers might be guilty of such practices.

Whatta ya think?

That is really bad deal because some reviews dont know how to review games.

^Agreed.

Another reason forget about the credibility of reviews.

This is why we need Steam or other form of DD. Paid Torrenting would work best. You won't need ANY publishers so all the publishing companies would just disappear. I never got why they should earn money for selling someone else's product.

I imagine if it is true then most requirements would be low, probably in the seventies. Or medium, in the eighties.

I can't see many developers promising to make a ninety per cent game.

You mean like Blizzard or Valve?

@Smoked Hostage: I don't really see this as another reason to mistrust reviews, rather it highlights how reviews can have greater importance than just bragging rights for fanboys.

@ Starcraft: Perhaps the requirements are low but if you are a small developer looking for a break, who knows what you might agree to.