Two reasons:

1. Its a great way to find games you haven't played yet which may be decent, 70+ meta or so.

2. Its a more objective source to find out the overall value of a game, or group of games. If I wanted to show that the Xbox 360 has a great quantity of true exclusive games how else do I prove it? I find my own bias even more potent that the somewhat neutral bias of that site (PS/360 games).

There's a serious logical error with the proposition that averaging many subjective statistics creates an objective statistic. This isn't alchemy - the subjectivity remains no matter how what you do with it. 

And yes, some people, many of them video game fans, really are stupid or weak enough that they need to be told what to think; or alternatively, they want to like what they think everybody else likes. Reviews are good for that, and not much else.

If I want to find out info about an older game, I find the story, find videos of gameplay then judge accordingly.

It's another tool for arguments.. that's just it really....

cause some gamers can't enjoy fun games unless they have 99% and are consider the hot shit by every other gamer. to further explain humans feel the need to ratificate their existance and likings through other peopleand other peoples words and eyes(atleast on modern society), so thats what metacritic and gamerankings are for.

You should know if your studying journalism that people in general are like sheep. Propaganda is easily used to manipulate and game reviews, along with manipulated journalists (we are part of that manufactured consent, chomsky), are another part of that big machine of misinformation.

Clearly right now there is a system of last gen core gamers who have become core programmers and core journalists. Its a circle jerk and because of it Wii Music / Fit etc will never be entirely accepted.

its just for gloating and arguments sakes thats all.

i do like meta to find individual reviews, but aggregated im totally against. as its clearly unfair.

I don't bother looking at these reviews, I look at gamers' reviews. I have lost trust in reviews ever since GTA 4 because I was brought to believe it was a near perfect game when in reality had so many glitches that I lost complete interest in it an hour into the game.

i don't know maybe its the same as how people like to hear their friends say their girlfriends hot. They want their own opinion reinforced. If you think your girlfriend is hot but your friends say she is ugly if you insecure and what not you will probably dump your girlfriend, which is sad.

GTA 4 is the second best game of all time




I promise, journalists are objective and honest without any commercial or personal influence on their decisions.