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Metacritic drops individual developer ratings for good

by Griffin McElroy on Mar 31st 2011 5:00PM

Though Metacritic's recent policy of not only applying scores to video games, but also the individual people who created those games, drew some ire from the site's users, we thought it was a masterstroke. Assigning people arbitrary scores based on their past achievements? Seriously, the person who came up with that had to be, like, at least a 93. Sadly, the ratings were short-lived, and in a recent GamesIndustry interview, Metacritic founder Marc Doyle (a known 77) said, "We have no plans to bring it back."

Ultimately, Mr. 77 said the site isn't meant to "fuel some larger discussion over what person is more worthy than some other person." That's actually kind of a nice sentiment, but it's that lack of bloodthirstiness that's keeping Mr. Doyle from breaking into the low 80s.

Via: CVG
Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Tags: developers, industry, marc-doyle, metacritic, rating, reviews, scores

Reader Comments (33)

Good riddance.

@SHAUUUN. Sounds like someone is a bitter 53...

Why did they come up that anyways?

@Trogdorwhore I have no idea. A drunken night out?

I used to love Metacritic.
Then they updated,.....
And I could never get used to their new site.
NEVER.

@NerdyNose245

I know - the revamped site is horrible.

You simply cannot at a glance just see a good size list of new games that have come out like with the old site.

You have to click through a few things just to see this type of a list.

Maybe they did this on purpose so that you click through more screens and thereby go through more banner ads.

@JasonA
Wait are we talking about metracritic or kotaku.

Griffin, you're a funny dude.

@Typhonic

92

@Typhonic

Griffin is the only writer to get a perfect score from Famitsu.

@Typhonic I'd rate Griffin a straight 90, just for this post alone.

@Typhonic

Sorry but only a true Aryan could reach the 90s.

I didn't know that they did that.

Seems like an incredibly stupid idea.

How 42 of them.

@Qehb

Wait, but 42 is awesome, it's the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything. So you think they are awesome?

They probably had to cancel it before someone added Bobby Kotick into the system, yielding some score of a null value, or "Super-Negative," wrecking the comparative algorithmic features and likely creating some quantum fissure that could destroy the known universe.

Chances are they were inundated with massive outcry from the shlock developers who only put out one noteworthy game every 5 years :p.

I enjoyed reading that. I will mark you a couple of points higher...

The system was flawed anyways. Cliffy B was raked higher than Hideo Kojima. As Gears of War fanboy, that's just plain wrong.

@Riley Freeman

Why is that just plain wrong?

If he was higher than Miyamoto I could see some kind of outcry. But Kojima? He makes some silly, homo erotic, interactive movie series. I'd rate Cliffy higher.

I didn't even realize they did that, but yeah, I'd agree it seems like a bit too personal to single out on an individual. Will they also be dropping this for individual actors and/or musicians too or just developers?

@bensmith91
Don't know, but with actors, you can at least rate their performance somewhat independently of the film (i.e. 'that film sucked, but [x] was pretty good in it), and with musicians if they suck it's usually their own fault.

With developers, a game could suck for all sorts of reasons (producer insists on a release date, etc) and there's no way for anyone to break out 'oh, well, the game sucked, but you could see [x]'s part was pretty cool'.

@bensmith91

maybe if it was just a dev company being rated instead of a single dev it would be better. i don't have any issue with them ranking dev companies though since some are WAY better than others and putting out crappy or awesome games is usually a trend.

It makes no sense to rate individual PEOPLE. Now, if the system had rated individual STUDIOS then I would have been less offended (but still disturbed).

@Lerkero

Metacritic already rates individual studios.

Something tells me BioWare had something to do with this

Who legitimately bases their opinion on metacritic anyways? The only thing it can tell you is one of two things: 70< = crap, >70 = subject to your own opinion (mediocre, good or great).

@Marshillboy
Not true, it can legitimately tell you (in their normal game rankings) the aggregate score that critics give the game.

The way you interpret that is up to you but I certainly interpret it in a much more detailed manner than you do. There's no guarantee that everyone will like every game that's rated over 90, for instance (I mean there are probably sports games that are over 90 and I still won't like them) but in general it's an extremely good predictor of quality.

Or to put that more briefly... Newsflash: Statistics works.

(Oops. The 1800s called, and they want their newsflash back! Still, it does seem to be taking a little time to sink in...)

@xxxsam

Game reviews aren't even about quality anymore, only the size of the studio and it's budget. Crysis 2 (a godawful console port) gets an 88, and some of my favorite games get 70s. You can't quantify something as subjective as enjoyment of entertainment, only real numbers like sales, budget, and advertisement. That's why I don't bother to read review of anything anymore.

I'm changing my gamertag to "masterstroke".

I would rate Metacritic itself a 52.

Given how arbitrary the whole concept of aggregating review scores from wildly different standards across the board, why not at least assign values to the developers (not individuals, but the companies, individuals would indeed be strange)

"Metacritic drops ---------- --------- ------- for good."

I can dream.

Breaking News

Metacritic drops individual developer ratings for good

Reader Comments (33)

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:03PM SHAUUUN said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:37PM The Wicker Man said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:07PM Trogdorwhore said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:47PM LEONLEONLEON said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:07PM NerdyNose245 said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:10PM JasonA said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:55PM Special Agent Bob said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:07PM Typhonic said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:17PM Dante G said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:23PM Zertoss said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:28PM creid8 said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:52PM Getchow hands out my fries said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:08PM JasonA said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:08PM Qehb said

Posted: Apr 1st 2011 3:03AM Courtney said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:09PM RedRaptor82 said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:15PM JasonGW said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:18PM Scummer said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:30PM Riley Freeman said

Posted: Apr 1st 2011 8:23AM Jenks said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:35PM bensmith91 said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 6:43PM xxxsam said

Posted: Apr 3rd 2011 3:15PM SoCoolCurt said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 5:47PM Lerkero said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 7:18PM draknahr said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 6:03PM wcarnation said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 6:34PM Marshillboy said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 6:51PM xxxsam said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 8:05PM Marshillboy said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 6:46PM JUNG GUNS said

Posted: Mar 31st 2011 7:46PM Red Runner said

Posted: Apr 1st 2011 11:25AM Mr Khan said

Posted: Apr 1st 2011 3:51PM Dhexodus said

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