Amazon Adds Metacritic Scores to Game Listings
Amazon started adding Metacritic scores to games listings.
This week Amazon started showing Metacritic ratings on videogame listings as a part of game descriptions. Apparently, Metascores have been applied to most games, even ones as old as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Many games media outlets have spoken out against Metacritic. "You lose control over what your score means, because Metacritic has locked down a numerical score that tries to take non-numerical scoring systems into account. You lose control over when you can release your review, because companies give you ultimatums based on how Metacritic interprets that score," states ex-Ars Technica writer Ben Kuchera.
Kotaku writer Jason Schreier shares similar sentiments: "I've written extensively about the problems with Metacritic—how their scores remove nuance and ambiguity; how game publishers have influenced and tampered with scores; how Metascores affect which game studios stay afloat; how Metacritic culture has actively impacted the way some developers make games."
Amazon is following in the footsteps of Steam in listing Metacritic scores for games. The online retailer has yet to list Metascores for any other forms of media. Then again, no other form of media is quite so score-centric as videogames.
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Catherine Cai was a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware. She covered a variety of tech industry news, ranging from PC components to PC and console gaming.
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mortsmi7 That's why you don't look at the "professional" reviews on Metacritic. Actual user reviews excluding the 1's and 10's generally more helpful.Reply -
jalek Amazon itself has had similar issues, products announced but not yet available sometimes have hundreds of "reviews". Unsurprising that they wouldn't worry too much about Metacritic's occasional ridiculousness.Reply -
edogawa People need to take reviews with a grain of salt. Watch YouTube videos, see what people in the actual community say, try a demo, and then buy the product if you feel it will be a good investment of your time and money. Meta-critic has never been reliable source of reviews in my opinion, and should be ignored totally.Reply -
Afrospinach Seems like a poor decision. The only value in metacritic is actually reading what people write, not the number they slap on it.Reply -
Mike Friesen I like metacritic for a quick estimate of how good a game is. It's not going to be right every time (Dark Souls, in my opinion has the best fighting mechanics for any rpg I've played; it's my favorite game), but usually a game that scores 90 will be better than one that scores 80, and so on.Reply -
ubercake I've noticed that when many games are first released, they are almost always in the 90s on metacritic and then after a few months, if the games are decent, they relax somewhere in the 80s or 70s. I don't see any harm in any ratings included with games.Reply