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61 Frames Per Second

Should Developer Pay be Based on Metacritic Scores?

Posted by Cole Stryker

That's the question that GamesIndustry.Biz's Phil Elliot is asking.

Splash Damage studio director Paul Wedgwood thinks that this is a bogus metric because scoring methods are so  incosistent across websites and mags: 

We know that some websites score quite high and some quite low, but in general, all websites tend to score between 60 and 100. There's never a 37. It's as if that whole section doesn't exist, so zero starts at 60, so three stars, and goes up to five. It's just not really an accurate enough measure.

There's a crucial point that Wedgwood doesn't mention, that I think undercuts the effectiveness of this reward strategy much more swiftly: The simple fact that the gaming press is a parade of boners.

Metacritic accepts reviews from some of the most amateurish websites out there. The reviews could quite literally have been written by fifteen-year olds. Even the large sites can't be trusted to provide players with reviews that matter, are we ready to put the fate of our developers' salaries in the hands of these retards?

Related Links:

Things You Should Be Reading: The Review Score Symposium
Kudos: Play Magazine’s Scoreless Reviews
Molyneux's Redemption?

+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Nick Daniel said:

From what I've heard it seems Metacritic scores are used more as a metric for the marketing and PR people at game publishers than for actual game developers.

I used to think that it was stupid that these people to be rewarded or punished for a games quality when they had nothing to do with making it. But now I look at GTA 4, when that game came out it got perfect 10s but now the consensus of the games industry seems to be that it was a rather mediocre addition to the GTA franchise. Those perfect 10s were all the result of the GTA hype machine, and considering what that must have done for sales it seems someone deserves a reward for it.

January 22, 2009 10:34 AM

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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