Sega’s Love Affair With Metacritic

It is amazing how much importance the game industry puts on Metacritic. I get why it is a useful tool to gauge how a game is faring on the review circuit, but the way the site translates non-traditional scores (letter grades, for example) to mean something other than what the reviewer intended is terrible.

We won’t put our hands in the guts of that issue here, but the end result is a lower score based on a conversion - a score that can hurt certain individuals  when a bonus is assigned to a certain score level (like 70).

So why this talk of Metacritic? Becuase the popular review aggregation site is considered mana from heaven, sweet honey on the lips of game publishers, who use it as a hammer to take away incentives from developers. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sega Europe president and COO, Mike Hayes says that Metacritic is a useful industry tool that can help to provide “objectivity into the business.” He also points to the fact that when a company like the one he works for is paying out millions of dollars for a game, good scores are an important part of a game’s success.

Here’s a little more flavor from Mr. Hayes:

“It’s horses for courses,” says Hayes. “If you’re going for a high-end PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 game and you want to break out in the genre, or something like that, you have to target that quality - because otherwise you don’t have a hope in Hell. There’s too much evidence that shows games which score below a certain level in certain genres are not going to cut through.”

“However, there are other genres and other platforms where we wouldn’t put a developer against that score, because it’s more about the brand, the license, the release timing - it’s probably something that in the Metacritic basket of reviews, they’re not going to look at the same things that we’re going to look for when making a game. “

While there’s no denying that good scores are important, I personally think that the industry may put a little too much weight on them. In fact, there are plenty of games that have done quite well despite a lukewarm reception from the media… like Star Wars Force Unleashed. Instead of Metacritic and Gamerankings, companies like Sega need to be a little more selective in the developers they work with and the games they green light.

Note: the first paragraph was rewritten for clarity and toned down slightly, but the sentiment remains the same. - ed.