Metacritic: 2012 Lacked Quality Games

[Timothy Chang]

Metacritic: 2012 Lacked Quality Games

The review aggregator site claims the previous year "paled in comparison" when it came to high-scoring reviews.

Review score aggregation: love it or hate it, it has considerable influence on the gaming industry, especially when you hear of companies using aggregated scores to screen potential job applicants [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118745-BioShock-Developer-Hiring-Based-on-Metacritic-Scores]. Metacritic, the site dedicated to compiling review scores and breaking down video games to a single number, has released a report on the best video games of 2012. In short: there weren't all that many.

The feature post stated that the past year "paled in comparison" to other years when it came to quality video games, which are titles that scored an average score of 90 or above. "Just 14 console games - and 18 products overall, including PC and handheld (non-iOS) titles - scored 90 or higher in 2012," the report says. "Those figures represent a huge drop from the previous year, when 23 console titles (and 32 games overall) met or exceeded the 90 mark.

"In fact, since we started publishing these year-end reports in 2009, we have never encountered such a low total number of great games in a single year." That's not much historical data to go on, but the marked drop in high-scoring games is noteworthy.

The report also presented statistics on how the consoles fared in 2012: the PS3 nosed in front with the highest average Metascore of 70.3 for its releases, while the Xbox 360 offered the highest number of 90+ games and "Good Exclusives". The best reviewed game for the year went to Telltale's The Walking Dead, with an average score of 95.

Source & Image: <a href=http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-video-games-of-2012?page=0>Metacritic

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[bafrali]

Maybe reviewers didn't like what the industry had to offer...If you know what I mean

 

[Madkipz]

This is the year of the indies after all. Guess what games they don`t feature on metacritic? LOOLLLLLL

 

[Entitled]

That might actually true, as long as you define "quality" as a social construct, where it is the majority consensus about a game's high quality defines it as high quality, as opposed to my personal opinion.

Big "AAA" games are only getting bigger, and more mainstream, and more bland as they are growing to try to appeal to everybody, without truly capturing anyone. Sterling's video on Resident Evil 6 is a good description of that mentality.

A lot of the big games were like Resi 6 this year, being all unremarkable and "decent" shooters, while the small games are so obscure, that the average reviewer either didn't review them, or if they did, they didn't get them, as it was not trying to appeal to everyone including them, but capture a smaller niche.

There were a few runaway hits like FTL and Journey, like there are every year, but even those mostly happened because of the snowballing hype. Most reviewers could get a similarly brilliant game as Journey put in front of them, and without being told that this is the next big thing, they would just dismiss it.

 

[Zhukov]

Phht. Statistics.

2012 was my favourite year of gaming since 2007.

 

[Lovesfool]

Although we must make allowance for the fact that we are at the end of the console life-cycle, the tech is now old and we are all used to it (and cannot be surprised and/or impressed by it as easily), my personal feeling is the same.

2012 has been a very poor year in terms of high quality of video games when compared to previous years. We had some truly great year, but we've had much, much better ones.

 

[Frostbyte666]

hmm how to put this, there's lies, there's damn lies and then there's statistics.

 

[Joccaren]

Yeah, I'd agree with this. There were 1 or 2 games that were great, and a whole lot of crap. Previous years have had more good games released than 2012 - this year really was quite disappointing overall. Most of the interesting looking games are slated for releases next year anyway, this year really just felt like filler material until then. Whilst few of the games were really bad, few of them were great either. It was just a year of "meh" games.

 

[BrotherRool]

This is why Metacritic is unsuitable for this
Metacritic is a good tool for deciding between games in the 0-85 range and it also contains good information in the high range too, if it's interpreted properly. A 90 game isn't a fantastic game, but a game that didn't piss anyone off. And thats key.

Basically Metacritic rates polish, partly because our journalism is still very young. Games marked down for having flaws and don't get marked up very often for fantastic, unique concepts. And ultimately a game that aims at one part of the populace and does it well is better than a game thats been polished and blanded enough to appeal to everyone.

90-100 games on Metacritic should be interpreted like getting number one on the pop charts. Every now and then a Somebody I Used To Know pops up, but generally it's Call Me Maybe

 

[OniaPL]

But 2012 was gaming wise far better than 2011. Can't say about 2010, don't remember that far.

 

[Halceon]

So Metacritic is faced with a slight increase in journalistic integrity and blames it on games being bad. Yep. That's a strategy for secure, unmitigated win.

 

[bificommander]

Maybe journalists finally got of the "An 8.8 is an insult worthy of internet deaththreats" horse.

I do visit metacritic, usually from the steampage of a game that I don't know but looked interesting. I take a look at the total rating, rounded to the nearest multiple of two, and follow the link to one high, one low and one middle review, just to see what the people who liked it liked about and what the people who didn't like it hated. In short, Metacritic is a useful list of links to reviews, and the rating functions as a decent ballpark estimate for the game. But whether it scores just above or just below the 9.0 mark is irrelevant.

 

[Naeras]

So Metacritic is faced with a slight increase in journalistic integrity and blames it on games being bad. Yep. That's a strategy for secure, unmitigated win.

Thank you, I wasn't quite sure how to phrase that. Saved me some thinking trouble.

 

[Milanezi]

I had fun with games in 2012, but fact is most of those games I already barely remember playing. Everything was good but sorta bland.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

So the publishers didn't bribe enough reviewers, big deal.

I'm wondering why Metacritic is still relevant or even useful.

 

[Abomination]

So, how goes removing that Natural Selection 2 review that the submitter wanted to withdraw for having factual inaccuracies? Oh, it still hasn't been removed, won't be removed but the score from the review will still reflect upon the average?

Keep it real, Metacritic.

 

[Irridium]

Love people jumping straight on the "looks like Publishers didn't bribe enough" train.

Because God forbid the reviewers actually like the games. That'd just be crazy!

 

[Jandau]

Perhaps there's been some backtracking on the whole "inflated review scores" thing. For the past couple of years people have been grumbling about it more and more, so perhaps more and more reviewers are giving out "harsher" scores. I'm not saying it's journalistic integrity or anything, it's just as likely they are doing it to appear "edgy" and not as sellouts. But I have noticed a trend to give lower numerical scores all around. Granted, I've also noted a trend of Scapegoating, where a site will tear apart smaller games on nitpicks and still rate big AAA titles extremely highly, sacrificing the small releases to maintain an appearance of impartiality...