Metacritic Scores Show 2013 as Record for Lowest Number of "Great Games"

[shrekfan246]

Why do we even Metacritic the time of day any more? The scores mean nothing since most if not all of the user reviews

I think I'm seeing your problem here.

The scores they take for these sorts of things aren't the user reviews, precisely because it's far too easy for users to review bomb or inflate games for no other reason than because they think it's funny.

I am a huge fan of Fallout New Vegas, but due to the retards who downscored the game because they hated it or its franchise, the developers lost out on their bonus.

Yeah, I highly doubt any paid reviewer marked down New Vegas "because they hated it or its franchise". Or rather, if they did hate it, there was likely a lovely typed review providing reasons for why they did. And considering how buggy New Vegas remains to this day, I think it came out rather lucky overall with the launch window review scores.

Again, user reviews aren't given any weight. The fact that Obsidian "lost out" on a bonus because of the Metacritic score is a problem with Bethesda, not Metacritic.

A perfect 10 is "buy it even if you don't own that system or like that type of game.

[Citation needed].

I'd address more in your post but, no offense, it comes across as a conspiracy theory.

I don't understand people who decide to forgo any kind of critical thinking in favour of taking the opinion of a critic as their own.

Of course, there's also the chance that the person saying they're likely to agree with a critic has followed said critic long enough to know whether or not their tastes align.

 

[Strazdas]

I disagree with the point, "2013 wasn't a bad year for games." I believe it was, a terrible year for games...

Thank you. I was about to go point out that this year especially in comparison felt like a terrible year for gaming. Lets just hope 2012 repeats itself in 2014.

So anything below a 90 isn't a "great" game? Only eight "great" games?

Maybe Metacritic doesn't see many great games because every review based on a 10 point scale (or converted to it) is garbage. A perfect 10 is "buy it even if you don't own that system or like that type of game. 9 to 8 is great. 7 to 6 is buy it if you're a fan or rent it. 5 and below is the increasing shit level. Pretty much every game worth playing for a few minutes is an 8 minimum.

I present to you the metracritic score system interpretation:

 

[AdrianCeltigar]

If I want a numerical representation of a game's quality, I use the "Average User Rating" on various websites. Some websites even have User Review Average, User Rating and Metacritic score right beside eachother, and the one I almost always agree with is the User Rating.

Metacritic would have me believe that a lot of my favourite games are only worthy of 60s and low 70s. If I paid attention to those scores I might have never played those games. A collective average of reviews has no preference, and is thus is only useful to people who also have no preference. I don't know anyone who doesn't prefer certain genres to others.

While a User Score is also a collective average, it's an average generated by people who have an interest in a title. If I want a number to tell me how good a JRPG is for example, I'd ask if the people who actually like JRPGs thought it was good. Sure, that may sound biased but since I like JRPGs, I'm biased too. Biased scores from biased users that are useful to biased people, such as myself.