Comments on: Metacritic Founder Talks About LittleBigPlanet Low User Score, Fanboys, and the Site’s Future

By: Patrick Steen

Patrick Steen — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:15:28 +0000

Great write up…and the image is classic Sackboy. Has anyone been on metacritic to look at the Gears of War 2 user score? PS3 fanboys strike back lol.

By: ChrisWanker

ChrisWanker — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:15:35 +0000

I honestly think this is the first side scrolling platformer to get raved about so much since the early 90s. That being said, I find it funny that hardcore gamers are lashing out at innocent and cutesy LBP because of hype that it’s receiving.

Disclaimer: NO! I have never voted on Metacritic.

By: John Landis

John Landis — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:09:42 +0000

Maybe it’s gamers protesting the stupidity of pulling the game because of two stupid lines that might potentially have offended some dude on some forum somewhere. Why is it okay to “stuff the ballot” sometimes but not others. I didn’t see anyone complaining when people were going to Amazon bringing down the review scores of the chick’s book after she said something stupid about games on TV. I don’t remember anyone freaking out when people brought down the score of Spore because it had stupid copy protection. If you can adjust the score based on copy protection, why not adjust your “user review” score based on the fact that the game was delayed because of two lines.

But then, I too think LBP looks stupid. It’s like, let’s play an SNES platformer only now we can make the levels ourselves. I have the most advanced and complicated piece of gaming hardware on the planet so that I can play Super Mario World with puppets? Uhh… Woo Hoo?

By: Chad Lakkis

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:17:42 +0000

Doh! That’s what I get for posting late at night. Thanks for the catch Kyle.

By: Kyle Barrett

Kyle Barrett — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:26:02 +0000

Hey Chad,

JUst by the way, it’s ‘piqued’ my interest, not peaked.

WOOO smartassery ftw! Right?

By: cell989

cell989 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:35:23 +0000

This was the work of XBOTS, we all know that. WIIWEES not PC GAMERS, XBOTS!. This as much as they can do to make LBP look mediocre. Anyone that ever plays this game, will not in fact degrade it, its an instant hit, no matter what genre you prefer, you are still going to love it.

Variety obviously dont know sh** about games. When everyone sees that lame ass score next to the rest, its going to look ridiculous and unreliable. What pisses me off the most is that Variety doesnt grade reviews, so why even include it on MEtacritic. Why dont they post that 10 GamesRadar gave it instead. Why is GAmes Radar not being considered for this particular game? Too many 10’s?

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:48:55 +0000

LittleBigPlanet is a fun game, but from videos and the demo (probable purchase later on), gets to be a little repetitive. Can’t assume that the poor reviews are from 360 fanboys, because the Wii would be jealous (maybe) and the PC would also be jealous, so assuming one console to bring down the score would seem a bit out-of-reach don’t you think?
Hopefully the change in the website will help ease out these problems.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:11:55 +0000

Maybe the user score is correct. Maybe the 2,225 beta players found the game somewhat boring. Which is how LBP looks to me. Kinda boring.

By: LOL@360 (Jealous Much)

LOL@360 (Jealous Much) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:02:33 +0000

I love how 360 fanboys have to make themselves feel better by giving a 10/10 game a horrible review…I guess thats fun to them, IDK.

They really are pathetic, you didn’t see people going around giving Halo 3 a horrible score (atleast I didn’t) because could care less about the User Score of a video game….You think your score is gonna chnage a consumers mind when a “95″ is right next to it?…Come on now 360 people, we know your all not that big of a dumbass

By: track

track — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:35:13 +0000

Good article Chad. I too am a little curious about the variety article. Metacritic rated the variety LBP review as an 80, which was perhaps fair enough on the basis of the text (which was positive but definitely not as glowing as other LBP reviews) but was a full ten points lower than the next lowest score (ie. a BIG differential); on that grounds it was certainly a little bit suspicious. The big thing was the fable II review: although the variety review was (i’d say) more positive than the LBP review I certainly don’t think it was a 98 point type review. He had some fairly major criticisms at the end. 98 was also a higher score than the highest of the sites that mark out of a hundred, by a whole three points: eurogamer and g4tv both gave the fame full marks but they mark out of ten and five respectively so it’s not so uncommon to see them giving out full marks. It’s a bit of a sad fanboy thing to get upset about it but nonetheless I’m a little curious, it does seem a bit odd.

By: itisa

itisa — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:29:52 +0000

” … we won’t be clearing those old scores from LBP when it launches”

That’s is just stupid.Metacritic is a product of Microsoft of course

By: ArthurD

ArthurD — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:16:21 +0000

Here is my opinion on the Variety issue. If Variety is submitting a score to meta critic, then it should be posted on their web site. If there is no physical number given at the actual web site doing the review then there is no way to prove who created the score. Was it really Variety, or was it metacritic. This lack of reference cast doubt into the score and causes the illusion of bias, even if there is no bais at all. If metacritic wants to be taken seriously they should not post a rating that can not be verified via their reference links.

The other problem with metacritic is that they seem to be selective in who they use as reference. For example why is it that Variety, a news paper, has made it into metacritics scores for Little Big Planet, yet D+Pad, Gamesradar, SPOnG, Eurogamer Portugal, Eurogamer Germany, GameDaily and quite literally a dozen plus other sites that are far more gamer centric and reputable with scores have not? If you doubt this then follow this link to n4g’s links to Little Big planet reviews: http://www.n4g.com/ps3/games/g-28444/tt/metareviews.aspx

By: WiiMote

WiiMote — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:56:02 +0000

Well, like all sites that fall behind or out of favor, Metacritic seems to let all their shortfalls shine through. Let this and other obvious problems with this site be motivation for a better site to take it’s place that is more committed and professional.

By: Brandon R. Miles

Brandon R. Miles — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:45:48 +0000

bah, like i said, this game was only gonna be SO great.

By: Chad Lakkis

Chad Lakkis — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:46:03 +0000

I am pretty sure that the site (i.e. Variety) willingly accepts the converted score prior to Metacritic adding it to their site. I will however ask about that if it helps to ease your concerns.

By: Guy Incognito

Guy Incognito — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:50:05 +0000

how about the reviews which have no legitimate score, but they read the review and base a score off of it. (i.e. variety) which to me is absurd, only accept reviews that have numeric values already.