Despite Fanboy Accusations, Metacritic Does Not Exclude In-Network Review Scores

by Sam Naylor on November 12, 2008 at 1:04 pm

A few weeks ago, we ran a story about LittleBigPlanet’s Metacritic user score: a measly 6.3. We spoke to the site’s founder Marc Doyle about the matter and were informed that it was only that low due to rampant fanboys on the warpath, attempting to sabotage the PS3 and its games. This inevitably continued with more low user scores: Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2. Well, it seems that now, fanboys have started trying to influence the critic’s score, by flaming LittleBigPlanet on the site’s forums.

While posting on this thread, an unnamed Metacritic user and certified fanboy claims they were wrongfully banned for what the cite deemed “crude and rude” statements. The complaint was then carried over by the user as an attempted news post on gaming news site N4G.

In the Metacritic thread itself, a series of users voiced concerns that not every 10/10 score for Sony’s huge IP LittleBigPlanet had been posted to the site. The users kick and scream because their favorite system’s biggest game isn’t scored as high as they’d like — beaten only by GTA4. We spoke to Marc about the matter, and he summed up the idiocy neatly:

As long as I have a page for a game on Metacritic, I post every review for that game from the publications I track. It’s not an automated process and we’re human, so we will occasionally make a mistake on inputting a score or I’ll miss a review. But when it’s called to our attention, we post the review immediately. But it is our policy to post every review from every publication we cover, so long as we have a page for that game on our site. We don’t pick and choose which reviews we post.

In case you didn’t realize already, Metacritic only syndicates review scores from registered publications- ones that are chosen by Metacritic to represent the critical opinion of the games. If your independent blog gives LBP a 10/10, and you’re not syndicated on Metacritic, it’s not going to be on the list. This means it’s not going to be listed as a review on the game’s page.

While the very nature of reviews is to be subjective (it is the reviewer’s opinion, after all), Metacritic is certainly not biased towards one console or another. In addition to this, the site never claims to have an exhaustive list of reviews for any given game; it just does its best with the resources available to it (in this case, the publications signed up with Metacritic).

Tags: fanboys, LBP, Metacritic, user scores

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lolek

woow, i thought Metacritic.com is an independent site, thx for the information. damn fanboys!

Jonah Falcon

I wish some of these fanboys would save their money for a prostitute. They desperately need to get laid.

Seriously.

Muser27

http://forums.metacritic.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f...

I'd like to point of Gamer20's second post on that page. It clearly shows evidence in support of the claims of bias in favor of the 360. In fact, read the entire thread and tell me you don't believe that Metacritic is biased.

IMO, the best site for an average of reviews is N4g. They don't pick and choose which reviews are counted and which aren't. And for the case of those "independent blogs" N4g does not include them in their final score.

pswi60

well i can tell someone didn't read the forum post. nobody got banned, so your story is wrong there. also you fail to mention that the thread went from the LBP issue to another issue where Metacritic isn't publishing both review scores for multiplats on each console.

helps if you read i think.....

Chad Lakkis

@pswi60

"helps if you read i think..."

So true -- you should try it sometime.

The article clearly states that the N4G user who brought the situation to our attention had claimed his account was banned for making the type of remarks he states he never made.

See the link attached to "crude and rude" as well as the link attached to "attempted new post".

Chad-

pswi60

let me clarify...if a user was banned they weren't banned because of posting in that thread. you are trying to make it seem that a ps3 fanboy flipped out in that thread and got banned, and thats not true. if he was banned it was from actions in another thread.

Chad Lakkis

@Muser27,

I clicked through the link you provided but I am unsure what exactly you are referring to.

As far as the statement you made regarding N4G's larger aggregated base of reviews -- this is true. The point we are trying to make here is that the selection of sites in the Metacrticic network is not narrowed based on a game.

If they have 100 sites to pull from for example, the founder made it pretty clear that all of those sites will be allowed to submit a review on whatever they game they choose to.

You are certainly free to argue that there are certain sites which are omitted -- they don't deny that their list excludes many sites, but those sites are omitted from submitting reviews period, not on a game by game basis.

Chad-

pswi60

the user in question was banned because of his commments in this thread:

http://forums.metacritic.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f...

as far as what you said about n4g and a larger base of reviews, i dont really know. i just know the topic of that thread had changed from the LBP issue to another issue with multiplatform games, i think there was a problem where dead space got a 70 for ps3 but no score was posted for 360 from the same reviewer.

Chad Lakkis

pswi60,

"let me clarify…if a user was banned they weren’t banned because of posting in that thread. you are trying to make it seem that a ps3 fanboy flipped out in that thread and got banned, and thats not true. if he was banned it was from actions in another thread."

I disagree, but at least I now understand the confusion on your part. The two thoughts are broken up into two separate paragraphs.

The first explains the ban and how the user posted his ban on N4G with the following title:

"And now, Metacritic deletes forum accounts which discuss their biasness"

The second paragraph cites the link he details in the last sentence in the rejected N4G post. That forum link is comprised of users discussing a perceived bias against some sites they feel are being left out in the LBP Metacritic score.

Chad-

pswi60

i understand you are posting the story with links from the user in question, or 'reporting' as you call it. i just want to point out this user isn't directing you to the thread where he is "rude and crude", rather he is directing you to a thread where some compelling arguments are made to the point of bias on Metacritic, which you would have to read first in order to disagree with, unless you are already drinking the water from Mr. Doyle.

Chad Lakkis

I read all of it pswi60. You are missing the point. No one is "drinking" anyone's water, and I know that he isn't pointing the the thread where he is rude and crude ... that's why the words "rude and crude" link to a giant jpeg.

Chad-

pswi60

well you are saying, in your article, that in network reviews aren't excluded, yet that thread has evidence where several in network reviews are excluded, going on several weeks where users have reported said reviews to be missing and they still aren't there.

so, i think you are missing the point, because your article is stating something that right now isn't true, whether you are talking about the banning in "that" thread in network reviews being excluded.

"As long as I have a page for a game on Metacritic, I post every review for that game from the publications I track."

This statement from Mark Doyle is absolutely false. The evidence is in the thread where a user was not banned. Your story is a failed attempt at trying to showcase fanboy behavior, and instead have displayed your own.

Jonah Falcon

Metacritic is selective in sites it aggregates reviews from.

For one, they don't accept any old blog. My old site, GamePen was counted. My current site, GameStooge, isn't.

They'll tell the person when they reject them that they have to prove they regularly review games. They don't accept any old site that just happens to review this one game.

Sam Naylor

The banned member is irrelevant. His only purpose was to direct us to the thread discussing missed review scores, which you would understand if you had, oh, read the story or something.

Patrick Steen

Love the picture.

Things are certainly odd over at Metacritic. Mainly in them putting up scores when none is given on the website that reviewed it, and their weightings given to letter scores. B+ = 8.5, but B- = 6.7. A bit odd.

pswi60

Not only are the conversions at the site bad, like the B+ given to Resistance 2 from 1up being an 83, the A/A+ given to Gears to translating to 10/10 from 1up, there are many reviews that don't make sense, like Variety's reviews for R2 and LBP 80 and 70, reviews that do not have a score but a score appears on Metacritic, and the issue of several, multiplatform reviews missing from many games. Variety gave Fallout 3 a 97, yet this score only appears under the 360 version of the game, not the ps3 version, same thing with dead space, midnight club, spiderman, and many other games.

This story from Ripten is a joke. It aims to show ps3 users crying and getting banned, stating "while posting in this thread" which is wrong, and ignoring the actual facts of this issue while claiming lip service from Marc Doyle to prove the idiocy of the claims.

Like Marc Doyle is gonna come out and say "well, of course, our parent company Viacom has a $500 million deal with Microsoft, and Variety is now a content distributor for Microsoft, so of course we are going to use our complex aggregate system to claim impartiality while using that system to make our advertisers and business partners happy"

When does Ripten make the jump from fanboy fodder to actual journalism? That would take work, i suppose.

Sam Naylor

"This story from Ripten is a joke. It aims to show ps3 users crying and getting banned, stating “while posting in this thread” which is wrong, and ignoring the actual facts of this issue"

No it doesn't. The article is nothing to do with getting banned. There just happened to be one whiny person who got banned who brought the issue about missing out certain scores to our attention. Like I said before: read the article before making brash claims like that.

pswi60

"The article is nothing to do with getting banned."

If the article has nothing to do with being banned, then why is there this paragraph:

"While posting on this thread, an unnamed Metacritic user and certified fanboy claims they were wrongfully banned for what the cite deemed “crude and rude” statements. The complaint was then carried over by the user as an attempted news post on gaming news site N4G."

You are telling me the ban is irrelevant, yet your article uses it to shift the focus from user reviews to missing reviews. Not only that, but the facts of the user ban are, once again, wrong. The user FOUND OUT he was banned when he tried to post in that thread, he wasn't banned while posting in that thread as your article states.

Secondly, why are you choosing to ignore everything else in my post? I presented several points that show there are in-network reviews missing for both games, yet you choose to argue a point which you claim is irrelevant.

Why does this article, this site, and it's authors only present one side of an argument, without even a look as to the merits of each side?

Sam Naylor

That paragraph is to establish how we found the thread. The user said himself that he was posting in the thread, too.

The reason I chose to argue that point was because I had told you before that it didn't matter. I was just making sure you knew what it meant.

Oh, by the way, thanks for the hits. Feel free to keep flaming :D

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