One point on Metacritic cost a game studio its bonus
Fallout: New Vegas averaged 84 on Metacritic. Its publisher had set 85 as the threshold for extra royalties, so developer Obsidian got nothing, despite five million copies sold. A review site started by two siblings and a law-school friend had quietly become a lever on salaries and share prices.
Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and Jason Dietz, a classmate from law school at the University of Southern California, spent two years building the site before launching it in January 2001. Rotten Tomatoes already gathered film reviews; they wanted to cover games, music and television too. Ownership passed from CNET in 2005 to CBS, then to Red Ventures in 2020, and in 2022 to Fandom.
Every review becomes a percentage, either converted from the critic's own rating or judged by staff when no rating exists. Those numbers are then weighted by the outlet's reputation, popularity and volume of reviews, and averaged. Metacritic says some publications count for more because of their stature but has never disclosed the weights. Green, yellow and red colouring signals the overall verdict, and since 2018 films scoring 81 or more from at least 15 critics earn a Must-See badge, while games at 90 or above get Must-Play.
Its influence is strongest in video games. A Wall Street Journal writer argued in 2007 that scores moved game sales and publisher stock, because games cost more than a film ticket and scores appear before sales figures. In 2008 Electronic Arts chief John Riccitiello showed analysts a chart of his company's slipping ratings, and Microsoft used Metacritic averages to remove weak titles from Xbox Live Arcade. Doyle has said two major publishers found a link between high scores and stronger sales in some genres.
The evidence is mixed, though. A 2015 study of games released in 2012, covering more than 88 Xbox 360 and 80 PS3 titles, found no effect of scores on sales. Critics also object to the opaque weighting, to scores assigned to unrated reviews, and to thin policing of user reviews, where people can open multiple fake accounts to review-bomb a game. The site has nonetheless won two Webby Awards.
Source: Metacritic
