Metacritic delays availability of user reviews [2020-07-20]

[BRiT]

From the headline, it seems like metacritic is taking steps to protect and prop up the game industry by preventing user reviews until 36 hours after a game's release. So all that will be available are Critic reviews, many of which are said to not be impartial because they're dependent on the publishers for early access, and why any game with a fan following automatically gets higher marks.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/metacritic-will-delay-user-reviews-for-games/1100-6479886/

Metacritic will now delay user reviews for games for 36 hours after release, the company announced. This comes a few weeks after the release of The Last of Us Part II, which was review bombed on Metacritic (which, like GameSpot, is owned by ViacomCBS).​

"We recently implemented the 36 hour waiting period for all user reviews in our games section to ensure our gamers have time to play these games before writing their reviews," a Metacritic spokesperson said. "This new waiting period for user reviews has been rolled out across Metacritic's Games section and was based on data-driven research and with the input of critics and industry experts."​

 

[AzBat]

Seems fair to me. I've never review bombed anything in my life. Don't see the point. So good on them.

Tommy McClain

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Seems fair to me. I've never review bombed anything in my life. Don't see the point. So good on them.

Ditto. User Reviews are intended for the public who typically cannot play games before the day or release so some form of delay, to give them a chance to actually play the game and not mindlessly bomb/promote it seems sensible. That said, I don't personally know anybody who heeds the user review score on Metacritic.

 

[BRiT]

Metacritic and all other sites that promote user reviews should enforce the means of verifying the user has the game and has played it.

In the case of consoles, tie it into their respective game network id and validated they even started the game. Seems extremely simple enough. That should also cut down a little bit on the duplicate review submissions. To do any less admits they truly don't care about user reviews.

EDIT: Along with this, they should also publish Critic Reviews with information such as how many hours they played the game. I'm fairly certain this can be extracted from PSN/XBL.

 

[function]

I wonder if you could also create an optional, automated filter to tune out the haters and fanboys when looking at scores? I would think that hype and chatter on the net, length of time since launch, length of review, extremes of score (e.g. 0 out of 10) could all be taken as indicators of whether a review came from the persons experience with the product, or external social influences.

Reviews often seem to be a reflection of what's happening in a bubble in a particular moment in time. And while I guess you could never really separate the person from the events and culture they live in, taking some of the heat out of the external influences might be possible. Though there's the issue of the filter being made by biased humans too ... hmmmm.

 

[Rangers]

So the review bombs will now happen after 36 hrs?

It does smack of protecting publishers. A user will go on meta critic and not see the "3.2" user score next to the 9.6 critic score, not know what review bombing is, and not potentially be dissuaded from buying.

I just dont like it cus it seems kinda censorship-y.

 

[eastmen]

Metacritic and all other sites that promote user reviews should enforce the means of verifying the user has the game and has played it.

In the case of consoles, tie it into their respective game network id and validated they even started the game. Seems extremely simple enough. That should also cut down a little bit on the duplicate review submissions. To do any less admits they truly don't care about user reviews.

EDIT: Along with this, they should also publish Critic Reviews with information such as how many hours they played the game. I'm fairly certain this can be extracted from PSN/XBL.

They should require the Critic reviewer to actually prove completion of the game and if they were given the game to review by the game company and any and all freebies they got and put a huge astrik next to it if they accepted any of the above

 

[zed]

I just dont like it cus it seems kinda censorship-y.

They should just not collect User Rating's altogether (and then they also cant be accused of censorship)

apparently https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/grimgrimoire
judged the best game eva!!!! by users
also Ghost of Tsushima 9th best game of all time!!

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Some good suggestions here. Do steam/ps/Xbox have a public API to access such information?

Other than that I'm not sure if a 36 hour delay is going to so anything and it might even have some negative effects of a lot of reviews are "sponsored".

That said, I think one should always apply some common sense and read multiple reviews. I think it's pretty easy to filter out the useless reviews. If a game gets half decent scores it's fair to assume all the 0 ratings or whatever are probably not all that accurate. Though "pro" reviews alone aren't everything either. I've played some games I loved that really didn't get all that high reviews.

 

[BRiT]

Not sure of the API access, but there has to be a game time played stat on Xbox games because of the limitations for Self-Service Refund process. They also had separate counter for how many times and when the game was launched.

 

[Malo]

Steam has an API to access that kind of information, plus the necessary oauth to link your Steam account to a 3rd party site.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Steam also will show a bar graph of positive and negative reviews over time. This doesn't help at launch but if you buy a few months after launch it's obvious if there was an attempt to review bomb a game release.

It also helps to show if a game has gotten better or worse over time due to developer support (or lack) of the game.

Regards,
SB