Review aggregator Metacritic has decided not to reintroduce its individual game developer rating service.
The short-lived experiment was suspended earlier this week just days after it came to public attention.
Metacritic initially said it would restore the "work in progress" system following some updates, but that's no longer the plan, site founder Marc Doyle has told GamesIndustry.biz.
"We have no plans to bring it back," he said. "We discussed it as a team and it made sense to just drop that overall number whilst still trying to build this database which will be difficult, but we're going to give it a shot. It's needless to put that number on it though.
"If they've worked on 30 games and we can only show four and then we take on this score, which is really just an average of those games in our database for them, then that's not fair."
Despite the decision to drop individual scores, Doyle said Metacritic's intention had simply been to build on what the site was designed to do - inform users of the best products available and who created them.
"That's ultimately the goal of Metacritic: What should I watch, what should I play? Not necessarily to fuel some larger discussion over what person is more worthy than some other person."
Comments
8 comments so far...
Black Mantis on 31 Mar '11 said:
The whole Metacrtic system needs an overhaul IMO. Every competing platform should have the same amount of reviews to aggregate the scores from and they should be a bit more picky in which publications/sites they show reviews from.
ricflair on 31 Mar '11 said:
I agree, if the publication is s**t, don't give it less sway, don't use it all.
I reckon there's a gap in the market there! They're hardly transparent about how much influence certain sites/mags have.
BenThomasFoster on 31 Mar '11 said:
Its a good job really. Dev's can wildley vary due to what staff they've been able to get. most first few games are bad... also publishers should really lose the tag as well since their only involvment is money and time really
eltonbird on 31 Mar '11 said:
They need to do a lot of work to get the database right.
They've got people I've worked with listed on games they didn't work on, because they have the same name as some other developer! And I have nothing listed at all, probably because theyr'e not going to go trawling through the credits of every game in their database assign credits.
And the last thing any individual wants is to apply for a new job and have someone look up their average on metacritic before they decide to interview them..
pRM8 on 31 Mar '11 said:
Good riddance.
TheLastKnight90 on 31 Mar '11 said:
^ This
I dont mind metacritic but this was stupid idea from the beginning
lwill on 31 Mar '11 said:
I quite liked it.
If you didn't, I mean, you weren't forced to look at it. And whilst I can see why some developers may take issue with it, they're just using statistics/facts, it's not like they're even being reviewed really. Stop making s**tty f**king games then!
humanhand on 31 Mar '11 said:
I agree 100%.