Metacritic stops assigning a video game "universal acclaim" after it goes below a score of 90

[The Artisan]

Does this bother anyone else? There was the Dreams review thread where the vast majority of us thought it would score within the 90s. And for quite some time we were right, me being the debbiedowner voted all the way down but now it's dropped to 89. If you look at MC now it's going to say "generally favorable reviews"

Now, I do believe that because video games can be an expensive hobby that acclaim should be in higher regard than film or television, which will cap their "acclaim" status at around 80, I think. But I don't think it's fair to say a video game isn't acclaimed if its score is 89. To me there should be room to go until 86-99 for critical acclaim. I know that's only giving room for 4 fewer points but very often we have games that score from 86-89 that aren't regarded as critically acclaimed when in many case in my opinion, they should.

What do you think?

Mod edit: updated title from 'critical' to 'universal' based on Metacritic's descriptives

 

[Gentlemen]

it doesn't matter

 

[SinCityAssassin]

It does not bother me.

 

[Raijinto]

It's just an arbitrary line that they had to draw somewhere, they must think that's fair enough. Don't see the issue.

 

[Atheerios]

The difference has to be somewhere. If it was lower (for example 86), then again somebody will inevitably complain that an 85 should also be considered critical acclaim.

It's a never ending loop.

 

[Deleted member 679]

I don't think it has anything to do with being expensive, it's more that games get higher scores in general. Just look at how low movies can go before they're no longer green reviews and compare it to games.

If anything gets a 7, then below 9 is hardly universal acclaim.

 

[DrArchon]

I don't care about Metacritic at all, so whatever Metacritic deems as "critically acclaimed" doesn't matter to me.

 

[John Dunbar]

thinking about this keeps me up at night.

 

[Mary Celeste]

not particularly important but it is an odd way to do things I guess. Cumulative GOTY winner Death Stranding not being considered "critically acclaimed" is pretty funny

 

[ClickyCal']

Very arbitrary. No one really says spiderman or horizon aren't critically acclaimed, yet both are just under 90.

 

[gitrektali]

I'm sure this matters to the developers and publishers, given how much stock they put into scores and MC already.

 

[Deleted member 28523]

big gamer brains

 

[Hippopuncher12]

Doesn't bother me because reviews in general mean absolutely nothing to me.

 

[Lant_War]

Oh no not the Metacritic critically acclaimed

 

[GrrImAFridge]

You shouldn't let this sort of thing bother you. A game that settled at 89 isn't somehow notably worse than one that ultimately landed on 90 just because Metacritic's arbitrary scoring system doesn't consider it "universally acclaimed".

 

[Deleted member 10737]

not that it matters a whole lot, but i think it's best for universal acclaim to be for 90+ games.

 

[DixieDean82]

Any game below a 9 confirmed trash.

 

[Alvis]

It's a chicken and egg problem, sure, a 7 should be considered a good score, but it isn't, so an 8 can't be considered "universally aclaimed"; even thougj it should, but in order for an 8 to be considered universally aclaimed, then a 7 shouldn't be consiered a bad score, and a 8 should be considered a great score. But that's not the case...

 

[Htown]

no, metacritic does not need to change their entire scoring system because a game you like didn't hit the critical acclaim category

games get higher review scores from critics than movies or tv shows do, so setting 90 or above as the "critical acclaim" point makes sense

 

[Syril]

Review scores are arbitrary and companies should stop putting so much stock in them, especially metacritic specifically.

 

[andymcc]

who cares.

 

[Qwerty Keyboard]

People who argue over and base their purchases and enjoyment of games on a metacritic or opencritic number never fail to amaze me.
it doesn't matter, at all.

 

[abellwillring]

It doesn't bother me, but it surprises me. I'd think 85% would be the cut off on this sort of arbitrary scale. Especially because they independently interpret scores without a number score I believe.

 

[Khrol]

Some of y'all deep in this game

 

[Dodgerfan74]

it doesn't matter

Click to shrink...

It's this. No matter what reviewers or aggregation sites do, they're going to always be criticized by gamers, a traditionally calm and thoughtful group. No matter what the cutoff or metric used, people will be upset when a game they like doesn't receive it's "deserved" credit and people feel their opinions aren't being validated.

 

[Jay Shadow]

Never even heard of Metacritic calling something critically acclaimed in the first place so doesn't bother me. If it was something that was considered more prestigious than being called critically aclaimed by metacritic maybe it would bother me cause it is quite a high bar.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

It doesn't bother me, but it surprises me. I'd think 85% would be the cut off on this sort of arbitrary scale. Especially because they independently interpret scores without a number score I believe.

Click to shrink...

80 is the cut off point for universal acclaim on metacritic for other forms of media, but considering the generally inflated scores that video game reviewers give, it's a good decision imo to have a different system for games.

 

[Dreamboum]

I want Metacritic dead.

 

[Kill3r7]

Who cares?

MC has a set of arbitrary rules. You can choose to follow or ignore them. For the most part outside of internet/forums no one gives a shit, unless you happen to have an incentive clause in your contract dependent on a specific MC score.

 

[Rodelero]

Practically everything about Metacritic, and the way that people think about Metacritic is dumb as hell.

 

[Naga]

It's the case since a long while, and yeah it's dumb, but it's also adapted to gaming reviews not using the full scale for reviews.

It's weird that it took Dreams going from 90 to 89 to lead to this tbh.

 

[Deleted member 18944]

Who cares?

Click to shrink...

The majority of people who are not on ResetEra and also anyone who is on Era that enjoys critical consensus sites and reviews.

 

[Edgar]

nah. 90 is the bar and the games that go over are considered my metacritic critically acclaimed . Its fine as it is .

 

[Edgar]

Who cares?

MC has a set of arbitrary rules. You can choose to follow or ignore them. For the most part outside of internet/forums no one gives a shit, unless you happen to have an incentive clause in your contract dependent on a specific MC score.

Click to shrink...

a lot of people care about metascore than not , be it on internet or not . Most people dont care about opencritic tho, well most people dont even know about it

 

[Stinkinmushroom]

Completely stopped caring about review scores after RDR2 lol.

 

[Charamiwa]

Calling an 89 "generally favorable" does seem a bit ridiculous. 85 would be a better cut off point.

Not very important though.

 

[Lokoline]

I don't care, scores are useless to me.

 

[Absolute]

My status has been set to not giving a shit about something so trivial.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Does this bother anyone else? There was the Dreams review thread where the vast majority of us thought it would score within the 90s. And for quite some time we were right, me being the debbiedowner voted all the way down but now it's dropped to 89. If you look at MC now it's going to say "generally favorable reviews"

Now, I do believe that because video games can be an expensive hobby that acclaim should be in higher regard than film or television, which will cap their "acclaim" status at around 80, I think. But I don't think it's fair to say a video game isn't acclaimed if its score is 89. To me there should be room to go until 86-99 for critical acclaim. I know that's only giving room for 4 fewer points but very often we have games that score from 86-89 that aren't regarded as critically acclaimed when in many case in my opinion, they should.

What do you think?

Click to shrink...

Games are higher than television and films because a large chunk of games media basically has 5 scores. 0-6 is typically reserved for unplayable junk, and 7-10 for games they actually want to give a score to. That makes an average between 9-10 roughly the top fifth of the score range and that seems like as fine a arbitrarily decided cutoff as any.

 

[Kill3r7]

a lot of people care about metascore than not , be it on internet or not . Most people dont care about opencritic tho, well most people dont even know about it

Click to shrink...

The majority of people who are not on ResetEra and also anyone who is on Era that enjoys critical consensus sites and reviews.

Click to shrink...

If "a lot" or "majority of people" were true then how do you explain all these 75-85 games dominating the sales charts year in and year out?

I have no opinion on opencritic outside of it being an alternative to MC.

 

[Deleted member 3465]

Doesn't bother me, but I do think around 85% and up feels more right.

 

[Nikus]

Large group of people not giving a shit about the subject coming into the thread to make clear that they don't give a shit about it.
You're so cool.

 

[Iwao]

Metacritic is unbelievably flawed. It's not perfect, but Opencritic is the new standard.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

Metacritic is unbelievably flawed. It's not perfect, but Opencritic is the new standard.

Click to shrink...

true. opencritic does things way better, sadly most people don't know or care about them.

 

[DontHateTheBacon]

The line has to be drawn somewhere, it was drawn here, some games will be affected, some won't, it'll be okay.

 

[Ricky_R]

They should call 80-89 semi-critically acclaimed.

 

[Weebos]

That's not a bad bar for "critically acclaimed". There is plenty of room on the spectrum between that and "terrible"

 

[lightning16]

Doesn't really bother me. Not sure if it's supported by fact, but it at least feels like video game reviews run higher than other mediums, so it'd make sense for these types of scales to be shifted up a bit. Would be interesting to see how they decided on those exact numbers of if they just kinda picked them randomly.

 

[Shining Star]

It's just a meaningless agregate anyway. Shouldn't having just one review above a 9 be enough to make a game "critically acclaimed?"

 

[Deleted member 8196]

It does not bother me
It does not matter