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Grasshopper CEO Suda51 says people ‘care too much’ about Metacritic scores
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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But they aren't pointless. Most times they aren't as helpful as you'd like, but I think that's baked in, with less than fully honest reviews counted among the ratings. But otherwise, they show ranges and a base with which to judge through your own preferences. One example was when I used to read Nintendo Power. I understood their scores were inflated, especially for Nintendo's own games, if you weren't already a super fan. You could accurately remove a solid point from their scores and figure that would be another way to view it. Or, as a fan, I didn't mind the inflated score because it probably captured my excitement/future experience with the game having similar preferences.
The rest of the time I see a sea of mediocrity with many many games residing in the 7 to lower 8s range of scoring. With 8.5, 9, 9+ games also out there, a statement like this developer is making only makes sense if your game is heavily discounted. So, in the end, I think an accurate score does mean something. The next Far Cry to immediately drop to 20 bucks, or Assassin's Creed, and there are many others like this, just goes to show the lack of care and what should be lacking scores. Some of those games probably received more than they deserved.
The point (well, not his, which is about the absurdity of publishers using it as an actual official measuring stick) is that different people like different things. For some people a visual novel or walking simulator can be a 10/10 "game" for the story. For me, it will never be better than a 0, because I cannot enjoy a game without compelling gameplay mechanics. That's an extreme example, but the point that different people put massively different value on different elements, many of which many players literally don't care even a little bit about.
An 8/10 isn't objectively a worse game than a 9.5/10. It's the average of a small handful of opinions, mostly from people who played the game at surface level and not like an actual player would, that's heavily and inconsistently influenced by a variety of practices by publishers trying to get their grades pumped up. Game reviewers are almost never actual journalists with journalistic ethical standards. They're not being "less than honest", but they're inherently influenced in ways outside their awareness that break the core premise of a score.
Most reviews (including games) shouldn't include scores at all. They should break down the different elements of a product, the strengths and weaknesses of each part, and let people draw their own conclusions.
I liked what you said about breaking things down by elements. That might be a better way of judging things.