David Braben calls for Metacritic for game reviewers

“Most reviewers are excellent at what they do, and it is a very hard job with, frankly, little glory. As an industry, there is something we could do to recognise this – effectively a Metacritic for reviewers. The best reviewers give spot-on reviews pretty soon after a game is released. They do not wait to see what others say, but nevertheless consistently come very close to the final average score. There could be a prize for the best each year. Don’t forget – this is not intended to influence reviews – just to encourage and reward consistency – as it is not a high reviewer that gets the reward, it is the one that gets the best result. This method could also be used for non-’core’ games, too, with the benchmark being either eventual sales, or eventual average user reviews, as at the moment it is a real lottery for customers buying games for their younger kids – with few trustworthy reviews – which is one of the reasons, I think, so many shovel-ware games sneak under the radar in this sector.” - David Braben

This is why I don’t participate in Metacritic. I feel that publishers focus too much on those scores. If they don’t get a game that’s a 90 or above, they feel like they’ll miss out on big sales. I recognize that games with scores in the 80s, 70s and 60s can be looked at as ‘good’ to ‘great’ games.

Link