[OC] Metacritic UserScore and CriticScore for PC Games (2000-2020)
September 5, 2024
[OC] Metacritic UserScore and CriticScore for PC Games (2000-2020)
Posted by n0tpc
19 comments
Just happens to correspond with Obama’s first term… that can’t just be a coincidence! /s
About time someone posted a US vs the MAN graph rather than red vs blue.
Movies are getting better, but users are less and less satisfied 🤷🏻♂️
I don’t understand the y axis
I think this graph is illustrating how we’ve eroded the position of critics over time.
They don’t have secure positions with well known magazines or newspapers, so they need to be more positive over time, in order to maintain their position. Otherwise, video game makers can simply cut them out of the review process.
Same thing is happening with movie reviews.
I imagine at some point in here users decided that they would just start giving the minimum possible score to stuff they didn’t like.
I think sadly that a lot more people nowadays rely on YouTubers and social media personalities to decide for them if a certain game is good or not
First mention of review bombing: 2008.
First year where the green line for Users falls sharply below that of critics: 2008.
This doesn’t have to be related, but I think it’s been coming for a long time that user reviews have been simplified to a yes/no recommendation. That means that even a 7/10 game becomes a no, or a negative, or a thumbs down or whatever, instead of someone saying, “It’s not bad, it’s just not great either”.
is that the mean or median?
might be interesting to see the distribution of the data
Difference mainly is review bombing.
Really interesting data set. Im sure that by exploring the data you could probably pinpoint to certain factors that might be responsible for this.
While I do think that it probably can be explained to some degree by critics having an incentive not to write too harsh criticism I do feel (as in thats my singular experience) that we had more polarizing games in the past few years than before with users mass-disliking games for reasons outside of gameplay such as monetisation (FIFA would be a prime example) or politicization (people getting angry over “woke” games). Another factor might be that most reviewers cant put in enough time to actually properly test all games because of how many titles are releasing. Back in the day the load was much lighter and the attention was more centered around certain titles while today its very split up between different genres and such. A superficial review is probably on average better than an indepth one since most flaws usually only show if you look closely. There might also be a selection bias with reviewers only reviewing promising/popular games which on average are better games than what the average user is rating. Obviously angry users have an incentive to vent their frustration with a review.
Finally: It does make sense that games probably on average got worse so the USER trend in my eyes is very plausible. These days there are so many mediocre games because the entry barrier for creating games has sunken so much that even a single person can release a game and drag the average down. Overall in absolute numbers there are obviously more great games than ever but they aren’t enough to pull up the average due to the massive numbers of okayish games.
Data is beautiful, unless you’re colourblind.
I think this graph perfectly encapsulates how insufferable gamers have become. Or astroturfing idk.
Now lets see a chart on how much marketing budget increased for games over the years and I believe it will coincide with the red line of the “critics” 😛
I feel like gamers are more likely to feel one extreme or the other because they paid for the game: they either feel pleased with their purchase and give it a 10 or they feel angry and ripped-off and give it a 1.
Critics don’t pay for the games with their own money and play way more games in general, so they tend to review near the 70% average line. Even solid things seem average when it’s your job and you play a dozen new games a week, so they reserve the more extreme scores for the rare masterpiece like Elden Ring.
Curious to see this graph on Indie vs. Triple A games
Beautifully disgusting, nice work OP
2007. The golden year of truth.
People are more whiny nowadays or games went downhill.
19 comments
Just happens to correspond with Obama’s first term… that can’t just be a coincidence! /s
About time someone posted a US vs the MAN graph rather than red vs blue.
Movies are getting better, but users are less and less satisfied 🤷🏻♂️
I don’t understand the y axis
I think this graph is illustrating how we’ve eroded the position of critics over time.
They don’t have secure positions with well known magazines or newspapers, so they need to be more positive over time, in order to maintain their position. Otherwise, video game makers can simply cut them out of the review process.
Same thing is happening with movie reviews.
I imagine at some point in here users decided that they would just start giving the minimum possible score to stuff they didn’t like.
I think sadly that a lot more people nowadays rely on YouTubers and social media personalities to decide for them if a certain game is good or not
First mention of review bombing: 2008.
First year where the green line for Users falls sharply below that of critics: 2008.
This doesn’t have to be related, but I think it’s been coming for a long time that user reviews have been simplified to a yes/no recommendation. That means that even a 7/10 game becomes a no, or a negative, or a thumbs down or whatever, instead of someone saying, “It’s not bad, it’s just not great either”.
is that the mean or median?
might be interesting to see the distribution of the data
Difference mainly is review bombing.
Really interesting data set. Im sure that by exploring the data you could probably pinpoint to certain factors that might be responsible for this.
While I do think that it probably can be explained to some degree by critics having an incentive not to write too harsh criticism I do feel (as in thats my singular experience) that we had more polarizing games in the past few years than before with users mass-disliking games for reasons outside of gameplay such as monetisation (FIFA would be a prime example) or politicization (people getting angry over “woke” games). Another factor might be that most reviewers cant put in enough time to actually properly test all games because of how many titles are releasing. Back in the day the load was much lighter and the attention was more centered around certain titles while today its very split up between different genres and such. A superficial review is probably on average better than an indepth one since most flaws usually only show if you look closely. There might also be a selection bias with reviewers only reviewing promising/popular games which on average are better games than what the average user is rating. Obviously angry users have an incentive to vent their frustration with a review.
Finally: It does make sense that games probably on average got worse so the USER trend in my eyes is very plausible. These days there are so many mediocre games because the entry barrier for creating games has sunken so much that even a single person can release a game and drag the average down. Overall in absolute numbers there are obviously more great games than ever but they aren’t enough to pull up the average due to the massive numbers of okayish games.
Data is beautiful, unless you’re colourblind.
I think this graph perfectly encapsulates how insufferable gamers have become. Or astroturfing idk.
Now lets see a chart on how much marketing budget increased for games over the years and I believe it will coincide with the red line of the “critics” 😛
I feel like gamers are more likely to feel one extreme or the other because they paid for the game: they either feel pleased with their purchase and give it a 10 or they feel angry and ripped-off and give it a 1.
Critics don’t pay for the games with their own money and play way more games in general, so they tend to review near the 70% average line. Even solid things seem average when it’s your job and you play a dozen new games a week, so they reserve the more extreme scores for the rare masterpiece like Elden Ring.
Curious to see this graph on Indie vs. Triple A games
Beautifully disgusting, nice work OP
2007. The golden year of truth.
People are more whiny nowadays or games went downhill.