Should Gaintbomb opt out of metacritic

That's weird, I thought they already opted out a long time ago?

Needs more typing

Metacritic is a CBSi website, wonder if that makes a difference.

I think it's a useful resource in searching for reviews. Often, the user scores/reviews are fucking stupid and misguided.
However, I think it's utter bullshit for video game publishers to use it for the basis of compensation. Sick fucks...

I said B.

It's a useful site for consumer even if sites, developers, and publishers probably fucking hate it to no end. But it also probably introduces a lot of people to Giantbomb who may never have heard of it. It wouldn't be a good business decision to opt out of it.

@forcen said:

I would be shocked if it didn't make a difference. Even if Jeff wanted to opt out (though I don't think he's ever indicated that he has a problem with Metacritic), it might not be a battle worth having with the higher-ups at CBSi.

Nope. I don't agree with how they calculate numerical scores. I don't even think having a metascore is even remotely accurate or useful. Still, the site is open with how they do arrive with their numbers. This makes some of their data useful to those seeking them. Giant Bomb withholding their scores would be a meaningless gesture.

Could they even do that?

CBSi owning both site would make this weird.

Jeff has already said he thinks their review scale fits perfectly with how metacritic works. 4 and 5 are green, 3 is yellow and 1 and 2 are red.

People should use gamerankings more than metacritic though. At least gamerankings doesn't inflate the value of certain scores purely based on how much traffic a site gets. It's a real average and you don't have the ridiculous user reviews. CBSi own that one too which i find funny.

I don't see why it shouldn't be in there. It's not hurting Giant Bomb in any way that I can see and it brings some page views on those reviews from the outside (which isn't that the crux of this Internet thingy)

Yea I'm pretty sure they did.

I like Metacritic for easy links to read reviews from people I respect, but what it represents to the industry in general is where I veer. Also I've never laughed harder then reading 0/10 user reviews. Hilarious.

But can't you imagine how knowing that some publishers base compensation and salaries off of metacritic scores would put some unwanted emotional stress on a reviewer's consciousness whenever giving a game a bad score? I'm not saying that this is on the minds of Giant Bomb editors, but I've certainly read a few articles on here that rationally portrayed this approach to wage-compensation with a bad light.

I imagine that you'd be ethically compromised to speaking your mind and writing an honest opinion about any game, but in some cases that would undeservedly contribute to someone making less money than maybe he or she expected/hoped to - which, in this world we live in, can be quite a tragic event. So I imagine that would, in some occasions, make doing the job you love so much a bit of a torn and mixed bag of feelings.

If I ran a popular video-game editorial website like Giant Bomb, I would probably opt out of metacritic (if that's even possible). Even if it sacrificed free advertising, it takes a downside of a pretty great job out of the picture.

That said, I do find metacritic useful and use it often. I'd rather publishers would stop using metacritic scores with such impactful an intent, but if that can't be had, I would totally understand an editorial website opting out of it.

Sorry but after seeing the "You and your polls are dumb" option I forgot what you even asked and immediately pressed that. What were the big kids talking about again?

I did the same thing. It's almost like a Pavlovian response: see option ridiculing the OP, have to click it.

Why would they? I'm not trying to be dismissive, it's a serious question. It doesn't hurt them at all to have their reviews linked from there and it could provide extra traffic.

Can you even opt out of metacritic?.....pretty sure you can't

Metacritic gets a buttload of traffic so I wouldn't blame anybody that would want a piece of it, if that's the case. Plus, as others have said, it's probably not a choice anyways.

Who cares? I mean I hate metacritic and all that, but if it means one more person visits Giant Bomb who wouldn't have otherwise, then it's a good thing. Right?

Metacritic is a very useful site, I think, especially for reviewers. Having a site where I could just see all the reviews for one product is great. Just because certain people use it poorly shouldn't change that.

I don't really understand why they, or anyone else, would want to opt out of the site. From my perspective, its an easy way to see a variety of opinions without having to search them out individually. From a site's perspective, they would get increased traffic by showing up in the list. Where is the bad part of this? It's not the sites' fault if developers negotiate shitty deals that base their royalties compensation on a metacritic score

It's advertising for Giant Bomb so it's got that going for it.

Of course not it would accomplish nothing besides decrease traffic to this site. 5 star system should be changed to 10 though. How many idiots do we get in review comments because of giantbomb having a low score on metacritic.

Everyone should get rid of metacritic, stick to something like gamerankings (which just collects reviews/scores from game journalism sites) instead as it avoids the problem metacritic had in the past of fake reviews on games.

Jeff thinks that giant bomb scores pretty much align perfectly with how metacritic presents them. He doesn't have a problem with it.

You and your polls are dumb.

Hey, it's up to Giantbomb, they can do whatever the fuck they want with their site (unless that thing is shutting it down, GB4LIFE). But seriously, it don't care if they opt out of metacritic or not, it's up to them.

jeff's sim city review shows up on metacritic so i guess that's not the case

"Seems like all the outlets despise Metacritic which kind of makes me wonder if they could would they opt out of having their reviews being used on Metacritic should they be trying to do this right now?"

You mean like the review sites should band together to boycott Metacritic? That sounds like a great idea actually.

As for whether GB should, it would probably hurt them more than it would Metacritic. But if they did this then maybe other review sites would follow.

There are a lot of things game sites should do collectively, but they never will because they're too busy fighting over the scraps thrown to them by the industry.

I'm willing to say that metacritic has a broad place in gauging overall interest. For all of its flaws, it does provide some abstracted average that someone would be bound to generate anyway.

Maybe it gets abused a bit much, but I kind of think any downfalls of metacritic are user faults rather than reasons to abolish it.

Alex reviewed Sim City.

whoops. point still stands, though

I chose "don't care." I figure that I'll get the gist of a game if I choose to visit Metacritic with or without Giantbomb. It's still pretty fucked how it's been (still being?) used as a metric for awarding bonuses to developers, though.

At the very least, Developers hate it. Gaming sites seem indifferent for the most part.

Publishers ****ing love Metacritic though. They use Metacritic to exert/affect a LOT of influence on the industry. Metacritic affects a lot of things- from Developer bonuses to what genres publishers decide deserve more attention. (And probably much more)

Metacritic's death would be a glorious day for the industry (And by extension, absolutely nothing of value would be lost if scores died along with it).

But I voted C, cause its never gonna happen. So for the site's purposes, GiantBomb's probably better off just playing with them for all intents and purposes. :\

Don't care, but yeah.

No. People should be more intelligent and actually read the reviews instead of just looking at a 60/100 and saying that a game is bad. GB can't be held responsible for illiterates.