EA Would Like to be '90-Plus Metacritic at Everything'

[Makena]

They're obviously going to bribe the reviewers to make sure they get a 90 on Metacritic.

Scoreless reviews FTW!

[Edward]

Shame reviews are for us to see if we'll like it.

Yes I can understand they'll want to score well. But the goal should be lets make a fun game that is done with quality instead it sounds like they'll focus on what will score well - which will be lets play it safe and do it with top notch graphics.

[TRB]

Origin senior vice president David DeMartini revealed to MCV that they "want to be 90 plus Metacritic at everything"

2 things.

1. how about they start aiming to innovate rather then regurgitate?
A.K.A: make good new games instead of <game name> 67 that is nearly the same as <game name> 66.
that doesn't mean they need to drop any specific IP but rather step the actual game design up. BF3 is ok but it could have been a much better game too, in several ways it was actually a step back from bad company 2.

2. I'm sure they can afford to pay for favourable reviews.

[Novocaine]

[RSOblivion]

They already do pay for reviews, but not directly. They ship the reviewers off to sunny resorts, give them nice rooms, beaches, liquor and an Xbox/PS3 to play them on and pay for the whole thing including flights. All to loosen the reviewers pens in their favour.

Problem is there is only so much bile that can be written about a lot of stuff coming out of EA's publishing shenanigans. Lets take a look at Tiger Woods PGA 2012 The Masters. A game that not only looks six years old on release, it plays like its six years old. It's only 3GB installed highlighting a direct port from console with no effort for high level textures or lighting etc...

This is pretty much the same situation across their sports range of products. Then we have the mega fails from Bioware recently. To make one bad mistake is normal. To make 3 is well, poor management. First on the lopping block is Dragon Age 2, universally agreed to be **** (doesn't mean everyone agrees!), Mass Effect 3 followed that up by being very disappointing especially with the loss of ME1 and ME2's writer, who seemed to be replaced by a corporate accountancy group. Finally there's the $223m investment in SWTOR. For that to survive the next 5 years with 1million subscribers, well that's gonna be betting on 0 in roulette. All 3 had massive budgets. All 3 failed miserably due to poor direction and decision making a lot of which is influenced by EA rather than Bioware.

Unless EA start changing their core policies towards game development studios they won't be hitting the 90+ metacritic scores anytime soon.

[Makena]

Unless EA start changing their core policies towards game development studios they won't be hitting the 90+ metacritic scores anytime soon.

They've had a good number of high 80 scores recently, in most cases the user scores are simply not a good indication because of the rage that leads to zeros, the ending of Mass Effect 3 don't make it a 0/10 as many user scores show, that's simply blind hatred, just like Battlefield 3 has a lot of Zeros too. Which, do ME3/BF3 have issues? Sure, are they a 0/10? No.

[thefinn]

Do people actually base the purchase of games on the metacritic score said game recieved?

I always got the impression it was just a bit of industry wank.

Dude steam uses it all over every big title - they all get near perfect scores by critics.

You can't tell me people don't buy stuff off the metacritic score.

After all this is PEOPLE we're talking about.

The only good thing metacritic really does is allow for user reviews..

[neo dewolf]

Remember the good old days where to get a 90+ score you would have to:

- Make a fun game
- Make a not broken game

EA seems to not follow either rule....

[Pigfat]

Just pay the reviewers more money and you'll get 95+ each time

[SaNE]

Just pay the reviewers more money and you'll get 95+ each time

That's how the world works.

[Jez]

Do people actually base the purchase of games on the metacritic score said game recieved?

I always got the impression it was just a bit of industry wank.

Although I don't like to admit it, when browsing through the steam store the metacritic thing is often the first thing I check after the screenshots and blurb. It frequently makes or breaks purchases for me.

[Novocaine]

I usually check the metacritic reviews before I buy something. Though it's not just looking at the average number and making a decision, I read a bunch of the reviews, both user and site.

[Shinanigans]

They already do pay for reviews, but not directly. They ship the reviewers off to sunny resorts, give them nice rooms, beaches, liquor and an Xbox/PS3 to play them on and pay for the whole thing including flights. All to loosen the reviewers pens in their favour.

Sure you're not mistaking EA for Activision here? http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/xbox/games/ ... iew-event/

Also, regarding the comments questioning reviewers abilities to do their job correctly: viewtopic.php?p=2370145#p2370145

Lastly, if you [not targeting anyone here] make your game purchases based on the big number at the bottom of the page, you deserve any disappointment you get. Read the articles, the actual content of the articles. Generally the reviewers don't just make **** up ("there's a 50 foot tall sea monster in GTAIV, keep an eye out for it!1"), so read and make a more informed decision based off what the reviewer discusses about the game and what YOU want out of a game, not whether the article has big bold quotes like "it was awesome!1!". Find out WHY it's awesome, if the article doesn't explain it, move on to the next one.

[frigidhell]

Metacritic is just a crappy site using a crappy methodology to produce crappy results.

Granted, the games press is culpable as well, but if Metacritic used the same methodology as Rotten Tomatoes, then it would be a lot more obvious just how stupid most games reviewers are at what they do.

Games would be getting something like 95% positive ratings across the board, since the Rotten Tomatoes model merely tallies positive and negative reviews, and applies a “fresh” rating to the movies that get more than 60% positive reviews.

It’s a much more sensible way to represent criticism. It also completely removes the need for a 1-10 scale, which is pretty retarded to begin with. Let alone a 1-100, which Metacritic then warps it into, so it makes even less sense.

[Gober]

Just pay the reviewers more money and you'll get 95+ each time

That's how the world works.

wheres my cheque from ea??