Tried it out with Mixtape: This and this both look the same, except Metacritic exposes the brazen astroturf campaigning going on with this mediocre game. I would also expect OpenCritic to have critics that weren’t directly paid by Annapurna Interactive on the list to drag the score down. Instead, the critic score is even higher.
The point is not that OpenCritic matches your taste or expectations of a game better than Metacritic. The point is that OpenCritic is more fair by giving everyone the same voice (average instead weighting) and allow more people to speak / vote. This does not guarantee a better result for you, it just makes it more fair and even. This way OpenCritic has less control of the result than Metacritic, because Metacritic has a hidden algorithm that weights voices differently.
My point is that I took a famously overrated game that showed a clear disconnect between paid-off journalist shills and users who actually played the game. One of the sites exposed the disconnect. The other gave it a “80% player rating”.
But that is a systematic issue of those outlets, not an issue with the aggregator. OpenCritic just collects the ratings and presents an average. It’s not their job to control more. OpenCritic is just a mirror of those ratings. If those sites and outlets gave 10/10 all of them, then it should be reflected in the OpenCritic (and in Metascore for that matter).
Why do you think Metascores critic score is more useful than OpenCritics? I don’t think that Metascore is more useful, just because it weights IGN more and ignores certain sources. I prefer a more neutral representation, than a hidden algorithm that controls the outcome (similar to how Google controls their search results).
Since you bring up Google - do you remember the search engines of yore, when websites were ranked by how many times a search keyword appeared on a page? Those were neutral representations, and they were shitty as heck. Algorithms aren’t necessarily bad, they can filter out a lot of chaff. In this case the chaff being reviewers who blast a game because it’s ‘woke’, etc.
My point with Google was, that Google is in charge and controls the output. Maybe not the best comparison here to make a specific point, as all other things around doesn’t matter to what I was trying to say. Google off course is there to find websites and an algorithm to weight them is important, to ignore spammers and such. So Google tries to give a score to each site, where there does not exist a score. So yes, it was my bad for bringing this up, because that is a different task than an aggregator for gaming scores.
Metacritic should be seen as an algorithm with their own rating, rather than an aggregator. They have their own opinion, compared to OpenCritic who just reflect the current state of the ratings. I think an algorithm (especially if its hidden and prefers certain outlets) is bad by definition (by my definition to be precise). I do not want such an aggregator to filter out stuff. If you like that, sure, but I don’t think Metacritic should have such power.
Is it possible, even a little bit, that people just have a different opinion than you about a video game? Surely if there was flagrant bribery happening, someone would have receipts and a conscience that compelled them to share it.
Actual astroturfing often has a paper trail. “Citizens Concerned About the Whatever” publicly listed as funded by companies who directly stand to benefit from Whatever’s opposition. If it was so easy to buy good review scores, why did Microsoft not purchase them for Redfall? Why did Sony not purchase them for that 2D God of War game? Why did AnnaPurna buy them for this game but not the dozens of other games they publish? Why is the Steam user rating for Mixtape also very high if it could only achieve such ratings via bribery? Is the only explanation for Mixtape’s reviews that they were paid off? Or, perhaps, could it be a bunch of people who don’t have to prove that they’ve even played the game leaving 0/10 reviews on Metacritic en masse because they were riled up by Asmongold or some other influencer who traffics in getting their audience mad about “woke”?
I don’t know. I’ve never heard of the game before this post. I’m just pointing out the ridiculousness of hoping for the astroturfers and shills to out themselves because they’re feeling guilty.
Oh no, not even because they’re feeling guilty. If anything, those same YouTubers who get their audience angry for a living would have a monetary incentive to present proof if it existed. Actual astroturfers advertise their services on LinkedIn, and in order for this conspiracy to work, you’d have to pay off people who don’t astroturf for a living.
Astroturfing works where everyone is anonymous, but I don’t know how you expect it to work when every reviewer has a byline and an incentive to reveal corruption.
Tried it out with Mixtape: This and this both look the same, except Metacritic exposes the brazen astroturf campaigning going on with this mediocre game. I would also expect OpenCritic to have critics that weren’t directly paid by Annapurna Interactive on the list to drag the score down. Instead, the critic score is even higher.
The point is not that OpenCritic matches your taste or expectations of a game better than Metacritic. The point is that OpenCritic is more fair by giving everyone the same voice (average instead weighting) and allow more people to speak / vote. This does not guarantee a better result for you, it just makes it more fair and even. This way OpenCritic has less control of the result than Metacritic, because Metacritic has a hidden algorithm that weights voices differently.
My point is that I took a famously overrated game that showed a clear disconnect between paid-off journalist shills and users who actually played the game. One of the sites exposed the disconnect. The other gave it a “80% player rating”.
But that is a systematic issue of those outlets, not an issue with the aggregator. OpenCritic just collects the ratings and presents an average. It’s not their job to control more. OpenCritic is just a mirror of those ratings. If those sites and outlets gave 10/10 all of them, then it should be reflected in the OpenCritic (and in Metascore for that matter).
What I’m hearing is, if I want actual useful critic scores, stick to MC because OC is easier to game.
Why do you think Metascores critic score is more useful than OpenCritics? I don’t think that Metascore is more useful, just because it weights IGN more and ignores certain sources. I prefer a more neutral representation, than a hidden algorithm that controls the outcome (similar to how Google controls their search results).
Since you bring up Google - do you remember the search engines of yore, when websites were ranked by how many times a search keyword appeared on a page? Those were neutral representations, and they were shitty as heck. Algorithms aren’t necessarily bad, they can filter out a lot of chaff. In this case the chaff being reviewers who blast a game because it’s ‘woke’, etc.
My point with Google was, that Google is in charge and controls the output. Maybe not the best comparison here to make a specific point, as all other things around doesn’t matter to what I was trying to say. Google off course is there to find websites and an algorithm to weight them is important, to ignore spammers and such. So Google tries to give a score to each site, where there does not exist a score. So yes, it was my bad for bringing this up, because that is a different task than an aggregator for gaming scores.
Metacritic should be seen as an algorithm with their own rating, rather than an aggregator. They have their own opinion, compared to OpenCritic who just reflect the current state of the ratings. I think an algorithm (especially if its hidden and prefers certain outlets) is bad by definition (by my definition to be precise). I do not want such an aggregator to filter out stuff. If you like that, sure, but I don’t think Metacritic should have such power.
Is it possible, even a little bit, that people just have a different opinion than you about a video game? Surely if there was flagrant bribery happening, someone would have receipts and a conscience that compelled them to share it.
Yes, we absolutely see astroturfers stepping forward all the time to clear their conscience.
Actual astroturfing often has a paper trail. “Citizens Concerned About the Whatever” publicly listed as funded by companies who directly stand to benefit from Whatever’s opposition. If it was so easy to buy good review scores, why did Microsoft not purchase them for Redfall? Why did Sony not purchase them for that 2D God of War game? Why did AnnaPurna buy them for this game but not the dozens of other games they publish? Why is the Steam user rating for Mixtape also very high if it could only achieve such ratings via bribery? Is the only explanation for Mixtape’s reviews that they were paid off? Or, perhaps, could it be a bunch of people who don’t have to prove that they’ve even played the game leaving 0/10 reviews on Metacritic en masse because they were riled up by Asmongold or some other influencer who traffics in getting their audience mad about “woke”?
I don’t know. I’ve never heard of the game before this post. I’m just pointing out the ridiculousness of hoping for the astroturfers and shills to out themselves because they’re feeling guilty.
Oh no, not even because they’re feeling guilty. If anything, those same YouTubers who get their audience angry for a living would have a monetary incentive to present proof if it existed. Actual astroturfers advertise their services on LinkedIn, and in order for this conspiracy to work, you’d have to pay off people who don’t astroturf for a living.
But by that logic, astroturfing simply wouldn’t work, when we know for a fact it works very well.
Astroturfing works where everyone is anonymous, but I don’t know how you expect it to work when every reviewer has a byline and an incentive to reveal corruption.