metacritic censorship

[asdfen]

just found myself banned and ALL reviews I've ever posted deleted from metacritic after posting negative reviews of evil within, borderlands tps. There is no message explaining why just "You may no longer submit a review due to the content of your previous comments or reviews." That coupled with what I noticed multiple fake accounts containing single 10 star rating of a title even makes me believe that the user reviews on that site cannot be trusted.

I guess the only uncensored game reviews on the net can be found on escapist and destructoid. The rest of "professional" reviewers rate all the games as best ever.

Sad

Where do you guys go for your review information?

 

[ninja666]

Where do you guys go for your review information?

Metacritic

 

[DementedSheep]

What did your review say? because I find it hard to believe you actually got banned just for giving a negative review because popular games still get 1's on metacritc. Shadows of Morder has negative reviews and if they could control that I'm pretty sure they would be given how they were trying to control other review outlets. Maybe you got hacked?

Though yes people make burner accounts to drive a score one way or another.

As for where I go for reviews? uhh none consistently. I look at a few random ones and look the game up on YouTube so I can watch some videos of it. Maybe read a review here If one happens to pop up for a game I'm interested in.

 

[Elijin]

To be play devil's advocate here....

What was the content of your review? Because there are negative reviews, and then there are foul mouthed crude reviews which seem to not know where the line in civility lays and then wave around the 'If you dont like my review you're just afraid of negative reviews' as a shield. And the fact you specifically use the word censored, makes me wonder.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Metacritic needs to die in a fire, the whole thing.

Both user reviews and the "professional" reviews section have done nothing but harm to the industry.

Developers often only get bonuses depending on Metacritic targets, and one site posting a low rating can screw all that.

 

[Windcaler]

Like some others I question what was in your present and past reviews to get you banned. To often Ive seen people complaining about being banned and "censored" when their reviews personally attacked people or made racist, sexist, or other bigoted remarks

That said I am of the opinion that metacritic is the worst thing to happen to this industry since DRM became commonplace and kept being the worst thing up until always online requirements became a thing. My main problem with metacritic is blatant score manipulation where some reviews count for more (or less) to the overall score based on whos doing the review. Big companies like IGN get 125-150% higher say while freelancers can get 75% or lower say in the overall score. Of course there are other isues too like 1-5 or 1-10 rating systems not fitting into their 1-100 rating system and the fact that you literally cant post a review without a score which reinforces the dumb idea that scores are needed instead of detailed reviews

 

[Mezahmay]

Developers often only get bonuses depending on Metacritic targets, and one site posting a low rating can screw all that.

Metacritic doesn't pay the devs though, their publisher does. That's no more a metacritic problem than it's a consumer problem.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Metacritic doesn't pay the devs though, their publisher does. That's no more a metacritic problem than it's a consumer problem.

Yeah, pretty much exactly this. Metacritic is just a critical consensus site. You can complain about how they weight their scores or bicker with any one particular score, but at the end of the day it's just data. It's a tool. Blaming metacritic for developers not meeting their bonus threshold is like blaming a hammer because a carpenter made a shitty house with it.

People will attack metacritic because of the 7-10 rating scale used by a lot of critics, or because users like to score bomb or fawn, but the thing is this is pretty common knowledge, at least amongst enthusiasts. You should be viewing the site and taking those things into consideration when viewing score aggregates. You should also be reading specific reviews from specific reviewers whose tastes you find mirror your own in order to get a full picture of what a game plays like. You can supplement that with Let's Plays or demos to further inform a purchase decision.

Anyone who jumps on metacritic and sees a high score and just buys a game blind pretty much deserves whatever they get.

 

[asdfen]

I did not touch sexism/racism/whatever I stayed on topic of the games in question.
Doesn't matter thought as I also do not find the metacritics as a useful tool to find worth wile games before I got banned. Now I just wont use it.

 

[TessaraVejgan]

I find it hard to believe you were banned for no reason. Did you contact them? I once wrote my opinion that was deleted and after I asked why they told me because I insulted the devs or something (I don't remember correctly) and they included the stuff I wrote in the mail and told me I could just write a new one. Generally the mods will just delete offensive words like fuck, shit, etc. Actually, hmmm, I think my review got deleted precisely because I said the devs were rating the game themselves or something in that regard. I personally like metacritic because it gives people like me who don't review games on youtube or blogs, etc a platform to say what we think about the games. Anyway as I said I find it extremely hard to believe your account got deleted for nothing especially after I see all the incredible stuff people write, me included (sometimes) hahahaha.

 

[asdfen]

yes I have contacted them and they actually replied to me this time around. The reasons for ban are still unclear to me. I just got this by email.

bellow are the contents of reply

I've reactivated your account. I doubt this is why you were suspended, but for multisystem games, I encourage you to review on the version you've played. It's not a site policy, but it's what we prefer.

thanks for using the site, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

However all of my reviews/ratings have remain deleted and I am not going to use that the site any longer.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Frankly I think that Metacritic should have more review "censorship". The amount of 1/10's that are given because someone has a petty complaint about a game that's at least decent otherwise is absurd. Part of the reason why I avoid the site completely