Metacritical
This morning I logged into Metacritic to see where the average Ghost of Tsushima score, which came out today on PS4, had been set to, and I saw that it is a respectable 83. But I also saw something else, where we would normally see user scores in at Right, there is a new message that I have never seen before.
Please spend some time playing the game. Check it again starting at 12:00 pm PST on July 18. “
This is new. We’ve previously seen user scores start to pile up, either on the day a game comes out or sometimes even before that, but now Metacritic is making users wait more than 36 hours after launch to get started to post reviews, considering that this is the “right” time to play credibly. the game.
This, of course, was inspired by the recent release of The Last of Us Part 2, where players used user scores to wage a power war in the game and sink their score to 3/10 lows right on the launch time. The game currently has more user scores than any other in history by a huge margin as a result of this continuous exchange of detractors and champions.
Metacritical
The initial problem was that there were thousands of reviews that came out almost instantly at game launch, when it was physically impossible for players to have played more than a couple of hours, given that the story length was more than 20-30 hours. . These folks submitted reviews based on things like story leaks, streamer games, or just coming up with a single story beat near the start and running to write an angry review. This new 36-hour hold seems to be fighting that directly.
However, I see that many people say that this is not enough. Some are asking that Metacritic go one step further and really verify that you have played the game if you are submitting a review, through some form of purchase confirmation by linking your Metacritic account to your PSN or Xbox or Steam profile or something. . While maybe they will one day, that’s a much something more complicated to tackle, and it’s not how most user scoring systems work on most major sites. I would be a little surprised if this were actually implemented, even if in a perfect world it seems like the right move.
Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t seem to be in danger of the user scoring review being bombarded, and this system wasn’t invented just for release. This was actually first seen two weeks ago, but I (and most people) probably didn’t notice until another major release like Ghost came along. Again, this will not stop the review blitz. After the 36 hours have passed, anyone can write any kind of review they want, and there’s no way to keep track of how many games they’ve played, if at all. But at least we won’t have people reviewing 30-hour short story games two hours after launch, so that’s something.
