“We recently implemented the 36-hour waiting period for all user reviews in our games section to ensure that our players have time to play these games before writing their reviews. This new waiting period for user reviews has been implemented in the Metacritic Games section and was based on research based on data and with input from critics and industry experts, “a Metacritic spokesperson said in a statement provided to Engadget.
The change was first noticed about two weeks ago, but is receiving more attention after the release of Ghost of tsushima, the first major release since the waiting period was created, Forbes notes
Metacritic is not the only platform that is trying to prevent users from destroying scores before giving games a fair chance. Steam’s review system tries to hold users accountable by looking at how much time they’ve spent playing the game. Steam also shows how many reviews a user has made and lists recent reviews.
Neither solution is perfect. In the case of Metacritic, postponing user reviews isn’t going to fix the score bombardment issue, and can create problems on launch day when people visit a list of games for buying advice just to find zero reviews of users. Ultimately, the issue is not the review platforms or how they are structured. There is no silver bullet to stop people from exploiting their unsubstantiated opinions online.
Update 07/17/2020 12:00 PM ET: This story was updated to include a Metacritic statement.
