Every week, excitement is brought to me by gaming podcasts. News about the industry, whacky office stories, and the video game discussion with familiar voices fills me with glee and provides a nice distraction in my everyday work. However, assigning review scores to games is a topic that comes up too often and my interest flushes out faster than a Guitar Hero sequel. Complaints about Metacritic’s conversion rate, accusations of bribery, and pressure from publishers all coexist with a controversial review score. Controversial review scores do not exist and I’m going to explain why.

Gamespy’s Uncharted 2 and 1up’s Last Remnant Metacritic scores work as great examples of believed controversial review scores. The comments for those reviews provide a display of irrational behavior, crying foul and controversy.

Figure 1: Uncharted 2’s Review Score Distribution according to Metacritic. The score was 96.

Uncharted 2 received a 4.5/5 stars from Gamespy which translates into a 90 on Metacritic. It was posted with a batch of early reviews but was met with vitriol because it was believed that the reviewer had an agenda to ruin the Metacritic score.

  “Wow 4.5 and "one of the best games this gen" yo  said. Fuk me and NFS gets a 5/5 well someone is  out to lower the Meta score. “- Gamespy user

 “Gamespy are stealth fanboys NEVER giving a  PS3 exclusive a perfect score. …It currently sits at  97 on Metacritic yet N4S shift 84 on Meta received  a higher score? WTF“– Gamespy User

Since I do not know the exact method the Metascore is calculated, my calculations are based off a standard mean from the scores posted on Metacritic. A 90 appeared to be low and superficially looked like it would lower the average.

According to my findings, if the 90 were to be excluded from the set of reviews and the Metacritic scores were recompiled the average resulted as a 96, which matched the Metacritic score. Now, by some infinitely small chance the reviewer had an agenda to lower the Metacritic score and gave the game a 0, the average would be decreased by .86 of a point. Further proof is no longer needed to show Gamespy’s 90 did not significantly lower the average or deserved a controversial label.

1up’s Last Remnant review score shares the same reputation but also appeared to be a prime example of Metacritic’s poor conversion system.  The conversion from D to 25 was harsh and seemed to drag down the Metacritic score, 66.

 “Don't trust this guys reviews, you can compare  this review to any other and see that its way over  the top, each of the reviews are praising the game  making it out to be 8-9 standards but because of  these slight technical flaws ... Just read the users  reviews and scores and compare them to the  official reviewers if your going of scores and  reviews...Alot of people didn't want to get this  game because of bad reviews but are saying they  really enjoyed it.” -1up User

 Shown above the average was raised by .86 of a point with the exclusion of 25. If the letter grade of D were to be properly translated into a higher score from the 60-70 range, an equally weak result would occur. At the same time if a score were to be artificially inflated, the average would hardly be moved as well.

 The suggestion that review scores do not matter is    not what I’m suggesting. For reviews, a score serves  a purpose; however, the lesson is, a reviewer  should not hesitate to assign a score he feels a game  deserves, nor feel notoriety from a perceived low  score, because it doesn’t affect the final Metacritic  score. The review space is a large population with  many opinions, drowning out singular voices. This  dynamic denies the existence of controversial  review scores. Destruction isn’t caused by a single bullet like a bullet hell shooter.  A grand conspiracy among all reviewers, from every part of the globe mutually agreeing to assign the same score would be the only way to have a dramatic influence on the Metacritic score, or in the event of a high profile game receiving a small group of reviewers, 3 or less and one of the scores was drastically different from the others. DSi ware or iPhone games are the only types of games that fit the profile of less than 5 review scores, but by their nature they would never warrant the attention needed to label them as controversial. The current media landscape prevents the existence of controversial review scores.