general media Metacritic's unbalanced rating system and its affect on public view

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,241]

This might seem like a strange topic but you all know me by now. Actually, I think this is an interesting discussion piece about Metacritic's review aggregation system and how it can sway the public's view on things. 

 

As you all probably know, Metacritic is a website dedicated to media that rounds up reviews from critics and users and it tallies them up to an average score. Simple concept, but it works. Right? Reviews and the score therein are always subject to debate and criticism as people agree or disagree. If a piece of media gets a certain overall score, it can actually sway the opinion of other's beforehand, which really can be both a positive and a negative.

 

With that established, I want to bring up a problem with this system that seems to never be brought up and that is Metacritic's color system for overall scores and how it is uneven and unfair.

 

Here is how this system works: Depending on the average score, a piece of media will get one of 3 simple colors: Green, Yellow, Red. This is a very simple system that should work. Green means try it out, Yellow means approach it caution and Red means potentially avoid. This should be a good system. However, I will now go into the main issue. I know, took me a bit to get to it, but I like getting detailed.

 

This color system, which as a visual aspect can really be a persuasive force to the public eye, is actually unbalanced between media. The main examples here are between movies and video games. These two things are not on the same color scale and for no real reason. A movie that have a certain average score will stay in the green while a game with the same score may have long been in the yellow. 

 

Here is exactly what I am talking about:

Here is a movie, with an average score of 61, it is in the green.

Now here is another film, which has scored one point lower to 60. It is now in the yellow.

 

Compare this to a video game:

Here is a game that is averaged at 75, in the green.

Now, here is another game, one point lower at 74, now in the yellow.

 

See the problem? For some reason, games go into the yellow once they hit below 75, whereas movies hit yellow below 61. The way this system is done has absolutely no merit whatsoever and is completely unbalanced.

 

One of the main issues here is that it deludes certain averages to nothing. When a movie is getting an average score around 62, its presence in the green keeps the positive viewpoint of the public intact, on average. The green color, as simple as it is, really can support a positive viewpoint. For games, with the yellow being hit at such a high number, it starts to affect how people view these scores. A game with a 60 or above, to me, is still considered 'good', but because of this unbalance color system, anything below 75 is now considered 'average' by the public. Even something approaching 75 is under a ton of scrutiny in gaming, whereas a 77 movie is considered great. Therefore if a game gets below 70 and into the mid to lower 60's, the public often seems to view that as bad, and the game doesn't have to be in the red. 

 

There is also another huge issue with the yellow to red, as the variation is the same thing. The threshold for both is different between games and movies and it has the same exact effect. A game goes red once below 50, a movie goes red once below 40.

 

So to finish this post up, what do you all think? Do you think this really weird system has a negative impact? What are your opinion's on the matter? Discuss!

 

I personally think this system is heavily flawed as both should run on the same system of color, preferably on the movie scale. This particular issue also goes to show how powerful something as simple as colors can be.

[Megas 27,539]

Metacritic really just reinforces my problems with reviews that use numbers/letter grades. People focus waaaaaay to much on scores without reading the damn review itself. Never mind dumb mentality people have nowadays, especially for games, where anything below a score of 8/10, or 80/100, is automatically trash

Edited April 18, 2016 by Megas

[inactive_user 367]

If you ask me, I think the wisest decision as far as implementing some kind of balance update for the system here would perhaps make the "green / yellow / red" color transition an ACTUAL transition... Like perhaps for example, a game receiving a score of 100 would (obviously) be a nice full, rich, deep green, peg it down a bit to an 85 or so and that green would be considerably lighter in shade and perhaps more like the green that is currently shown on there, then of course as the number decreases, the color transition respectively follows a nice little gradual spectrum of color shades and values falling through the three main categories (green, yellow, red) as a whole, in a more subtle and therefore, more visually and algorithmic-ally accurate way.

Woo, creative idea. :v