Metacritic Paints a Bleak Portrait of Videogames in 2012

Metacritic has garnered controversy ever since it rose to popularity in the mid 00’s and became the de facto aggregator of videogame review scores. The site earned its popularity through its ease of use, and many gamers turned to it for purchasing advice, interested only in scores and less in the opinions of actual reviewers. As there’s a strong correlation between a high Metacritic score and sales figures, some publishers* opt to use it as a yardstick for giving out bonuses to game developers.

Metacritic released a series of graphs today in the form of an article titled “A Far Cry from 2011’s Heights”, which chronicled the state of games over the past year in an attempt to quantify the ‘greatness’ of said games. The site states that 2012 was a less-than-stellar year for videogames due to the lower average score games received over the period, based on aggregated review scores.

According to the site, only 14 console games, and 18 games overall—including PC and handheld titles—received aggregated scores of 90 (or “great”) and above. In the previous years, close to double the amount of games received equivalent scores.

Based on the lower average and a number of other factors, the site attempts to paint the year as a severe one in terms of quality titles, ignoring the possibility—and likelihood—that game critics may simply be recalibrating the qualities that define a ‘great’ game. Instead of doling out high scores willy nilly, critics have sought to decant the titles they review with an understanding of the games that came before. After all, how much better is 2012’s Call of Duty compared to the one which came out the year before?

* Obsidian lost out on Fallout: New Vegas Metacritic bonus by one point, via Joystiq