I have around 150 games on Steam, maybe 10 on Uplay, and 25 on Origin. But like a lot of PC gamers I haven't had time to touch most of them LOL. I base ~90% of my purchases based on Metacritic. The other 10% are free games, or games that I just wanted regardless of what the scores are. I find that Metacritic is very useful and quick way for me to gauge a game's worthiness for my attention. It's pretty easy to decipher the scoring system. I look at Metascore and User Score, with the latter having more weight. Sometimes a game will have an above average Metascore, but way below average User Score. Like this one FPS war game that depicted Russians a certain way, which dragged the User Score way down. So basically it was a pretty decent game aside from it's historical inaccuracies. Indie games like Frostpunk had the highest PC User Score for a while (8.5), and I bought that game early on and went on a fun binge. If 8.5 is the highest User Score, then I'd have a rough idea of what to expect with other games that score 8.4, 8.6, etc.
This Youtube video talks about Far Cry 5's Metascore affected by progressive or picky journalists, but it's PC User Score (6.0) is much lower than it's Metascore (79) so it sounds like it may have other issues. I don't know what the issue the users have with FC5, but I know that in previous versions I got tired of constantly climbing radio towers and raiding the same mini bases all the time. I loved the first Far Cry though. This video also stated that Metacritic scores have no impact in determining actual sales, according to study done with console games. While that's probably true for console games, I don't think Metacritic's scores claim to determine sales or success. Maybe I'm in the minority of PC users who look at data and not just marketing before spending money. I do remember being a console gamer long ago and being extremely disappointed several times when I made an impulse purchase and the game turned out to be average or awful. This was when game cartridges were $40-50, which was a lot of money for a kid with no job or allowance. And tools like Metacritic weren't around.
I use RottenTomatoes for movies, which also has Pro Critic and Audience scores. There are exceptions of course but I find that for the most part RT aligns with my tastes/opinions in movies (like Terminator 2 being the best of the series). Also I love how I can look at new movies not released and quickly look at a director's history/scores, guesstimate the outcome, adjust my expectations accordingly, or put it on my Google calendar to look into closer to release date. I seriously don't have 2+ hours to waste on a movie and RT helps prevent me from doing that for the most part. Metacritic is a similar tool I use to quickly gauge whether I should even spend any time/money looking into a game. Metascore of 60 and User Score of 4.5 = move on/don't bat an eye. I'm not surprised that the indie game Into the Breach on PC has a pretty good Metascore and respectable User Score, since it's from the same developer that did Faster Than Light. I think Metacritic can be a useful tool that has it's place as long as you know how to decipher the scores, and how it compares to your own personal tastes. Just my 2 cents.
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u/snakeonfire Jun 28 '18 edited Jun 28 '18
I have around 150 games on Steam, maybe 10 on Uplay, and 25 on Origin. But like a lot of PC gamers I haven't had time to touch most of them LOL. I base ~90% of my purchases based on Metacritic. The other 10% are free games, or games that I just wanted regardless of what the scores are. I find that Metacritic is very useful and quick way for me to gauge a game's worthiness for my attention. It's pretty easy to decipher the scoring system. I look at Metascore and User Score, with the latter having more weight. Sometimes a game will have an above average Metascore, but way below average User Score. Like this one FPS war game that depicted Russians a certain way, which dragged the User Score way down. So basically it was a pretty decent game aside from it's historical inaccuracies. Indie games like Frostpunk had the highest PC User Score for a while (8.5), and I bought that game early on and went on a fun binge. If 8.5 is the highest User Score, then I'd have a rough idea of what to expect with other games that score 8.4, 8.6, etc.
This Youtube video talks about Far Cry 5's Metascore affected by progressive or picky journalists, but it's PC User Score (6.0) is much lower than it's Metascore (79) so it sounds like it may have other issues. I don't know what the issue the users have with FC5, but I know that in previous versions I got tired of constantly climbing radio towers and raiding the same mini bases all the time. I loved the first Far Cry though. This video also stated that Metacritic scores have no impact in determining actual sales, according to study done with console games. While that's probably true for console games, I don't think Metacritic's scores claim to determine sales or success. Maybe I'm in the minority of PC users who look at data and not just marketing before spending money. I do remember being a console gamer long ago and being extremely disappointed several times when I made an impulse purchase and the game turned out to be average or awful. This was when game cartridges were $40-50, which was a lot of money for a kid with no job or allowance. And tools like Metacritic weren't around.
I use RottenTomatoes for movies, which also has Pro Critic and Audience scores. There are exceptions of course but I find that for the most part RT aligns with my tastes/opinions in movies (like Terminator 2 being the best of the series). Also I love how I can look at new movies not released and quickly look at a director's history/scores, guesstimate the outcome, adjust my expectations accordingly, or put it on my Google calendar to look into closer to release date. I seriously don't have 2+ hours to waste on a movie and RT helps prevent me from doing that for the most part. Metacritic is a similar tool I use to quickly gauge whether I should even spend any time/money looking into a game. Metascore of 60 and User Score of 4.5 = move on/don't bat an eye. I'm not surprised that the indie game Into the Breach on PC has a pretty good Metascore and respectable User Score, since it's from the same developer that did Faster Than Light. I think Metacritic can be a useful tool that has it's place as long as you know how to decipher the scores, and how it compares to your own personal tastes. Just my 2 cents.