Metacritic
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Type of site
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Review aggregator |
|---|---|
| Owner | CBS Interactive |
| Slogan(s) | We Deal With Criticism |
| Website | metacritic |
| Alexa rank |
 1,505 (July 2016[update]) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Free/subscription |
| Launched | July 16, 1999 |
| Current status | Online |
| OCLC number | 911795326 |
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of media products: music albums, games, movies, TV shows, DVDs, and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged. Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of Green, Yellow or Red summarizes the critics' recommendations and therefore the general appeal of the product to reviewers and, to a lesser extent, the public. It is regarded as the video game industry's foremost review aggregator.
Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or which the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to the critic's fame, stature, and volume of reviews.
Metacritic was launched in July 1999 by Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts, and a classmate from the University of Southern California law school, Jason Dietz. Rotten Tomatoes was already compiling movie reviews, but Doyle, Roberts, and Dietz saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media. They sold Metacritic to CNET in 2005. CNET and Metacritic are now owned by the CBS Corporation.
Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal wrote in September 2004: "Mr. Doyle, 36, is now a senior product manager at CNET but he also acts as games editor of Metacritic". Speaking of video games, Doyle said: "A site like ours helps people cut through...unobjective promotional language". "By giving consumers, and web users specifically, early information on the objective quality of a game, not only are they more educated about their choices, but it forces publishers to demand more from their developers, license owners to demand more from their licensees, and eventually, hopefully, the games get better". He added that the review process was not taken as seriously when unconnected magazines and websites provided reviews in isolation.
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