Metacritic to fanboys: We post every review that we cover

It was only a few weeks ago when fanboy wars once again sparked all over the internet, trashed user ratings at Metacritic, and flamed everywhere that they could write – even here at QJ. Metacritic founder Marc Doyle speaks up about the reviews and about fanboys whining about scores.

It all started with PS3’s LittleBigPlanet getting a disappointing user rating on Metacritic: 6.3. Site founder Marc Doyle explained that this was simply due to a fanboy warpath targeting the PS3 and its games. Equally zealous fanboys from the PS3 camp retaliated and oblite-rated Xbox 360’s Gears of War 2, leaving the user rating at a woeful 2.5 at the time.

Fanboys at Metacritic whined that not every 10/10 score out there for LBP was posted on the site. Obviously, they were upset that their precious game did not receive the rating that they’d prefer. Marc Doyle has these words to clear things up:

As long as I have a page for a game on Metacritic, I post every review for that game from the publications I track. It’s not an automated process and we’re human, so we will occasionally make a mistake on inputting a score or I’ll miss a review. But when it’s called to our attention. We post the review immediately. But it is our policy to post every review from every publication we cover, so long as we have a page for that game on our site. We don’t pick and choose which reviews we post.

Metacritic only uses scores from registered publications – sources that Metacritic has decided and confirmed to have valid opinion on matters. Sometimes, it’s possible that they miss reviews, or your favorite blog isn’t registered, so not all ratings out there will show up on the site. Reviews are supposed to be subjective, but Metacritic is definitely not biased towards any console. Subjectivity and bias are two different things.

• The PS3 Empire strikes back: Gears of War 2 scores 2.8 on Metacritic
• LittleBigPlanet gets 6.3/10 on Metacritic, website founder addresses angry mob