Here's something you may not have known. If a developer's game gets a low review score on
Metacritic, they can miss out on big payments from their Publishers.
Former GameSpot reviewers Jeff Gerstmann and Alex Navarro admitted to recieving emails from developers that told them to raise their review scores so the developer's can recieve bonuses. Thogh perhaps those developers aren't taking the right approach - Rather than telling reviewers to raise review scores, they should just make better games.
Low-scoring game reviews sometimes cost game makers money. Directly.
Here’s the way it works: a game publisher agrees to finance the work of a development studio and includes a stipulation that certain bonuses or royalties won’t be delivered unless the game achieves a certain Metacritic score. If you’re that developer and you agree to that deal, you better hope reviewers give you a fair shake, no?
Former GameSpot reviewers Jeff Gerstmann (Giant Bomb) and Alex Navarro said they’ve not only heard of this practice but even know developers that were caught up in it. “I’ve gotten e-mails from developers over the years who have said, ‘I don’t think you realize what you’re doing to me with this review’ because my review knocked them out of the range of some bonus that they were up for,” Gerstmann told me. That’s something that really troubles me… When I’m sitting down to write a review I’m never setting out to think: ‘I am taking food off this guy’s table.’”
Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack and Insomniac Games president Ted Price said they are both familiar with the practice and disapprove of it. “I don’t think that’s the right way to have a relationship with a publisher,” Price said. “The relationship needs to be based on trust that each party is doing the best it can and open communication to ensure that during the process both parties are doing their part.”
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The review was very harsh for no reason.
Even if Gerstmann gave the game a 1/10 it would barely have budged the overall Metacritic score, if at all. It wouldn't have been his fault if the developers lost their royalties.
Scales are a full 1-10, where 6 and below arent Fs, people.