NEWS
by Mark Barley
Metacritic refuses to remove inaccurate taken down GameSpot review
It's come to light that review site Metacritic is refusing to remove a factually inaccurate Natural Selection 2 review published by Game Spot.
The review was originally published by Game Spot's Kevin VanOrd and was filled with inaccuracies and mistakes. Metacritic's policy of accepting first reviews allows them to keep the original review by VanOrd even though it has already been taken down. The review was rewritten and corrected but Metacritic is refusing to replace the original review score with the new one.
The original review was pulled and an apology was issued. A second review was written by a different writer. The original review score by Game Spot was a 6/10 but the new review score reflected an 8/10.
Kotaku recently asked Metacritic boss Marc Doyle to provide an explanation;
“Yes, the critics we track know – and I spoke to the GameSpot team about this this week – that we only accept the first review and first score published for a given game."
“I’m explicit about this policy with every new publication we agree to track. It’s a critic-protection measure, instituted in 2003 after I found that many publications had been pressured to raise review scores (or de-publish reviews) to satisfy outside influences. Our policy acted as a disincentive for these outside forces to apply that type of inappropriate pressure.”
The real loser in all of this is Uber Entertainment and their title Natural Selection 2. I don't criticize Metacritic at all in this situation, they have a policy and they're sticking by it - you can't blame them for that. The real culprit here is Game Spot and their shoddy review team. How do you employ someone who blatantly lies on a review? “I’m explicit about this policy with every new publication we agree to track. It’s a critic-protection measure, instituted in 2003 after I found that many publications had been pressured to raise review scores (or de-publish reviews) to satisfy outside influences. Our policy acted as a disincentive for these outside forces to apply that type of inappropriate pressure.”
Just a messy situation all around.