MetaCritic pressure on devs is "ridiculous," says Splash Damage boss

Splash Damage studio director Paul Wedgwood has said that the fact some developers' bonuses are dependent on a MetaCritic average is "ridiculous" and he feels the percentage scoring system on games reviews needs to be looked at.

"Personally I think it's ridiculous," Wedgwood told GI when asked about an instance where a dev team was require to get 9's rather than 8's.

"In the film industry, four stars is an amazing score. I think it's a really good idea for a developer to go to a publisher and demand that they get an additional bonus for achieving a certain review score, but it shouldn't affect their royalties or anything else. If you have a high-selling game, you have a high-selling game.

"We know that some websites score quite high and some quite low, but in general, all websites tend to score between 60 and 100. There's never a 37. It's as if that whole section doesn't exist, so zero starts at 60, so three stars, and goes up to five. It's just not really an accurate enough measure.

"I think that if anything, the games press should take the pressure off themselves, and just go across to star ratings, which for films is nothing more than a recommendation that you buy it, watch it when you get the chance, or rush out and see it straight away, and it's your personal recommendation," suggested Wedgwood. "

It's not a 'score'. If that was all you did, nobody would hate you guys for it.

"Out of ten is a good start," he went on. "Percentiles put too much pressure on a journalist to justify an exact score. It puts too much pressure on the developer to try and identify these criteria that lead to very specific point increases or decreases, which is not at all what the developer should be focusing on."

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By Mike Bowden