Metacritic
Overview and Purpose:
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games, and formerly, books. For each product, it calculates a weighted average score from the collected reviews.
Founding Team:
The site was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999.
How It Works:
Metacritic provides an excerpt from each review and links to its original source. The overall critical consensus is summarized by a color—green, yellow, or red—indicating the level of recommendation.
Reputation and Standing:
It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site, particularly influential within the video game industry.
Scoring System:
Metacritic converts each review into a percentage score. This conversion is either mathematical, based on the critic's given rating, or subjective, determined by the site for qualitative reviews. Before averaging, scores are weighted according to the critic's fame, stature, and review volume.
Awards:
The website has won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation site.
Criticism:
The site has faced criticism focusing on its assessment system, the assignment of scores to reviews that lack explicit ratings, alleged attempts by third parties to manipulate scores, and insufficient staff oversight of user-submitted reviews.
