Metacritic.com

URL	Metacritic.com
Slogan	Keeping score of Entertainment.
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Reviews/Ratings
Registration	Free/subscription
Owner	CBS Interactive
Created by	Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, Julie Roberts
Launched	January 2001
Alexa rank	3,090 (June 2012[update])[1]
Current status	Online

Metacritic.com is a website that aggregates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green, Yellow and Red summarize the critic's recommendation. This gives an idea of the general appeal of the product among reviewers and, to a lesser extent, the public.

The site is somewhat similar to Rotten Tomatoes, but the scoring results sometimes differ very drastically, due to Metacritic's method of scoring that converts each review into a percentage before taking a weighted average and listing different numbers of reviews.

Many review websites give a review grade out of five, out of ten, out of a hundred, or even an alphabetical score. Metacritic converts such a grade into a percentage. For reviews with no explicit scores (for example, Amazon.com's editorial reviews), Metacritic manually assesses the tone of the review before assigning a relevant grade. Weighting is also applied to reviews—those from major periodicals may have a greater effect on the average than niche ones, although Metacritic refuses to reveal what weights are applied to which publications.

History[link]

Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Marc Doyle, along with his sister Julie Doyle Roberts and a classmate from the University of Southern California law school, Jason Dietz. Rotten Tomatoes was already compiling movie reviews at the time, but Doyle, Roberts, and Dietz "saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media." They sold Metacritic to CNET in 2005.^[2] CNET and Metacritic are owned ^[3] by the CBS Corporation.

Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal wrote in September 2007, "Mr. Doyle, 36, is now a senior product manager at CNET but he also acts as games editor of Metacritic." ^[2] Speaking of video games, Doyle said, "A site like ours helps people cut through...unobjective promotional language." He also said "By giving consumers, and web users specifically, early information on the objective quality of a game, not only are they more educated about their choices, but it forces publishers to demand more from their developers, license owners to demand more from their licensees, and eventually, hopefully, the games get better." Doyle said, "I don't want to overstate our role in this area, but we're highlighting the review process", which he thinks was not taken as seriously when unconnected magazines and websites were providing their reviews in isolation.^[4]

In August 2010, Metacritic website's appearance was heavily revamped. The reaction to the new format from existing Metacritic users was overwhelmingly negative.^[5][6]

Recently Metacritic's user scores have become a hotbed for rage reviews.^{[citation needed]}

Metascores[link]

Metacritic's scores ("Metascores") are weighted averages—certain publications are given more significance "based on their stature."^[2]

Metacritic Games Editor Marc Doyle was interviewed by Keith Stuart of The Guardian to "get a look behind the metascoring process." Stuart wrote "the metascore phenomenon, namely Metacritic and GameRankings, [have] become an enormously important element of online games journalism over the past few years."^[4] Doyle said that because video games are a greater investment of time and money than other forms of entertainment, gamers are much more informed about reviews than film fans or music fans. They would like to know "whether that hotly anticipated title is going to deliver."^[4]

The ranging game metascores are:^[7]

• 0–19: Overwhelming dislike
• 20–49: Generally unfavorable
• 50–74: Mixed or average reviews
• 75–89: Generally favorable reviews
• 90–100: Universal acclaim

Criticism of game metascores[link]

Many video game reviewers take issue with the way Metacritic assigns scores. When a game reviewer gives a video game a rating of "A", Metacritic assigns it a value of 100. When a reviewer gives a game a rating of "F", Metacritic assigns it a value of 0—although some reviewers think a score of 50 is more appropriate.^[2] When a reviewer gives a game a rating of "B-", Metacritic assigns it a value of 67—and many publishers, developers, and websurfers think that the score should be closer to 80.^[4] A former editor at the review site Game Revolution, Joe Dodson, criticized Metacritic and similar sites, saying their conversion system was turning their reviews into scores that were too low.^[2] Doyle said "I feel that ANY scale simply needs to converted [sic] directly with its lowest possible grade equating to 0, and the highest to 100." ^[4]

Doyle said some publishers want him to include certain critics that Metacritic doesn't track and some want certain critics excluded, usually because they give a game a poor review. Another common complaint from publishers is that UK critics shouldn't be reviewing games that are based on American sports like the NFL, NASCAR, or the NBA. Doyle said, "Conversely, many European publishers feel that American critics are not qualified or properly situated to review football, rally, F1, cricket and rugby games." Doyle said, "once I've decided to track a publication, I cannot pick and choose which reviews I list on Metacritic based on such individual judgments."^[4]

Publishers often try to persuade Doyle to exclude reviews they feel are unfair, but Doyle said that after a publication has been included in the system, he refuses to omit any reviews that receive complaints.^[2]

Influence of game metascores[link]

Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "Movies have Roger Ebert. Wine has Robert Parker. Videogames have Marc Doyle. Mr. Doyle edits game reviews for Metacritic, a Web site he co-founded that can influence the sales of games and the stocks of videogame publishers. One company requires game publishers to pay higher royalties if they receive low scores on such sites." Wingfield wrote, "such review sites hold the most sway in the videogame industry partly because the stakes are higher for consumers shelling out $50 to $60 for a new game than they are for someone buying, for example, a $10 movie ticket." Wingfield wrote that the stocks of game publishers can fall when a new video game gets a disappointing score on the website.^[2] Many executives say that low scores "can hurt the long-term sales potential" of game franchises—games that continue to produce spinoffs and sequels.^[2]

Wingfield wrote that Wall Street is paying attention to Metacritic and Game Rankings because the sites typically post scores before any sales data are publicly available. Three days after the release of Spider-Man 3 by Activision in May 2007, "several financial analysts had noted Spider-Man 3's low scores as a possible concern for Activision." and Activision's shares dropped 5% that day and continued to drop the rest of the week. When BioShock was released and got a metascore of 97, shares of Take-Two Interactive increased 20% the week after. Wingfield wrote, "All of this makes Metacritic's Mr. Doyle an unlikely kingmaker in the $7.4 billion U.S. games industry. He controls Metacritic's scoring system, deciding which publications to compile reviews from..."^[2] Doyle said he was "floored" when he saw a Metascore appear in the news ticker on TV while an anchor was interviewing Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime after Super Mario Galaxy was released. Doyle said, "More and more businesses and financial analysts are referring to Metacritic numbers as an early indicator of a game's potential sales and, by extension, the publisher's stock price."^[4]

Marc Doyle said, "I've never been told by a publisher or developer that they've been able to definitively make a causal connection between poor sales and low scores from my site. However, at least two major publishers have conducted comprehensive statistical surveys through which they've been able to draw a correlation between high metascores and stronger sales (and vice versa), but with a much tighter correlation in specific genres of games than in others."^[4]

In 2004, Jason Hall of Warner Bros. began "including 'quality metrics' in the contracts the studio signed with partners interested in licensing Warner movies for games." If a product does not receive specific scores or better from aggregator sites like Metacritic, some deals require game publishers to pay higher royalties to Warner Bros.^[2]

In 2008, Microsoft began using Metacritic review averages to de-list underperforming Xbox Live Arcade games.^[8][9] This was later canceled due to the release of the New Xbox Experience.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2011)

• Official website
• "Metacritic: The Granddaddy of Mash-ups"
• Gale Resoures evaluation of Metacritic
• Blogcritics review
• Businessweek article on Metacritic movies - 6/21/02
• GameKult (FR) article on influence of Metacritic Games 1/23/12
• The Jimquisition: Metacritic isn't the problem 6/27/11

Adam Sessler
Sessler at TGS '07
Born	Adam Donovan Sessler (1973-08-29) August 29, 1973 (age 38) Berkeley, California
Occupation	Host and Senior Segment Producer
Known for	Hosting X-Play

Adam Donovan Sessler (born August 29, 1973) is a former co-host of X-Play with Morgan Webb and editor-in-chief of G4's game content for the network.^[1] He was the only remaining television personality from the G4's original incarnation until he and G4TV parted on April 25, 2012.

Background[link]

Sessler was born in Berkeley, California. He graduated from El Cerrito High School in 1991 and is a graduate of UCLA with a bachelor's degree in English literature. He was previously a credit analyst for a multinational Fortune 500 financial institution in San Francisco, and an actor on the San Francisco Public-access television show Chip Weigh Magnet Down, which he also helped to make. Adam admits that he is grateful to no longer work for Fortune 500 companies, saying in The X-Play Insider's Guide to Gaming that he was "very sad" about the job. Sessler currently lives in Los Angeles, California, having moved from the former TechTV headquarters, which was located in San Francisco, California.^[2] Sessler is married.^[3]

Some of Sessler's known favorite game series are: the Halo series for its first-person shooter qualities; the Japanese version of Rez for its Trance Vibrator feature; the Banjo-Kazooie, Rayman, Ratchet and Clank, and Sly Cooper series for their unique platform qualities; Resident Evil 4; and Call of Duty 4. He also stated during the broadcast of E3 2010 that Uncharted 2 was his favorite single player experience of all time.^{[citation needed]}

His favorite cabinet video game is Ghosts 'n Goblins, which he has stated on several occasions on older episodes of Extended Play and X-Play. "When I was 9 years old I used to scam quarters from my parents and sneak out to this local bowling alley that was so seedy Hubert Selby Jr. would get the creeps there. It smelled like personal abandonment. That's what I think of when I play my favorite game"^{[cite this quote]} he said.

Sessler has a younger brother, Jonathan, who appeared as Adam 2.0 (in X-Play's 2005 April Fool's Day Episode), a "clone" of Adam who claims he's much better-looking than the original Adam with a "special USB port" (a reference to the Game Boy Advance SP succeeding the original Game Boy Advance).^[4]

Career[link]

Sessler was the only original personality from ZDTV remaining on the network, surviving the network's progression from ZDTV (1998–2001) to TechTV (2001–2004), and subsequent transition to G4. Sessler is one of seven TechTV personalities, with Morgan Webb, Sarah Lane, Kevin Rose, Chi-Lan Lieu, Blair Butler and Brendan Moran, to survive the massive layoffs resulting from the May 2004 merger of G4 and TechTV, though until recently he, Webb and Butler were the only three hosts from TechTV still on G4.

In addition to co-hosting X-Play, Sessler also appeared semi-regularly on Attack of the Show! as a video game correspondent. On April 1, 2005, Sessler confused many by announcing he was leaving X-Play to host a late night talk show on G4 entitled Meet the Sess. A trailer of the new show aired on X-Play, showing Sessler verbally and physically abusing his guests until they released information about upcoming video games.^[5] Despite being extremely over-the-top and obviously fake, many viewers began flooding the G4 forums asking when the show would air and if Sessler was really leaving X-Play. Sessler has since publicly announced on several occasions that the show was in fact an April Fool's Day joke. However, he does have a podcast called "Sessler's Soapbox",^[6] as well as "Feedback", where he discussed various gaming topics with other G4 correspondents and guests until late 2011, when he was replaced by Blair Herter.^[7]

On April 25, 2012, Sessler and G4TV parted ways.^[8]

References[link]

• Orland, Kyle (2006-10-17). "Gaming's Top 50 Journalists". Next Generation. http://www.next-gen.biz/features/gamings-top-50-journalists. Retrieved 2007-01-02. 

1. ^ Brian Crecente (December 17, 2008). "Adam Sessler Gets the Boot... Up to Editor-In Chief". http://kotaku.com/5112391/. 
2. ^ IMDB - Bio - Adam Sessler
3. ^ Sessler's Soapbox - Gateway Gaming
4. ^ IMDB - Jonathan Oliver Sessler
5. ^ X-Play Classics: Meet the Sess
6. ^ Sessler's Soapbox
7. ^ G4tv.com - Feedback Blog
8. ^ "Adam Sessler Out at G4". April 25, 2012. http://kotaku.com/5905119/adam-sessler-out-at-g4. Retrieved April 25, 2012. 

External links[link]

• XPlay Hosts: Adam Sessler
• AOTS Blog: Jack Thompson vs Adam Sessler
• Adam Sessler at the Internet Movie Database