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| Metacritic.com |
 |
| URL |
http://www.metacritic.com/ |
| Commercial? |
Yes |
| Type of site |
Reviews/Ratings |
| Registration |
Free/subscription |
| Owner |
CNET Networks |
| Created by |
Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, Julie Roberts |
| Launched |
January 2001 |
Metacritic is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows, DVDs and books. 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 color 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. (For examples of other such sites, see Category:Video game review aggregators.) The site is somewhat similar to Rotten Tomatoes, but the scoring results sometimes vary drastically, depending on which reviews are tallied. For instance, Rotten Tomatoes gives an overall unfavorable rating to Kenneth Branagh's film version of As You Like It by quoting mostly British critics, who reportedly have strongly disliked Branagh's Shakespeare films. Metacritic on the other hand, tallies its score largely from American reviews of the film. Also, unlike Rotten Tomatoes, which aggregates reviews using a binary score of "fresh" or "rotten" for each review, Metacritic's percentage scores can reflect a more accurate account of the piece's quality. That way, if a large number of people liked the production, but only moderately (giving it a 6 out of 10), Metacritic would produce a lower score that was more representative of the media's quality. 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's reviews), Metacritic manually assesses the tone of the review before assigning a relevant grade. Reviews from certain publications also have a marginally greater influence on the average. One common drawback of Metacritic, however, is its lack of book reviews; following the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, their regular coverage of recently released books ceased, except for major releases. Metacritic was founded in 1999, and in August of 2005 was acquired by CNET.
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