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Metacritic scores implemented in Store

March 25th, 2006 :: Steam updates :: 7 Responses

A simple upgrade to the Steam Store has added Metacritic ratings to all games that have them. Metacritic aggregates reviews for various entertainment mediums, creating a final, averaged score that is typically about as unbiased as it gets.

The scores will help give consumers an idea of the quality of the games available from the Store. But can they really a substitute for a good demo?

7 Responses to this post:

  1. March 25th, 2006 at 9:40 am ::
    DogGunn Says:

    I surprised that they were happy to publish a bad rating on CS: CZ.

  2. March 25th, 2006 at 2:00 pm ::
    Andy Simpson Says:

    Kinda helps their credibility. I was very worried that Valve would have somewhat of a conflict of interest.

  3. March 25th, 2006 at 2:10 pm ::
    Trigger- Says:

    At least we can read up in steam about the pro’s and con’s before we buy a game. I really love to see this program grow, Other developers will do good to follow suit.

  4. March 25th, 2006 at 2:22 pm ::
    RP Says:

    But can they really a substitute for a good demo?

    Well, no, but like you said yourself, it gives the costumers another idea about the quality of the games.

    Very interesting stuff about the future of promting games over steam were revealed in an interview of Gabe Newell to “Game Informer” in GDC, the following part is regarding the DoD:S free weekend

    And so far everything that we’ve found is that every time we do one of these promotions they’re really effective. And they’re a much more effective way to spend our marketing bandwidth than through traditional means. So, yeah, we’re going to do a lot more of these. Will we do “every weekend’s a free weekend?” Probably not. But we’ll find other ways.

    One of the things that we really want to do is help people to get their friends to try our games. That’s a high priority right now for us is to put all of the pieces in place. If you bought a copy of one of our games you can give five trials to your friends. You type in your e-mail address and then you’ll see the first time that they play you’ll have this little screen where you can say, “Oh look, he’s playing. Oh, he hasn’t played yet so I’m going to delete him and replace him with somebody else.” And give your friends a chance to play. It’s a multiplayer game. You get notified as soon as they start playing so you can jump in. That’s the kind of thing we think is going to be super valuable at making that connected customer experience more effective.

    The full interview (lots of interesting stuff there:
    http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200603/N06.0324.2249.59492.htm

  5. March 25th, 2006 at 2:58 pm ::
    Tom Edwards Says:

    Goldmine! Thanks RP.

  6. March 25th, 2006 at 3:37 pm ::
    Mark Says:

    Yeah I agree, demo’s are the way forward, they beat posters and other marketing measures in my opinion.

  7. March 25th, 2006 at 4:07 pm ::
    DiSTuRbEd Says:

    RP lovely! Thanks for that link!