Metacritic to crack down on phoney user ratings
Thousands of suspiciously low user ratings for Gears of War 2 were evidently the tipping point for aggregate reviews site Metacritic. With the game averaging in the low- to mid-90% range from various media outlets, just shy of 4,000 user votes have it at a measly 3.5/10 – this before it has even hit shelves.
In this specific case, Metacritic games editor, Marc Doyle, advises visitors to the site to, "focus ... attention on the Metascore for this game and not the thousands of user votes, most of which have been submitted before said users have played the game." Doyle also promised that the site will "post the full legitimate user reviews upon the game's release."
"If people want to stuff the ballot box, there's not much I can do at this point," Doyle said, revealing that, "When we upgrade the registration requirements for participation on the site in the near future, this type of thing won't happen." Haters, you have been warned.
