Metacritic Scores Irrelevant for Nintendo Wii Videogames

The boss of EA Sports, the outspoken Peter Moore, is saying that players who would like to pick up Nintendo Wii videogames are not looking up to Metacritic in order to make decisions, but are interested in the user reviews that “normal” gamers create for each title.

Moore talked to Gamasutra and said that was the basis for the success of EA Sports Active, which was one of the biggest Wii hits for Electronic Arts, selling more than 600,000 copies in a short while. He stated “It takes a time to get an actual review score. I would pretty much guarantee that just about every Wii game ships without a Metacritic rating because haven't got around, to it or they're not interested in reviewing it.” The sites that Moore is watching are those of women's magazines and those of “mommy bloggers.”

The conclusion for EA Sports’ boss is that the review scores handed down by the media and then compiled by Metacritic are more important for videogames released for the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft or for the PlayStation 3 from Sony, mainly because their audiences are more interested in reading about the games before launch and soon after, looking for opinions before they pick them up. On the other hand, Wii gamers are more interested in learning about videogames from other players whom they are connected to; plus, they don't search for information that much.

Peter Moore might have the right idea, but he doesn't understand that not even hardcore gamers are really looking at the Metacritic score in itself. They are inclined to see the marks that the most important media outlets awarded to a game but, in the end, the word of a trusted reviewer is more important than a Metacritic compiled score for any title.