Moon Studios head Thomas Mahler has launched VideoGamesCritic, a website designed to rethink the traditional format of rating aggregators like Metacritic and OpenCritic. According to him, the project started as a small personal database, but over time grew into a full-fledged service for all players.
The main difference of VideoGamesCritic is that the final game rating is formed primarily based on user opinions. According to the established rule, at least two-thirds of each final score comes from players, while press ratings are still taken into account but cannot outweigh the opinion of those who directly purchased and played the game.
Mahler believes that the traditional aggregator model no longer fully corresponds to the modern gaming market. In his opinion, twenty years ago, ratings from specialized publications were much more important for buyers, but today there is enough data to directly measure players' attitudes towards games.
Another feature of VideoGamesCritic is its dynamic rating system. Unlike Metacritic and OpenCritic, where a game effectively receives its final score at the time of release, the new service continues to recalculate ratings as the project's state changes.
As a prime example, Mahler cites No Man's Sky. The game launched with problems and received a mixed reaction, but over the subsequent years, Hello Games released a large number of updates and significantly improved the project. On Metacritic, the initial rating remains unchanged. On VideoGamesCritic, the game received 50 points at launch, and its rating is now 82 points.
The system takes into account the time factor: reviews that appeared immediately after release gradually lose influence, while ratings published after major updates gain more weight. If players' attitudes towards a game change, its final score also changes.
Each source and author receives their own trust level, which is determined by how closely their initial ratings ultimately matched player opinions.
Mahler promises full transparency of the system. On each game's page, you can see exactly how its final score was calculated, and the entire methodology of the service is openly published.