Eurogamer drops review scores, will no longer be listed on Metacritic
Influential specialist games site Eurogamer is dropping review scores as they "don't work any more".
Games will no longer be scored out of ten, but some reviews will carry new Recommended, Essential and Avoid ratings.
This means Eurogamer's reviews will no longer appear on aggregate site Metacritic, although searching for reviews on Google will turn up a simple 5 star system.
"Scores are failing us, they're failing you, and perhaps most importantly, they are failing to fairly represent the games themselves."
The site will only now review games from final retail code and online games will not be reviewed until after release, although it will still offer day-one early impressions.
"In the last few years in particular, the rise of digital distribution and the assumption that most consoles and all computers are connected to the internet has resulted in much more fluid game development," wrote site editor Oli Welsh.
"Some games evolve right up to the moment of their commercial release, with a day one update. Some games are released commercially long before they are finished, via 'early access' versions. Some games never stop evolving."
He added that online titles have changed the way games and their audiences interact in new and complicated ways.
"All of this has made the job of reviewing games much more unpredictable and complex. It has led to wildly varying review circumstances which challenge our ability to apply best practice. It has introduced new subtleties and variables to game performance and design which we need to assess.
"At Eurogamer, we relish challenges like this, and we've worked hard to stay ahead of the situation. But we have recently felt that our review policy and format was making staying consistent and providing you with useful context harder than it should be. We needed to fix that."
Review scores no longer work for the readers or fairly represent the games, said Welsh.
"Scores are failing us, they're failing you, and perhaps most importantly, they are failing to fairly represent the games themselves."
To read the full blog post, head on over to Eurogamer.