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Thomas Mahler Launches Videogamescritic.com

New aggregator weights player scores at least two thirds when ranking games.

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16 Sources, 28d ago, first seen 28d ago

TLDR

Thomas Mahler, designer of the Ori series, posted that he is launching videogamescritic.com. He said the site began as a personal database after he found Metacritic and OpenCritic useful yet limited in user experience. The platform gives player scores at least two-thirds weight in its aggregates. Mahler wrote that reviews should help players decide on purchases rather than reflect individual critic tastes. Writers including Paul Tassi, Nick Calandra, and Ethan Gach replied on X, questioning the emphasis on player alignment and noting issues with review bombing and scoring methods.

Combined views

1.7M

16 Sources, first seen 28d ago

20.4K likes1.3K comments2.7K saves1.3K reposts

Combined views

1.7M

16 Sources, first seen 28d ago

20.4K likes1.3K comments2.7K saves1.3K reposts
Ori Creator Launches Player-First Game Review Site

Sentiment

Positive34.3%65.7%Negative

Summary

Many accounts welcomed Thomas Mahler's new game review site for holding critics accountable, while negative replies called its trust ratings made-up or untrustworthy.

Based on 308 sentiment-bearing replies from 242 accounts across 9 conversations.

Sentiment

Positive34.3%65.7%Negative

Summary

Many accounts welcomed Thomas Mahler's new game review site for holding critics accountable, while negative replies called its trust ratings made-up or untrustworthy.

Based on 308 sentiment-bearing replies from 242 accounts across 9 conversations.

16 Sources

@thomasmahlerHey folks, I'm launching a website today: http://videogamescritic.com It started as a little database I built for myself. I use Metacritic and OpenCritic a lot and they're clearly useful, but to me as a designer the user experience always felt a bit lacking. Then the thing kept growing, and at some point I realized it had become genuinely useful for any gamer, not just me. So here it is, for everyone. My main problem with the existing aggregators: Their scores tell you how the press felt about a game, not how players did. That made sense 20 years ago. I cared a lot what GameSpot gave a game back then. But today we can actually measure how players felt, and to me that will always matter more than how the press did. On http://videogamescritic.com, players hold at least two-thirds of every score, by rule. Press still counts, it just can't outvote the people who bought the game. The other big problem: Those sites rate a game once, at launch, and then never really touch it again. But that's not how games work anymore. A game can launch rough and get patched shortly after, but on Metacritic and OpenCritic it carries that scarlet letter forever. No Man's Sky is the obvious example: Famously rocky launch, and Hello Games has spent the years since relentlessly improving it. Its Metacritic score has never moved. On http://videogamescritic.com it launched at 50 and sits at 82 today, because scores here are LIVE: launch-era reviews fade out over time, and reviews written after a significant patch count the most. When player sentiment changes, the number changes. Simple. And since press does still count, I ended up reviewing the reviewers too. Every outlet and creator gets a trust score based on one question: When they reviewed a game, did players end up agreeing? You can see who consistently calls games the way players see them, and who doesn't. Again, simple and fair. And everything is transparent. Every game page shows exactly how its score was computed, and the full methodology is public. No editorial opinion, no magic number. Anyway, I hope you get a kick out of it! Even just as a way to see the best games on each platform, find something you missed, or browse a site that isn't wallpapered in ads, I think it's already pretty useful. Enjoy!👍❤️
@PaulTassiThis is kind of fascinating. Forbes is ranked as "biased" and "not trusted" because we rank games too...high, I guess? (I didn't write the vast majority of reviews tracked). It may be useful to gauge critic scores against user scores (though again, there's certainly an industry review bombing problem), though disagreements being labeled "biased" or "untrustworthy" ironically seem like a very biased way to frame this
@SEGAInformentHuh. What do you think of this new game score site?
@nickjcalData is fine, but "aligning with player" is a silly thing to review. That reads as if you must agree with the majority or you are wrong and untrustworthy, which is against the ethos of being a critic with an audience of your own that understands your tastes.
@ethangachKotaku does not score games. Are you just using AI to make stuff up?
@TheAndyCortez@thomasmahler I think "review bombings" happen too often to take this legitimately. And any time there's a big disparity between the fan and press score, it's usually the fans showing up to directly respond to the reviewers because they were angry about a game they hadn't played yet.
@KotakuNo Rest For The Wicked Director Calls Video Game Critics Who Have Different Opinions 'Untrustworthy' https://kotaku.com/no-rest-for-the-wicked-thomas-mahler-ori-video-games-critic-2000730551
@FordJamesGamesWe do not score our reviews at Polygon. You also only have six reviews from us listed in the last two years. Your entire site (and profile picture) is AI-coded slop. This is absolutely dreadful lmao
@FabrazzInteresting! 🤔
@jessicogssWow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen something so blatantly anti-intellectual and without literally any understanding of how criticism works hahaha Why would any reviewer, if they want to be “trustworthy,” stray away from giving constant average scores?
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    16 Sources

    @thomasmahlerHey folks, I'm launching a website today: http://videogamescritic.com It started as a little database I built for myself. I use Metacritic and OpenCritic a lot and they're clearly useful, but to me as a designer the user experience always felt a bit lacking. Then the thing kept growing, and at some point I realized it had become genuinely useful for any gamer, not just me. So here it is, for everyone. My main problem with the existing aggregators: Their scores tell you how the press felt about a game, not how players did. That made sense 20 years ago. I cared a lot what GameSpot gave a game back then. But today we can actually measure how players felt, and to me that will always matter more than how the press did. On http://videogamescritic.com, players hold at least two-thirds of every score, by rule. Press still counts, it just can't outvote the people who bought the game. The other big problem: Those sites rate a game once, at launch, and then never really touch it again. But that's not how games work anymore. A game can launch rough and get patched shortly after, but on Metacritic and OpenCritic it carries that scarlet letter forever. No Man's Sky is the obvious example: Famously rocky launch, and Hello Games has spent the years since relentlessly improving it. Its Metacritic score has never moved. On http://videogamescritic.com it launched at 50 and sits at 82 today, because scores here are LIVE: launch-era reviews fade out over time, and reviews written after a significant patch count the most. When player sentiment changes, the number changes. Simple. And since press does still count, I ended up reviewing the reviewers too. Every outlet and creator gets a trust score based on one question: When they reviewed a game, did players end up agreeing? You can see who consistently calls games the way players see them, and who doesn't. Again, simple and fair. And everything is transparent. Every game page shows exactly how its score was computed, and the full methodology is public. No editorial opinion, no magic number. Anyway, I hope you get a kick out of it! Even just as a way to see the best games on each platform, find something you missed, or browse a site that isn't wallpapered in ads, I think it's already pretty useful. Enjoy!👍❤️
    @PaulTassiThis is kind of fascinating. Forbes is ranked as "biased" and "not trusted" because we rank games too...high, I guess? (I didn't write the vast majority of reviews tracked). It may be useful to gauge critic scores against user scores (though again, there's certainly an industry review bombing problem), though disagreements being labeled "biased" or "untrustworthy" ironically seem like a very biased way to frame this
    @SEGAInformentHuh. What do you think of this new game score site?
    @nickjcalData is fine, but "aligning with player" is a silly thing to review. That reads as if you must agree with the majority or you are wrong and untrustworthy, which is against the ethos of being a critic with an audience of your own that understands your tastes.
    @ethangachKotaku does not score games. Are you just using AI to make stuff up?
    @TheAndyCortez@thomasmahler I think "review bombings" happen too often to take this legitimately. And any time there's a big disparity between the fan and press score, it's usually the fans showing up to directly respond to the reviewers because they were angry about a game they hadn't played yet.
    @KotakuNo Rest For The Wicked Director Calls Video Game Critics Who Have Different Opinions 'Untrustworthy' https://kotaku.com/no-rest-for-the-wicked-thomas-mahler-ori-video-games-critic-2000730551
    @FordJamesGamesWe do not score our reviews at Polygon. You also only have six reviews from us listed in the last two years. Your entire site (and profile picture) is AI-coded slop. This is absolutely dreadful lmao
    @FabrazzInteresting! 🤔
    @jessicogssWow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen something so blatantly anti-intellectual and without literally any understanding of how criticism works hahaha Why would any reviewer, if they want to be “trustworthy,” stray away from giving constant average scores?
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