Great article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about Metacritc and its relationship to game sales. Side note: I love Metacritic.
Some may think that paying a royalty to a licensor for a poor-quality game (or poorly-scored game) somewhat bullyish, but I really don't see it that way. Why are there so many craptacular licensed games? Because when developers and publishers know they can make a quick buck off of a licensed property, it's not necessarily in their best interest to make a GOOD GAME.
(Actually, I think it is, if you read my earlier thoughts on the matter.)
However, for the Time-Warners of the world, well, they would rather have a better game. As mentioned in the article, Time-Warner may take an additional royalty from a publisher who makes yet another stupendously bad Batman game.
If sites like Metacritic actually help us get good licensed games, then I'm all for it. What's interesting is, as the article points out, many games sell well despite bad scores, such as Spider-Man 3. Hell, if they didn't, there wouldn't be any Spider-Man 4 to look forward to, right?
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