Director of No Rest For The Wicked Labels Dissenting Game Critics as ‘Untrustworthy’

Thomas Mahler, the lead developer behind theOrigames and the upcomingNo Rest for the Wicked, has unveiled a new website aimed at revolutionizing game score aggregation. This platform, called VideoGamesCritic, seeks to address a major flaw in existing sites like Metacritic and OpenCritic: their failure to accurately reflect player sentiment and the shortcomings of gaming journalism. VideoGamesCritic positions itself as “the one source of truth for gamers,” prioritizing player scores, which make up two-thirds of the overall rating, over those of professional critics.

The site’s methodology involves pulling critic scores from OpenCritic and blending them with user scores derived from a unique “trust-weighted” analysis of Steam reviews, giving significantly more importance to player feedback. This allows the site to assess how “right” or “wrong” a gaming outlet is based on the divergence of its scores from the general player consensus. Impressively, it even evaluates sites that don’t provide numerical scores, like Kotaku.

Last year, Mahler expressed concern over the harshness of Steam reviews, claiming that being “review bombed” could jeopardize his studio, Moon. This was despite his latest game, the SoulslikeNo Rest for the Wicked, not actually facing a review bombing, but rather receiving mild critiques for an update to its Early Access version. He later criticized the press for misrepresenting his situation, even making some controversial remarks. So, what’s changed? Now, he’s placing significant trust in the very Steam reviewers he once deemed a threat to his studio, arguing that the press is even less reliable.

In a post on X, Mahler stated, “My main problem with the existing aggregators: Their scores tell you how the press felt about a game, not how players did.” VideoGamesCritic aims to rectify this by giving players the majority of the weight in the scoring system. “Press still counts, it just can’t outvote the people who bought the game.”

The project is also driven by Mahler’s desire for an aggregator that reflects the ongoing evolution of games. He points out that the Metascore for titles likeNo Man’s Sky is based on its troubled launch, failing to represent the vastly improved game it has become over the years. To account for this, more recent Steam reviews are weighted more heavily than older ones.

Steam reviews offer a binary choice: recommend or don’t recommend. While this system is susceptible to review bombing, Mahler believes he has a handle on it. Reviews from players with less than two hours of gameplay are significantly downweighted, gradually gaining more influence as playtime increases, with a threshold of ten hours for full weight. The site also employs Steam’s review-bomb detection to filter out manipulative reviews and adjusts for those who activated a game via a Steam key to prevent skewed influences.

There’s even more complexity in the weighting system, which Mahler claims is transparent and free from bias. However, it’s worth noting that the entire weighting process is ultimately shaped by Mahler’s own perspectives, from the devaluation of press scores onward. But it’s his project, and he’s free to shape it as he sees fit.

The site also introduces a feature for “reviewing the reviewers.” Each outlet and creator receives a trust score based on whether their reviews align with player opinions. This allows users to see which sources consistently reflect player sentiment and which do not.

While the debate over the purpose of reviews—whether they should serve as buyer’s guides or personal reflections—has been ongoing, it’s important to recognize that great criticism delves deeper than mere predictions of public reaction. It can be personal and subjective, encouraging readers to engage with their own thoughts and feelings.

But Mahler believes he can simplify this with his mathematical approach. For instance, when evaluating a site like Kotaku, which doesn’t assign scores, he assigns one based on their recommendation accuracy, alignment with player sentiment, and their stance in cases of disagreement between press and players. The scoring is adjusted to prevent small sample sizes from skewing results, with more recent reviews carrying greater weight.

In any case, best of luck to Mahler and his new site. While it may seem excessive, especially when Steam reviews are readily available for those who prefer player opinions over press insights, it’s an intriguing venture nonetheless.