Doyle of Metacritic Wields Mighty Influence

When researchers combine the results of several related studies, they call it a meta-analysis. Marc Doyle, co-founder of Metacritic.com, was profiled in The Wall Street Journal this week. The site operates under similar principles as research meta-analyses. Scores of individual videogames by over 100 critics in varied publications are combined into a single score falling between 0 and 100.

Much as Dick Clark was not as interested in popular music back in the day so much as he was in putting on a show about music, Doyle is reported to not being very interested in playing video games. However, the system that Metacritic and companion site Game Rankings (both CNET properties; Gamerankings.com focuses on videogames exclusively) use to aggregate the scores of games has proven consistently prescient. Wall Street pays close attention to the scores, and the stock prices of gaming companies hinge on Metacritic’s formula when new games debut.

Activision’s shares slid after Spider-Man 3 for the PlayStation was awarded a score of only 50 by Metacritic. Conversely, game company Take Two’s shares soared 20% after their game Bioshock was awarded a score of 97.

Besides stock price, companies have discovered a correlation with a high Metacritic score and sales of a title. Activision conducted market research on 789 games for the PlayStation 2:

Activision Chief Executive Robert Kotick says the link was especially notable for games that score above 80% on Game Rankings, which grades games on a 1-to-100 percentage basis, with 100% being a perfect score. For every five percentage points above 80%, Activision found sales of a game roughly doubled. Activision believes game scores, among other factors, can actually influence sales, not just reflect their quality.

All of this information and analysis, with its subsequent effect on videogame sales and company stock prices, has lent Mr. Doyle considerable influence in the industry.

All of this makes Metacritic’s Mr. Doyle an unlikely kingmaker in the $7.4 billion U.S. games industry. He controls Metacritic’s scoring system, deciding which publications to compile reviews from — a varied list that includes trade magazines like GameInformer, the New York Times, a gamer Web site called Fourfatchicks.com and other outlets.

Many games are tied into other media properties, such as movies. Article author Nick Wingfield notes Time Warner is demanding higher royalty payments from games derived from their films that score low on Metacritic. Presumably, this will encourage game makers with a monetary incentive for producing higher quality games.

My take: Metacritic.com offers another excellent resource for videogame researchers, providing a fairly balanced reference point for the popularity of particular titles. Finding the Metacritic score for a title in order to include it in a paper is quick and easy. Best of all, unlike some of the other corporate research I’ve covered lately, the info Metacritic provides is free to all.

References:
Wingfield, N. (2007, September 20). High scores matter to game makers, too. The Wall Street Journal, B1. [Online]. Available: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119024844874433247.html