When it comes to video game review aggregate sites, perhaps the most well-known are Metacritic and OpenCritic. However, one of the oldest is GameRankings, which has been collecting video game reviews since 1999, predating Metacritic by two years. For the past two decades, video game fans have been visiting GameRankings to find out what critics think about the latest video games, but it’s now been announced that GameRankings is shutting down.
While some gaming fans may have moved on to Metacritic or OpenCritic by now, they may still be sad to see GameRankings go. After all, GameRankings is one of the oldest video game websites on the Internet. Even so, GameRankings lasting a whopping two decades is an impressive feat, and at least it sounds like some of the older reviews it has archived will be carried over to Metacritic come December 9.
One thing that separated GameRankings and Metacritic was Metacritic’s use of user reviews. User review scores have proven controversial due to people review bombing video games for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because they are protesting a decision made by the development team, and other times it’s because there is content in the game that fans don’t like or agree with. Other times still games are review bombed in a positive way, with people writing fake positive reviews in order to boost a game’s score. Those who had been primarily using GameRankings over Metacritic may now become familiar with user reviews and how they can be easily manipulated by the community.
How exactly Metacritic will handle review bombing still remains to be seen, as it’s been a persistent issue for years. Fans should just continue taking user reviews with a grain of salt, especially when they often fall on extreme ends of the review score spectrum.
Source: GameRankings
