Full Sail study attempts to shed light on Metacritic's weighting system

[Update: Metacritic has responded to the study, claiming that the information is "wildly, wholly inaccurate." The full statement can be found on Facebook.] The website Metacritic weights the scores of different video game critics and publications when calculating its aggregate 'metascore' for any particular title. Each critic/ publication is assigned one of six different weightings of 'importance', with some publications exerting considerably more influence over a game's final 'metascore' than others. This was revealed by Adams Greenwood-Ericksen of Full Sail University at a talk titled 'A Scientific Assessment of the Validity and Value of Metacritic' delivered at the Game Developer's Conference in San Fransisco this afternoon. Metacritic confirmed to Greenwood-Ericksen during the course of his research that the site applies different weightings to incoming critics and publications' reviews in order to calculate its 'averaged' numerical score for any particular title. However, it would not reveal how the weightings were assigned to different publications or on what criteria one critic was given a greater weighing than another. The course director and his students then set about modelling the weightings based on data pulled from the site. Finally, after six months of work, the researchers compared their modeled scores to the actual scores and discovered that across the 188 publications that feed into Metacritic's video game score work, their findings were almost entirely accurate. Greenwood-Ericksen stated they wanted to carry out the research as Metacritic scores are "very important to a lot of people" and pointed out that, when publishers withhold financial bonuses when a game doesn't reach its Metacritic target, livelihoods are tied up in the site's work. He also reminded attendees that often a publisher's Wall Street stock can change on the basis of a Metacritic score., and as such the site's workings are of practical interest. The findings will also be of interest to consumers as, if accurate, they reveal that some official magazines and sites (which are sponsored by platform holders in some cases) are assigned a greater weighting than independent sites and critics. Here is the full listing of score weightings used by Metacritic according to Greenwood-Ericksen's research: Weighting -- Critic/ Publication Highest (1.5) -- Dark Zero Highest (1.5) -- Digital Chumps Highest (1.5) -- Digital Entertainment News Highest (1.5) -- Extreme Gamer Highest (1.5) -- Firing Squad Highest (1.5) -- Game Almighty Highest (1.5) -- Game Informer Highest (1.5) -- GamePro Highest (1.5) -- Gamers Europe Highest (1.5) -- GameTrailers Highest (1.5) -- GotNext Highest (1.5) -- IGN Highest (1.5) -- IGN AU Highest (1.5) -- IGN UK Highest (1.5) -- Just Adventure Highest (1.5) -- Machinima Highest (1.5) -- Planet Xbox 360 Highest (1.5) -- PlayStation Official Magazine UK Highest (1.5) -- PlayStation Official Magazine US Highest (1.5) -- Telegraph Highest (1.5) -- The New York Times Highest (1.5) -- TheSixthAxis Highest (1.5) -- TotalPlayStation Highest (1.5) -- VGPub Highest (1.5) -- Videogameszone.de Highest (1.5) -- Wired Highest (1.5) -- Xboxic Highest (1.5) -- Yahoo Games Highest (1.5) -- ZTGames Domain High (1.25) -- Absolute Games High (1.25) -- ActionTrip High (1.25) -- Adventure Gamers High (1.25) -- Computer & Video Games High (1.25) -- Console Gameworld High (1.25) -- Da GameBoyz High (1.25) -- Darkstation High (1.25) -- Edge Magazine High (1.25) -- EGM High (1.25) -- EuroGamer Italy High (1.25) -- EuroGamer Spain High (1.25) -- G4 TV High (1.25) -- Game Chronicles High (1.25) -- GameDaily High (1.25) -- Gameplayer High (1.25) -- Gamer 2.0 High (1.25) -- Gamervision High (1.25) -- Games Master UK High (1.25) -- Gamespot High (1.25) -- GameSpy High (1.25) -- Gaming Age High (1.25) -- Gaming Nexus High (1.25) -- Maxi Consoles (Portugal) High (1.25) -- Pelit High (1.25) -- Play.tm High (1.25) -- PlayStation Universe High (1.25) -- PlayStation Official AU High (1.25) -- PSM3 Magazine UK High (1.25) -- PS Extreme High (1.25) -- RPG Fan High (1.25) -- Strategy Informer High (1.25) -- Team Xbox High (1.25) -- The Onion (AV Club) High (1.25) -- Totally 360 High (1.25) -- WonderwallWeb High (1.25) -- XGN Medium (1.0) -- 1Up Medium (1.0) -- CPU Gamer Medium (1.0) -- Cubed3 Medium (1.0) -- Cynamite Medium (1.0) -- D+Pad Magazine Medium (1.0) -- DailyGame Medium (1.0) -- Destructoid Medium (1.0) -- Eurogamer Medium (1.0) -- Everyeye.it Medium (1.0) -- Game Revolution Medium (1.0) -- Game Shark Medium (1.0) -- Gameblog.fr Medium (1.0) -- GameKult Medium (1.0) -- Gamereactor Denmark Medium (1.0) -- Gamers' Temple Medium (1.0) -- GameShark Medium (1.0) -- Gameblog.fr Medium (1.0) -- GamesNation Medium (1.0) -- GameStar Medium (1.0) -- GameTap Medium (1.0) -- Gaming Target Medium (1.0) -- Gamereactor Sweden Medium (1.0) -- The Guardian Medium (1.0) -- Hardcore Gamer Magazine Medium (1.0) -- HellBored Medium (1.0) -- NiceGamers Medium (1.0) -- Joystiq Medium (1.0) -- Just RPG Medium (1.0) -- Level 7.nu Medium (1.0) -- Modojo Medium (1.0) -- MondoXbox Medium (1.0) -- Multiplayer.it Medium (1.0) -- N-Europe Medium (1.0) -- Netjak Medium (1.0) -- NGamer Magazine Medium (1.0) -- Nintendo Life Medium (1.0) -- Nintendo Power Medium (1.0) -- Nintendojo Medium (1.0) -- Nintendo World Report Medium (1.0) -- NZGamer Medium (1.0) -- Official Nintendo Magazine UK Medium (1.0) -- Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK Medium (1.0) -- Official Xbox Magazine Medium (1.0) -- Official Xbox Magazine UK Medium (1.0) -- PALGN Medium (1.0) -- PC Format Medium (1.0) -- PC Gamer (Germany) Medium (1.0) -- PC Gamer UK Medium (1.0) -- PC Gamer Medium (1.0) -- PC Powerplay Medium (1.0) -- PGNx Media Medium (1.0) -- Play Magazine Medium (1.0) -- PlayStation LifeStyle Medium (1.0) -- Pocketgamer UK Medium (1.0) -- PT Games Medium (1.0) -- Real Gamer Medium (1.0) -- SpazioGames Medium (1.0) -- Talk Xbox Medium (1.0) -- The Escapist Medium (1.0) -- Thunderbolt Medium (1.0) -- Total VideoGames Medium (1.0) -- Worth Playing Medium (1.0) -- X360 Magazine UK Medium (1.0) -- Xbox World 360 Magazine UK Medium (1.0) -- Xbox World Australia Medium (1.0) -- Xbox360 Achievements Medium (1.0) -- Xbox Addict Low (0.75) -- 360 Gamer Magazine UK Low (0.75) -- 3DJuegos Low (0.75) -- Ace Gamez Low (0.75) -- Atomic Gamer Low (0.75) -- BigPond GameArena Low (0.75) -- Console Monster Low (0.75) -- Deeko Low (0.75) -- Eurogamer Portugal Low (0.75) -- Game Focus Low (0.75) -- Gameplanet Low (0.75) -- Gamer Limit Low (0.75) -- Gamer.nl Low (0.75) -- Games Radar (in-house) Low (0.75) -- Games TM Low (0.75) -- Gamestyle Low (0.75) -- GameZone Low (0.75) -- Gaming Excellence Low (0.75) -- Gaming Trend Low (0.75) -- Impulse gamer Low (0.75) -- Kombo Low (0.75) -- MEGamers Low (0.75) -- Metro Game Central Low (0.75) -- MS Xbox World Low (0.75) -- NTSC-uk Low (0.75) -- PS Focus Low (0.75) -- PSW Magazine UK Low (0.75) -- Video Game Talk Low (0.75) -- VideoGamer Lower (0.5) -- Armchair Empire Lower (0.5) -- Cheat Code Central Lower (0.5) -- Game Over Online Lower (0.5) -- Game Positive Lower (0.5) -- Gamer's Hell Lower (0.5) -- Gamereactor Sweden Lower (0.5) -- Gamers.at Lower (0.5) -- Giant Bomb Lower (0.5) -- PS3bloggen.se Lower (0.5) -- RPGamer Lower (0.5) -- Vandal Online Lowest (0.25) -- 9Lives Lowest (0.25) -- Boomtown Lowest (0.25) -- Computer Games Online RO Lowest (0.25) -- GamerNode Lowest (0.25) -- GamingXP Lowest (0.25) -- IC-Games Lowest (0.25) -- Insidegamer.nl Lowest (0.25) -- Jolt Online Gaming Lowest (0.25) -- Kikizo Lowest (0.25) -- LEVEL Lowest (0.25) -- Meritstation Lowest (0.25) -- My Gamer Lowest (0.25) -- Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK Lowest (0.25) -- Play UK Lowest (0.25) -- WHAM! 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