MetaCritic co-founder admits removal of games site due to “corrupt practices”

By Stephany Nunneley
14 July 2011 15:55 GMT

Metacritic co-founder Marc Doyle has said the aggregation site has had to remove a games publication from its reviews list due to “corrupt practices”.

Speaking with CVG, Doyle wouldn’t comment on which publication it was, or what exactly these “corrupt practices” entailed, but said due to thus particular incident, the site has been enforcing a strict set of guidelines and said be believes reviewers can “absolutely be bought”.

“On one occasion I did discontinue my coverage of a publication’s reviews because of what I considered to be corrupt practices,” said Doyle. “There are many reasons why I would drop somebody [from games review listings]. There’s corruption – people can be bought, absolutely.

“It [comes down] to a number of things: It’s the quality of the analysis, the quality of the writing; do they have an audience; are they respected in the gaming community… is there a reputation for scoring integrity? Are they going to give a 4/5 and say it’s one of the best of the year, and then give another game 4/5 and say it’s really a letdown.

“I’ve got to see that they’re being responsible internally with that scoring. If they’re not – if they’re being irresponsible, or being contrarian or ridiculous, which happens all the time – I won’t pick them up.”

The co-founder has said some sites have been dropped due to the reviewers “not taking their responsibility so seriously”.

Doyle’s admission to CVG comes after his appearance on the ABJumpShoots podcast.

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