What the Metacritic Metascore Is
The Metascore is a weighted average of professional critic reviews, published by Metacritic (founded 1999) for films, TV, music, and games. Reviews in any format — stars, letters, percentages, prose — are converted to a 0–100 scale, weighted, and averaged into one number with a traffic-light color.
Where the Tomatometer asks “what share of critics approved?”, the Metascore asks “how much did the important critics like it?”.
What the Metascore Ranks
Metascores rank entertainment titles — films, TV seasons, albums, and video games — by intensity-weighted critical opinion. Color bands communicate at a glance:
- 61–100 — green (“generally favorable” to “universal acclaim”)
- 40–60 — yellow (“mixed or average”)
- 0–39 — red (“generally unfavorable” to “overwhelming dislike”)
A separate user score (0–10) aggregates registered-user ratings.
Core Inputs Used by Metacritic
- Curated critic reviews — from a selection of respected outlets per medium; a minimum number of reviews (typically 4+ for games, more for films) is required before a score publishes
- Score conversion — each review’s grade is mapped to 0–100; ungraded reviews are assigned values by Metacritic’s editors
- Critic weights — outlets and critics carry different, unpublished weights reflecting stature and consistency
How the Metascore Is Calculated (High-Level)
- Every curated review is converted to 0–100 — a B+ and a 3.5/4 both become numbers, prose-only reviews get editorial assignments.
- Converted scores are combined in a weighted average, with each critic’s weight applied.
- The result rounds to the published Metascore; the score typically stabilizes after the release-week review wave but can drift as late reviews arrive.
Conceptual model: Normalize every critic onto one ruler, then take an average where famous hands on the ruler count more.
Update Frequency
Scores update as reviews are curated in — most movement occurs in the days around release, with slow drift afterward.
Known Limitations and Criticisms
- Opaque weights — nobody outside Metacritic knows how much any outlet counts, making the score unauditable
- Conversion distortion — mapping a letter grade or a prose review to a precise number embeds editorial judgment in the data
- False precision — a Metascore of 74 vs. 76 implies distinctions the input data can’t support
- Industry pressure — game publishers have tied bonuses to Metascore thresholds, a documented case of a ranking distorting the thing it ranks
Where the Metascore Is Used
Metascores are used for:
- Consumer purchase decisions, especially in gaming
- Publisher contracts and developer bonuses in the games industry
- Awards-season and year-end “best of” tabulations
- Retail and platform merchandising (scores shown in storefronts)
Summary
The Metascore is the weighted-intensity school of aggregation: convert everything to 0–100, weight the critics, publish one number. It preserves nuance the binary Tomatometer discards — and hides the recipe, which is why it is simultaneously the more informative and the less transparent of the two giants.
References and Sources
- Metacritic. How we calculate Metascores (official FAQ).
- Wikipedia. Metacritic.
- Reporting on Metascore-linked bonus clauses in game publishing.