According to Jason Schreier, one of the most well-known and accomplished journalists within the gaming industry, Starfield would have one average of reviews “deceptively high” thanks to “a series of Xbox fan sites”.
Schreier expressed this thought in an article on Bloomberg dedicated to the best-selling games during 2023 in the USA, where Starfield comes in eleventh place. The journalist justified the top ten placement by citing the game's inclusion in the Game Pass catalog, absence on PlayStation platforms, and some “weak reviews”.
On this last point Schreier makes an aside by stating that however “the aggregate score (83 on Metacritic, ed.) is deceptively high thanks to a number of fan sites of Xbox”.
“Bethesda Game Studios is used to creating big hits. The Maryland-based video game developer placed No. 2 in 2011 with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and again in 2015 with Fallout 4. But its multiplayer game Fallout 76 of 2018 failed to crack the top 20, and Starfield landed at No. 11 last year, despite the hype leading up to its launch,” says Schreier on Bloomberg.
“It might not seem like a fantastic result for the studio's first game after its acquisition by Microsoft but there are some mitigating factors. Starfield didn't release on rival console PlayStation, receiving weak reviews (though the aggregate score is deceptively high thanks to a number of Xbox fan sites) and, crucially, it was immediately available on Microsoft's Netflix-like subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, where players can access the game by paying $10 a month rather than purchasing it directly for $70. Bethesda recently said that Starfield had 13 million players, which suggests that many people used Game Pass to play it.”
For Schreier, Starfield's rating average does not match the critical consensus
Schreier also reiterated the concept on Twitter | Mr. “does not correspond to the critical consensus”.
“Looking at Metacritic, of the 15 publications that scored above 95/100, five of them have Xbox in their name. I don't think anyone really believes that the overall score matches the critical consensus.”
User Hazegratt countered by pointing out that taking Opencritic as an example (where the average is 85 based on 183 reviews, compared to 90 on Metacritic), only 9 publications specialize in the Xbox panorama and therefore are fundamentally irrelevant in the overall average.
It is also worth underlining that just as there are sites specialized exclusively on Xbox, there are just as many regarding it Nintendo and PlayStationso Schreier's reasoning should be applied to practically any game made exclusively for a console.
#Starfield #39average #reviews #misleading #Xbox #fan #sites39 #Jason #Schreier
