Metacritic implements 36-hour waiting period on user reviews for games

Review aggregator website Metacritic has recently implemented a 36-hour waiting period for users who write reviews of video games. The announcement comes after several people shared a month ago negative reviews of The Last of Us Part 2 within a few hours of the release of the game.

“We recently implemented the 36 hour waiting period for all user reviews in our games section to ensure our gamers have time to play these games before writing their reviews,” said a Metacritic spokesperson to GameSpot. “This new waiting period for user reviews has been rolled out across Metacritic’s Games section and was based on data-driven research and with the input of critics and industry experts.” Both web sites, Metacritic and GameSpot, are owned by ViacomCBS.

The many negative reviews with score of 0 have caused games to have a bad or mixed User Score. In the case of The Last of Us Part II, the game had a Metascore of 94 and a User Score of 5.5. In the first days of release, the User Score was much lower. However, Metacritic told Kotaku that the new waiting period was not implemented “in light of any particular game.”

Readers have recently seen a new message under User Score, “Please spend some time playing the game,” along with the mention of a date and time to start reviewing upcoming titles.

[Sources]: IGN: Metacritic Will Delay User Reviews For Games. Kotaku: Metacritic Will Now Make Users Wait 36 Hours Before Posting Reviews.