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The 3rd best switch game of all time is making g*mers seethe

If you're not familiar with https://metacritic.com, it's basically rotten tomatoes except it also covers video games and music. I remember looking at the list of greatest games as a kid and wanting to try them all :marseywhirlyhat: and being excited when a new game got ratings good enough to be anywhere near the top :marseyexcitedgif:

In short, metacritic is both a driver of game sales and a source of pride for neurodivergent g*mer fanboys :marseybeingnerd:

It has thus become a source of drama that the third-best switch game of all time is The House in Fata Morgana, a visual novel about inhabitants of a spooky mansion. :marseyghostangry: With a rating of 96/100, it ranks higher than Zelda ToTK :marseyzeldalinkbotw: and every other switch game besides Mario Odyssey :marseymariosuit: and Zelda BoTW :marseyzeldagerudolink:.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1709525783839584.webp

If you're not familiar with the concept of a "visual novel", it's basically a game composed entirely of text-based, click-to-proceed cutscenes, with music :doot: and anime-style :marseycatgirl: art to set the mood. So in other words with the exception of 3 or 4 "choose your own adventure" moments across 40+ hours of text, it's more like a book than a game.

So naturally, having been tricked into reading a book by metacritic, a lot of g*mers are not happy :marseyangrygamer:. It is a testament to how good the "game"/"book" is that it has maintained a user score of 8.6/10 when the review section is filled with seething reviews of people who are mad that they got tricked into purchasing a book:

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1709525783330696.webp

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17095257842794616.webp https://i.rdrama.net/images/1709525784552471.webp

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17095257847966971.webp

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17095257851429908.webp https://i.rdrama.net/images/17095257853002656.webp

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17095257854560544.webp

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Reminds me of the time when one reviewer on EGM's panel for Wind Waker only gave it a 9.5 instead of a 10, denying it an “EGM Platinum” and causing much Nintendocel seethe. Fanmoids and fanfoids always get very snippy if a “greatest games” list isn't arranged exactly how they say it should.

No g*mer ever cared about Metacritic beyond its capacity to validate their own opinions though. Some game studios did (Bethesda got really mad at Obsidian when F:NV couldn't get an 85) but I think that's rarer now.

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Bethesda didn't "get mad" at Obsidian, that one point cost Obsidian a significant chunk of bonus cash. They're not the only studio that happened to, either.

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What would they get cash for for more points?

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It was part of their contract with Bethesda. Obsidian got paid a set amount to develop Fallout: New Vegas. As an incentive, they were promised a bonus if it hit an 85 on Metacritic since that translates to sales.

The game got an 84 and Obsidian was denied the bonus.

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Lmao bethesda probably bribed them so they didnt have to pay

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Maybe, maybe not

They did force Obsidian to release before the game was fully developed

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Obsidian signed a contract saying they would release after 18 months. Obsidian as always couldn't make a functional mod (since NV is just Fallout 3 in a desert) in the time they agreed to and then got pissy when Bethesda didn't let them breach the contract.

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A lot of agreements between developers and publishers have bonus payouts for achieving certain targets. A common target for a while was hitting a certain metascore, in F:NV's case Obsidian would have been paid a couple million extra if they hit 85. They missed it by 1 point.

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