You won’t be able to review bomb games for at least 36 hours on Metacritic from now on.

We spoke about it on our podcast, Arcade Couch many, many times. Metacritic’s user scores are dumb. The fact that anyone can post a review on any user-generated platform is dumb, but we’re specifically talking about Metacritic. Well, you won’t be able to review bomb anymore. At least for 36 hours after the launch of a game.

Kotaku reached out to Metacritic recently and a spokesperson told them via email that they had“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.”

Of course, nothing is going to stop mobs from review bombing a game after that 36 hours. There’s no way to verify if everyone’s played the game they’re playing, and to be fair, no one checks that of all the Metacritic verified critics either.

Maybe a 36 hour period would be long enough to cool some folks down. Those that recently took to Metacritic to review bomb The Last of Us Part II for example. 

Review bombing isn’t a unique thing in video games, it happens in all mediums, but it does appear that video games get a rather toxic minority of ‘fans’ who think the behaviour is a-ok.

At the end of the day, we all put to much weight in a games Metacritic score. And if you are using a review aggregator like Metacritic, Open Critic or Rotten Tomatoes — please do remember that’s what they are, an aggregate. These sites combine scores from a plethora of other sites and form an average score based on that. Although it’s worth mentioning that certain websites are weighted heavier than others.

Let me know what you think in the comments section below, just give me 36 hours to respond.