This week sees the public launch of OpenCritic, a new video game review aggregator that aims to compete with Metacritic by providing a wider array of opinions on games and surfacing more data on how it conducts its aggregation efforts.
This is chiefly notable because Metacritic scores carry significant weight in the game industry, often having an effect on hiring decisions and compensation schemes for game developers -- some studios even go so far as to change the name of their game to get out from under a bad Metacritic score.
OpenCritic, which was cofounded in 2014 by a team that includes Riot Games' Matthew Enthoven and engineer Charles Green, aims to set itself apart from Metacritic and attract readers by (among other things) providing a clear rundown of how it calculates the score it assigns a developer's game based on aggregated reviews.
OpenCritic also links to both scored and non-scored reviews (as well as YouTuber videos) of a given game and allows users to flag "trusted publications" in order to tailor their reading experience.
Curious developers who want to see their game listed on the service can find guidelines for doing so on the OpenCritic FAQ.