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Metacritic places 36 hour waiting period on user reviews

"To ensure our gamers have time to play these games before writing their reviews"

Metacritic places 36 hour waiting period on user reviews

Review aggregation site Metacritic has made it so that users have to wait longer to post their thoughts about a game.

In an update, the platform has said that people will have to wait until 36 hours after a game is released to post their review. Metacritic has said that this wasn't the result of the reaction of any game in particular, though it does come in the wake of a backlash against PlayStation 4 exclusive The Last of Us: Part II following its release in June of this year.

This measure will put a halt to review bombing, which is when users post negative reviews of a game despite likely having not played it.

Play 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," a Metacritic spokesperson told GameSpot. Both companies are owned by ViacomCBS.

"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."

This story was originally posted on PCGamesInsider.biz.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.