Video games seem to be graded on different scale than movies, or other content. While video games are supposed to be graded from a 1-10 scale (or 1-100, 1-5, etc. depending on the site) the vast majority of blockbuster games receive a grade from 7-10. It has gotten to the point where 7 is seen as a "bad" or "substandard" rating, 8 is "good", and 9 is "very good". Metacritic openly compares the different standards of the gaming and movie industry



There are few big name games that get a 5-6, and most of them are known for being notoriously bad, or have major flaws. Including Sonic Unleashed, Duke Nukem Forever, Pokemon Battle Revolution, etc. While a five or a six should be an "average" score, most people would agree that when it comes to gaming this isn't the case.



Publishers will frequently give out early review copies of their video games prior to the official release date in order to generate hype for their game. However, a negative review might adversely affect sales. Thus, publishers might be reluctant to give out games to companies that give out bad reviews in the future. That means that a websites that give favorable reviews have a direct financial incentive to do so.



A popular example of this includes GameSpot's review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men had a big advertising campaign through Gamespot, and Jeff Gerstmann reviewed the game as 6 / 10 (which is still higher than the user score of 4). Kane & Lynch threatened to pull all of their advertising for the review, and as a result Jeff Gerstmann was fired, and his video review was removed from Gamespot (then later restored).



A representative of CNET, Sarah Cain stated "We do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers". Cain refused to elaborate on why the video was removed.



Years later, Gerstmann nondisclosure contract was voided allowing him to reveal the reason why he was fired. Stating that it was indeed pressure from the marketing department that caused him to be fired. In other words, CNET caved to advertising pressure despite claiming they didn't. Gerstmann also explains in an interview that another editor, Aaron Thomas, was admonished for giving Ratchet & Clank only a 7.5 while Sony was advertising. Gerstmann stated that he got pulled into meetings, and was threatened about "all the things that were going to happen as a result of this review... This management team buckled basically, when faced with having a lot of ad dollars walk out the door".



Duke Nukem's public relations threatened to avoid giving review copies to reviewers who used too much "venom" in their reviews.



There are also publishers which give instructions to game reviewers to exclude certain negative parts of the game which could negatively impact the score. For example, in Metal Gear Solid 4 the publisher told reviewers not to mention the load or install time, or the length of the cut scenes.



There are also big name video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Mass Effect 3, DmC: Devil May Cry etc. where the user reviews on Metacritic greatly differed from the critic reviews.



In addition to that, there are cases where fans of the series can be angry at websites that give games they like reviews that aren't high enough. For example, some people criticized Gamespot for giving Zelda: Twilight Princess only an 8.8.



So, with the threat of an angry fan base, advertisers and publishers, how "unbiased" can professional reviewers really be?