Thomas Mahler, director of No Rest for the Wicked and creator of the Ori games, has launched VideoGamesCritic, a new review aggregator that gives players more weight than professional critics.
The site is live at videogamescritic.com and calls itself “the one source of truth for gamers.” Mahler says Metacritic and OpenCritic mainly show what critics thought about a game. His site is built around what the people who actually play it think.
“My main problem with the existing aggregators: Their scores tell you how the press felt about a game, not how players did,” he wrote. “Press still counts, it just can’t outvote the people who bought the game.”
Players Control Two-Thirds of the Score
Two-thirds of each VideoGamesCritic score comes from Steam users. Critics, using scores pulled from OpenCritic, make up the remaining third. That split is the point. Buyers get the majority vote. The press still matters, but it cannot override them.
The Steam side is not a raw percentage. Reviews from players with very little playtime are downweighted. Reviews gain more influence as playtime rises, up to about 10 hours. The site also tries to filter review bombing using Steam’s own detection tools.
Scores Can Rise or Fall After Launch
Newer Steam reviews count more than older ones, so a game that improves through patches can see its score climb. A game that declines after launch can fall. Launch scores sit beside current scores, making the change easy to see.
Mahler points to No Man’s Sky as the model. The game launched poorly, then recovered over years of updates. On older aggregators, that early verdict often stays frozen. On VideoGamesCritic, the later player reaction can move the number.
Reviewers Get a Trust Score Too
The site also grades outlets and individual reviewers. Each one receives a trust score based on a simple question: when they reviewed a game, did players end up agreeing? Rankings show who consistently matches player reaction and who does not.
Mahler says every game page shows how its score was computed, and that the full method is public. Data comes from Steam reviews, OpenCritic press scores, and IGDB metadata. The site says it is not affiliated with those sources.
The launch has already drawn debate. Some see a useful correction to critic-only averages. Others see a developer ranking the press while his own games sit on the same board. The design, at least, is clear. Players get two-thirds of the vote. Critics get one-third. Both sides are scored against each other.
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