Suda51’s statement about Metacritic scores blew up more than expected, but he doesn’t really care about that either 

In a recent interview with AUTOMATON, Shadows of the Damned and No More Heroes creator Goichi Suda (Suda51) addressed the huge social media response to his previous comments about Metacritic scores and clarified what he meant. 

If you missed what happened, here’s a recap. In a September interview with Suda51 and Shinji Mikami in GamesIndustry.biz, the topic of why unusual games rarely get made by larger game companies nowadays came up. Suda posited that it’s because “Everyone cares too much about Metacritic Scores,” especially game publishers. “If you’ve got a game that doesn’t fit into that formula, that marketability scope, it loses points on Metacritic. The bigger companies might not want to deal with that kind of thing.” Suda told GamesIndustry.biz. 

When we asked him about it in our interview, Suda revealed that he was unaware that the comments had gone viral and been picked up by loads of media outlets until it was brought up in his weekly meeting with NetEase Games. However, he seemed unfazed by the attention, adding that “it wasn’t a big deal, I’m not concerned and no one’s getting mad at me.” 

Suda51 Metacritic Scores comment

Despite this, Suda51 hopes that readers understood the point he was making. Further clarifying what he meant, Suda51 explained to us that game journalists (likely using a standard scoring criteria for what makes a “typical” good game) sometimes give unconventional games really low review scores, even in the 0 to 20 region. “I think 0 can’t possibly be a fair score, but studios like ours, who make games that disregard standard forms of expression and standard mechanics, often fall through the cracks when it comes to reviews.“ Suda commented, before concluding that for a studio like Grasshopper Manufacture,“There’s really no point being concerned about scores given by the media. Instead, it’s the user reviews that are important. I want to know if the gamers who went out of their way to buy our new game had fun playing it.” 

Despite his dismissal of game reviews by media outlets, Suda admits that he is sometimes conscious of the need to avoid mechanics that will clearly get downvoted by critics and players alike. Suda mentions wanting to put “dirtier mechanics” into his games, giving the example of a tough, old-school style save system (where you have to go all the way back to your last savepoint if you die), but being told by staff that he needed to be more generous these days, where auto-save is taken for granted. Suda51 says that he compromises in such situations: “I think that things like this from back in the day don’t get accepted so easily anymore.” 

For more insights from Suda51, including his love for Zelda and how Shinji Mikami became a “super executive cheerleader,” check out our full interview.