Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts launched Metacritic in January 2001 after two years of development. The trio had been working on the project since 1999 when they first conceived the idea to aggregate reviews across multiple media types.
CNET purchased the site in 2005 before CBS Corporation acquired both CNET and Metacritic as part of their expanding digital portfolio. Red Ventures bought Metacritic and other CNET titles in 2020, and Fandom Inc completed the latest acquisition in 2022.
Metacritic converts every critic and user review into a percentage score ranging from zero to one hundred by calculating the original rating or through subjective decisions about review quality. The system adjusts scores based on each critic's popularity, reputation, and total number of published reviews before averaging them.
In 2015 researchers analyzed over eighty-eight Xbox 360 and eighty PS3 titles from 2012 but found no direct impact on actual sales numbers. Despite this finding publishers have used scores to determine developer bonuses creating real financial consequences for creative teams.
The company introduced the Must-See label for movies achieving eighty-one points or higher with at least fifteen professional critics in June 2018. September 2018 brought the Must-Play certification for video games scoring ninety percent or more with similar reviewer minimums.