Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of media products: music albums, video games, films, TV shows, and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of Green, Yellow or Red summarizes the critics' recommendations. It has been described as the video game industry's "premier" review aggregator. 

Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or which the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to the critic's fame, stature, and volume of reviews. 

Metacritic was launched in July 1999 by Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts, and a classmate from the University of Southern California law school, Jason Dietz. Rotten Tomatoes was already compiling movie reviews, but Doyle, Roberts, and Dietz saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media. They sold Metacritic to CNET in 2005. CNET and Metacritic are now owned by the CBS Corporation. 

Nick Wingfield of "The Wall Street Journal" wrote in September 2004: "Mr. Doyle, 36, is now a senior product manager at CNET but he also acts as games editor of Metacritic". Speaking of video games, Doyle said: "A site like ours helps people cut through...unobjective promotional language". "By giving consumers, and web users specifically, early information on the objective quality of a game, not only are they more educated about their choices, but it forces publishers to demand more from their developers, license owners to demand more from their licensees, and eventually, hopefully, the games get better". He added that the review process was not taken as seriously when unconnected magazines and websites provided reviews in isolation.
When did Metacritic begin? What month? How many people helped design it? Who are they? What is it? What is it a collection of? Of What? What does it do with the reviews scores? What kind of average? What is the review changed into? Who bought Metacritic? When? Who owns it now? Do they also own CNET? Who is the games editor? What is his other duty? How old is he? Who works for The Wall Street Journal? What does he do there? When did he write about Metacritic?
1999 July Three Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts a website reviews media products averages them? weighted a percentage CNET 2005 the CBS Corporation yes Mr. Doyle senior product manager 36 Nick Wingfield writes September 2004