Irrational Games hiring policy includes Metacritic score over 85

Understandable requirement. I can see the practicality of that, makes it no different from requiring a specific degree or talent for a job.
 
This is irrational!


Understandable requirement. I can see the practicality of that, makes it no different from requiring a specific degree or talent for a job.

And the fact that there were a few dubious instances where metacritic was accused of fudging the numbers?
 
This is irrational!




And the fact that there were a few dubious instances where metacritic was accused of fudging the numbers?

I don't agree with it being irrational. Having a requirement set for a game with a high review mark is completely understandable.

As for the source of this high review mark, I can agree that I don't think that Metacritic is the optimal choice for this requirement to be based on.
 
Using a 3rd party rating to decide on hiring someone, especially considering Metacrits's track record is a bit off. Plus if you look at some of the titles that get high rankings then it may actually cause you to hire crap.
 
I was looking through a JobMail newspaper over the weekend and noticed that many positions require a "proven track record" above and beyond any qualifications needed for the job. Having worked on a game that gets high reviews is a really good track record, except that the source of the track record is questionable.

I agree with the concept, don't agree with the source.
 
Using a review aggregate site to hire someone is shitty practice, no matter which way you look at it.
 
Using a review aggregate site to hire someone is shitty practice, no matter which way you look at it.

I am still not convinced that it is a terrible idea. Sure, reviews are based on personal opinions, but it is an aggregate of collective opinions.

Same concept behind this thread:
There are 3 guys who believe that this is a bad idea and myself, who is not really opposed to the idea. But when someone new opens this thread (a hypothetical user, who wants to employ the same practice in hiring a developer), he will see the general negative response and most probably, decide against it.

I have mentioned that the aggregate source of reviews is not the optimal choice when it comes to this decision and I do concede that this is not the most practical way of doing things...

I just don't think that it is a terrible idea.
 
The problem is games often involve 10's to 100's of people, so you may be brilliant at your job but the other 99 people suck, hell that could even be the reason you want to leave. Metacritic doesn't look at your individual contribution to a project and then assign you a score, it just aggregates every project you have attached to your name. So it's pretty lazy and stupid to hire using such a system.

Just to give more examples, the job here is looking for someone to manage design; so it's entirely possible you are both creative and good at managing people but if you're in a place where either your bosses don't let the talent do their jobs properly or the talent just doesn't have the competence to execute the design goals, you are stuck with games that get mediocre scores.
 
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Pretty much what Monk said. An aggregated score for a project you and possibly hundreds of others worked on is not by any stretch of the mind an accurate indication of how well an individual does his/her job.
 
M0nk is right - it's not exactly fair to penalise a coder, for example, when a game is shitty because of poor gameplay design.
 
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