Are you a developer looking for a new job? Want to be part of Irrational Games, the studio behind BioShock? Have you worked on at least one game that has scored an 85 on Metacritic?
Answer yes to all three and Irrational Games wants you!
In a job listing for the position of design manager, the studio would like your CV/resume to include “credit on at least one game with an 85+ average Metacritic Review Score”.
I suppose on the surface such a requirement sounds sensible; Irrational wants to hire good people. No harm in that. The problem is that videogames – like films, theatre and music – is a medium that is (in triple-A development, at least) all about collaboration. What’s to say that the best design manager in the world isn’t working for some lowly developer without a decent game to their name? Could be the rest of the team sucks.
There’s also the problem of a review being a very personal thing, and on Metacritic a couple of bad reviews for a game that is otherwise universally adored can bring the average down.
Sucks if you’re best Metacritic score is 84.
