If you are familiar with MetaCritic and OpenCritic, you’ve probably seen a few reviews from sites and game journalists (like ours on OpenCritic). Similar to those websites, there is a new one with a focus on featuring sites and names that are usually overlooked by others: CriticDB. The Outerhaven Productions is proud to be a part of this new aggregate site and hopes that it truly lives up to its goals.
On January 25th, 2025, CriticDB launched and has been updating and improving its site bit by bit. Another major focus of CriticDB, as stated on their “About Us” page, is discovery.
“We believe discovery is a major issue in the industry right now, and helping people find the games they want to play through the many many games that release, and hope to address this via a number of ideas that we have.”
It’s true, especially with AA and indie titles, that discovery is an issue. But more importantly, CriticDB’s focus is to help individuals discover games they may not already know they like. That’s why they have a whole section for signing up and getting people to create a normal account on the site, in order to receive a curated experience based on their interests.
You can add a game you’ve completed, note how long it took to finish, provide the review score you’d personally give it, and watch as the algorithm tailors your homepage to focus on games similar to it—or not—based on your personal taste. Just like in gaming, the best way to understand how a video game works is by engaging with it. Hopefully, this new format helps engage readers in a way that offers a different approach compared to other review aggregate sites. The site itself is still relatively new, but it’s great to see the constant stream of updates it receives.
The discoverability problem that CriticDB has observed in the gaming industry is something they hope to solve with the following steps:
- Game of the Day – Showcasing smaller, indie, or interesting games that players may want to learn more about.
- Similar Games – Like a game? Check out more similar to it, curated by real people—no AI recommendations.
- Outlet Tags – Find women-led, minority-owned, or other outlet types that you may not typically seek out.
- Working directly with PR and developers – Connecting them with outlets, as well as ensuring the games in their database are up-to-date and accurate.
I hope that CriticDB can add more to the gaming industry. This is certainly a time more lights in this industry are welcome.
