In the age of the Fanboy, it has become quite obvious that the differential between a review score of 8.9 and 9.0 is astronomical. Funny enough, it isn’t only gamers who have started to realize and take note of that issue as well. Crytek, the developers behind the upcoming sequel Crysis 2, have come to the realization that in order to make an impact with any game in any genre, a 90+ review score is warranted.

Crytek executive producer Nathan Camarillo recently had to field questions about review scores when Electronic Arts’ boss of the EA Partner program made claims that Crysis 2 would average above a 90 review score.

“We’re going to put out the best game that we can make and that’s probably over a 90 rated so it’s a fair statement to make,” responds Camarillo. “It’s up to the reviewers obviously. I hope he didn’t jinx us.”

Camarillo understands that reviewers and fans alike hold publishers and developers to these types of standards, but personally, I don’t think that’s quite fair. There are tons of great games that didn’t hold a 90 on a website like Metacritic that people have dumped 100s of hours into endlessly.

“I think you have to be 90 plus to make an impact in any genre now. The quality bar is so high and publishers and developers have put so much effort against high quality games.”

“If you want to be recognised at all, regardless of genre, like anything you need to create the highest quality product possible and anything else is not going to get noticed.”

It kind of makes you feel old when you start thinking about the great games you played on the original PlayStation or even in the early days of the PlayStation 2 that only achieved a score of 8.2 on average, yet were fantastic experiences. Those days no longer exist, apparently. Hopefully the industry can move away from this mentality in the future.