Rotten Tomatoes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| URL | http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ |
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| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Online movie and video game reviews |
| Registration | Optional |
| Owner | IGN |
| Created by | Senh Duong |
| Launched | 1998 |
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of movies and video games. The name derives from the vaudeville-era cliché of throwing tomatoes and other produce at stage performers if a performance was particularly bad. The website created a distinctive means to summarize the general critical opinions about these works.
[edit] Description
Rotten Tomatoes staff searches the Internet for as many websites as possible that contain reviews of particular films and games; from the amateur to the professional. Once found, the staff uses the aggregate data to determine if the review is positive ("fresh", marked by a small icon of a red tomato) or negative ("rotten", marked by a small icon of a green splatted tomato).
The website keeps track of all of the reviews counted (which can approach 250 for major films) and the percentage of positive reviews is tabulated. If the positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh" in that a supermajority of the reviewers approve of the film. Conversely, if the positive reviews are less than 60%, then the film is considered "rotten." In addition, major film reviewers like Roger Ebert, Desson Thomson/Stephen Hunter (Washington Post), Lisa Schwartzbaum (Entertainment Weekly) are listed in a sub-listing called "Cream of the Crop" which tabulates their reviews separately, while still including their opinions in the general rating. When there are sufficient reviews to form a conclusion, a consensus statement is posted which is intended to articulate the general reasons for the opinion. This rating in turn is marked with an equivalent icon when the film is listed, giving the reader a one glance look at the general critical opinion about the work. Films that are considered "fresh", have many reviews to base the "freshness" on and have an excellent average rating receive the "Certified fresh" label as well as the red tomato. Films with just 70% can have the certificate if there are many reviews and an excellent average (indicating that even "rotten" reviews were fairly supportive). There are films with 100% which don't have the certificate due to a rating average that is "good" but not "excellent" or because there are not enough reviews to be sure of the freshness.
As of March 2007, the best reviewed film on the site is Toy Story 2, having an average rating of 8.6, and having receiving 107 reviews, all of which are positive, making Toy Story 2 100% Fresh. Conversely, there are over 200 films that have so far received a 0% freshness rating.
In 2004, the website IGN Entertainment acquired Rottentomatoes.com. In September 2005, IGN was bought out by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The site is one of the most heavily trafficked on the Internet, with an Alexa Internet ranking of 660 (as of July 24, 2006) and between 60–120 million page views per day.
In November 2006, Rotten Tomatoes launched a UK version of its site; a copy of the main site with new editorial targeted at UK users and a wider selection of UK critics. To the annoyance of many UK users, all UK users can not now access the American site proper and have their own dedicated UK site. Despite reassurances that the content is the same, for UK users the front page is UK focused - dissapointing considering that the latest movie info originates in the US.
The forums of Rotten Tomatoes are a thriving community with thousands taking part in discussions of such topics as movies, videogames, and music.
[edit] Print
At least one major newspaper, the Toronto Star, regularly publishes the ratings in its weekly entertainment section.
[edit] External links
AskMen.com • Rotten Tomatoes • TeamXbox • 3DGamers • GameStats • IGN.com • GameSpy • FilePlanet • Direct2Drive • GamerMetrics
