This is ironic and frustrating. You're implying a
causal relationship. Eg - gamers buy games
because of a high metacritic score. What if good games tend to sell more, and good games tend to also have above average review scores?
This isn't just about semantics. These are two far different possibilities and it cuts to the core of the supposed problem, which I do agree is a problem, but for different reasons (more on that in a minute). If metacritic scores simply correlate with the quality of a game as do sales, then getting rid of metacritic scores would do absolutely nothing except remove a convenient resource for players. Now on why I actually agree it's a problem, but for different reasons. Publishers have also assumed a causal relationship and they're starting to develop games based explicitly around achieving metacritic scores. The games media and game players don't exactly see eye to eye. When publishers start going overboard and doing things like scrapping concepts based on mock reviews and the like then they're no longer making games for players, but games for the games media. This is something that may potentially hurt the correlation between "good games" (from a players perspective) and above average review scores. And that is a problem.
If publishers believe that there is a causal relationship between reviews and sales then getting rid of scores wouldn't actually do that much. They'd still engage in the same sort of behavior aimed and targeting the games media with their games. And for that matter the games media rarely works as an actual media outlet and instead are more of a PR branch.
Here is IGN's lead paragraph for their Titanfall review:
That's splattered right below some giant audio/visual hype ad for the game that auto plays when you visit the review page. You don't need to see some number to know it's going to get an absurdly high score from them. Imagine if Ebert had wrote a review that began:
"With the action packed sequences from the first moments my heart began to palpitate - I literally could not sit still in my chair. The excitement was palpable - the experience unprecedented.. blah blah blah" But he wouldn't because that's retardedly unprofessional. That, like the games media already long since has, goes well beyond the realm of objective critique and into the realm of fanboy PR. The problem isn't about the numbers, it's about assuming a casual relationship which is driving publisher influence on the media - both coercively and simply in terms of what they release. Ironically, you assumed the exact thing in your critique of the problem!