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Numbered Reviews Must End

N

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
If you don't like the numbers, just read the text.

For those who like the numbers, like me... then we can look at them.

Problem solved, honestly... the numbers are useful to many people... especially if I don't want to read 10 reviews of a game.. just a few but check the consensus before plunking down my cash.

Metacritic is just a tool, use it or not, but it's a tool that's useful to a lot of people.
 
K

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
The reason why I'd be interested in a "professional" reviewers opinion on any product over my buddy's or any random user's opinion is because I'm expressly looking for an _authoritative_ expert's opinion, informed by their hopefully substantial knowledge of the particular craft/market/industry and extensive experience covering said craft/market/industry. I'd expect that they could reach a verdict on a product that manages to adhere to a consistent, objective methodology while having the awareness to filter for their own biases in conveying their subjective assessment as well.

So I wouldn't expect such a professional to struggle to properly use a review scale and as such see the proper use of one as a fundamental litmus test for whether I should weight a professional reviewers assessment any higher than my buddy Bob's.

Full disclosure: I don't really have a buddy named Bob.
 
Delt31

Delt31

Member
sorry but they don't need to end. People need to get over themselves and understand that others have different opinions. Quantifying reviews is helpful.
 
S

Synth

Member
Tom Nook Sawyer said:
I really wonder why it's such an issue in the games industry when movies have been scored similarly for decades without apparent issue, even despite there being several Metacritic-like sites for them.
Click to expand...

It's because nobody feels "locked out" from watching a certain movie, and no movie rating can be used to justify your choice of DVD player. It's sad, but that's where we are when it comes to games.
 
N

Naminator

Banned
Cyan said:
Imagine that you have tied your identity really tightly with your video game console of choice. You are really wedded to the notion that the games, the experiences, everything about this game console is just superior to the other one. How could it not be? It's your team, you're part of it, and you wouldn't be part of something inferior.

Now imagine that you get punched in the mouth with numbers. The other console gets a higher number than your console. There's really nothing to fight or argue--there are two numbers, and one number, as a matter of empirical fact, is larger than the other. Your options are to a) accept this and feel sad and upset, b) get angry at reviewers and perhaps allege conspiracies or bias, c) argue that the numbers are meaningless to begin with, or d) some combination of the above.

Most people prefer not to feel sad and upset, and choose one of the other options instead. Which is why it's a big deal.
Click to expand...

Man thats Falcon Kick right between the legs!
 
T

TheChocolateWar

Member
Numbers work perfectly fine and they are not necessarily arbitrary. Many grading rubrics state that they are working from a baseline comparison to the best entry into each given genre on each given system, and using comparative analysis on a number of different things, which are then averaged to get a final score.

Now whether they hold to that formulae......
 
V

ViewtifulJC

Banned
Review scores are never going away. Ever. Negative reviews to AAA games are still gonna get shit on by drooling fanboys who are so much emotionally attached to B-tier franchises not getting the positive reception they dreamed about, numbers, YES/NO, no grade. There will always be stupid people in the world getting pissed over trivial things like somebody's fuckin' opinion about a video game you haven't actually played.

Tilting at windmills
 
L

leadbelly

Banned
Rickenslacker said:
Numbers aren't bad, but they shouldn't have the kind of granularity that should make it seem like they're marking the exact quality of a title. Like you said, 8.1 or 8.2, what's the difference?

It's why I prefer a four or five star scale without decimals or halves. Every point serves a purpose and is general enough to get the idea across.

Then again, I haven't actually used a review in years so I guess it doesn't matter to me at all.
Click to expand...

This is exactly my view on it. It simplifies the rating system while still being useful. A simple 'yes' or 'no' seems less useful to me than a five-star scale, With the former you;re relying on the review itself to give you greater clarity. Maybe it does on a number of occasions, but lets say you have two games, both have flaws, both have positives, and both get a 'yes' score. Which is the best one? Maybe you don't have the money to buy both this month.

I can see times when even reading through the review you haven't got the information you need.
 
N

NullPointer

Member
keit4 said:
Cyclic thread. Everytime a "highly anticipated game from my favourite platform" gets low review scores this thread pop ups.
Click to expand...
Which game got low scores? Infamous seems to have done pretty well, score wise. Unless there's some phenomenon of score inflation that I've missed.
 
R

Ranger X

Member
Having numbers is not the problems with reviews.

The problems with reviews is that right now they aren't reviews. Its not a truly critical vision on the product coming from the reviewer, it is forced score and a bunch of positive crap because "that's how it goes in the industry". Reviwers are sold and reviews are part of the marketing plans of publishers. THAT is the real problem. If journalists would step up and would actually start doing REAL journalism, all would be well.
 
D

Dark Octave

Banned
There needs to be a standard. That's the only issue I have with numbered reviews.

If one person gives a game an 8 and another person gives the same game a 3, what's the point? Who do you believe? It's completely broken at that point.
 
G

General_Frags

Member
PC Gamer UK mag years and years ago had a page in the mag dedicated to deciphering review scores (in 10% increments) before the actual reviews, if everyone did that it would make the situation slightly better.

But anything is better than the god-awful Yes/No/Maybe reviews of Kotaku in the past year.
 
T

Tom Nook Sawyer

Member
Dark Octave said:
If one person gives a game an 8 and another person gives the same game a 3, what's the point? Who do you believe? It's completely broken at that point.
Click to expand...

Huh? That's called having an opinion. It's no different than Kotaku saying "No, don't play this" and someone else saying "Yes, play this."
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
I don't think it's bad. I just think people should stop ONLY caring about the score and ignoring the actual review

I'll admit the difference between a 81 and a 82 is something that can't really be defined.
What makes a game be a 7.8 and not a 7.9, who knows?

But overall I think a score is an easy way to summarize what a person thinks of a game.
There is no complex mathematical formula behind it, it's just "if 1 is the worst thing you have ever played and 10 is perfect, how would you rate this game?".


The problem lies with people, not the the scoring system.
A lot of people just skip the review and go to the score to see if the game is good or bad, which IMO is really stupid. The review itself should be the most relevant part, mabye some things about the game that the reviewer didn't like are not so bad for you. mabye the reviewr gave it a 8 and not a 8.5 because he found it to be too hard but mabye you actually enjoy hard games and it's not a negative element for you.



I don't think the scoring system is bad. I just think people don't know how to use it.
I find it reallys stupid when some people compare a FPS with a third person adventure game on metacritic and that to define which one is the better game
 
N

NullPointer

Member
SquiddyCracker said:
I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
Click to expand...
Same. "I use them because I like them" is fine, but hardly an argument.

There's no defense for shitheads being shitheaded, so lets leave the shitheaded (I want to kill you for not giving my favorite game a 10!) brigade aside for a moment. That people use review score numbers as if they were numbers, and compare those numbers against the numbers given to other games in an effort to draw conclusions, then that comes with the territory when one has decided to use numbers.

One question though for Jim - in conversation with friends (lets just say non-reviewers), do you use numerical scores to communicate your measure of the quality of a game? If so, more power to you and that makes perfect sense. If not, why use them on reviews to the general public?
 
R

Ranger X

Member
Dark Octave said:
There needs to be a standard. That's the only issue I have with numbered reviews.

If one person gives a game an 8 and another person gives the same game a 3, what's the point? Who do you believe? It's completely broken at that point.
Click to expand...

So basically, if some other journalist like the game and think its worth a 8, my opinion as being another journalist is supposed to be the same and I am supposed to like the game in the exact same way and give it a 8? It makes no sense at all. Reviews are an opinion and all opinions are good.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
Dark Octave said:
There needs to be a standard. That's the only issue I have with numbered reviews.

If one person gives a game an 8 and another person gives the same game a 3, what's the point? Who do you believe? It's completely broken at that point.
Click to expand...

Well, what would the point be in multiple people offering their critical take once we've established a correct review standard?
 
V

ViewtifulJC

Banned
Ranger X said:
Having numbers is not the problems with reviews.

The problems with reviews is that right now they aren't reviews. Its not a truly critical vision on the product coming from the reviewer, it is forced score and a bunch of positive crap because "that's how it goes in the industry". Reviwers are sold and reviews are part of the marketing plans of publishers. THAT is the real problem. If journalists would step up and would actually start doing REAL journalism, all would be well.
Click to expand...

Dark Octave said:
There needs to be a standard. That's the only issue I have with numbered reviews.

If one person gives a game an 8 and another person gives the same game a 3, what's the point? Who do you believe? It's completely broken at that point.
Click to expand...

IDK what post is better, a weird vague cry against the entire system, or "if guy A has an opinion and guy B has a completely different one, PLS HALP WHAT DO"
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Daemul said:
Higher than Titanfall
Click to expand...
You're not joking, are you? Not to bust your balls one bit, because I think you're right, but that right there should show the folly of using these numbers, as if the difference in quality between those two games can be derived from subtracting the lower score from the higher score.

Those mathematical operations don't exist for these numbers, but there's an in-built expectation that they kinda should.
 
S

SuperEpicGuy

Banned
Lord Error said:
Buy / Not Buy
Read the review at least a bit if you want to see how person who reviewed it liked it.
Kotaku has it right. I feel like numbered reviews are fetishising the whole process almost.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry but that system would fail quite miserably as with the scores you at least know if the game is somewhat good or not but with a simple yes/no a yes for one person is a no for another.
 
M

megabytecr

Member
I agree, that is why I just read a couple of them and don't focus on the number.

More important is that people need to stop buying games based solely on the review score. There are a lot of factors in determining the value a game has for each individual, this is why I prefer a Conclusion rather than a score.

What matters:
Genre
Length
SP/MP or both
Price/Value

I bet all of us has at some point enjoyed at least one 6-7 game score more than a high scored game, GTA IV anyone?

I have to say it though, because all of this review controversy is because of Infamous SS, but there have been multiple examples before. For example on the Wii U both W101 and DKC TF both deserved better IMO.

There are no better words than Kamiya himself, Believe in yourself!! enough said
 
D

DidntKnowJack

Member
This sounds akin to taking money out of politics. Everyone would like to see it happen, but it's so ingrained in the system it'll probably never happen. Not completely anyway.
 
N

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Ranger X said:
Having numbers is not the problems with reviews.

The problems with reviews is that right now they aren't reviews. Its not a truly critical vision on the product coming from the reviewer, it is forced score and a bunch of positive crap because "that's how it goes in the industry". Reviwers are sold and reviews are part of the marketing plans of publishers. THAT is the real problem. If journalists would step up and would actually start doing REAL journalism, all would be well.
Click to expand...

...only if one ignore are the games that get critically panned all the time.

Daemul said:
Higher than Titanfall
Click to expand...

..and this sums up so much. We are basically having this thread it seems because of the numbers 86 and 81... (as of this exact moment).

Seriously, it amazing what system wars drive people too. Infamous is reviewing just fine. To be honest, it was always just an above-average series to begin with. A Meta in the 80's suggests it's a quality game. Your enjoyment of the game doesn't need to hinge on some reviewer not liking it as much as you.
 
R

Ranger X

Member
NervousXtian said:
...only if one ignore are the games that get critically panned all the time.
Click to expand...

Guess what, I speak in general. And sometimes there are turds out there that, you reviews being fabricated or not, you can't blatantly lie to people and say "man, this new My Horse game kicks Uncharted's ass".
 
C

Cyrano

Member
DidntKnowJack said:
This sounds akin to taking money out of politics. Everyone would like to see it happen, but it's so ingrained in the system it'll probably never happen. Not completely anyway.
Click to expand...

Capitalism could end and thus "money" could be taken out of politics, but money is just a resource. If it disappears, favors or some other form of abuseable resource will take its place, given enough time.

Monty Python is, ironically enough, the solution in the case of politics.
 
P

Pain

Banned
Instead of getting rig of numbers, why not just scale back the scoring system?

1 - Don't waste your money.
2. Bad Game.
3. Worth Playing but has low content or is buggy/ glitchy.
4. Amazing but minor bugs or glitches.
5. Day 1. No standout issues. Revolutionary. MUST BUY.
 
N

noobasuar

Banned
If I had it my way 95% of AAA would have been rated below a 5/10 last generation.

Maybe then we wouldn't be getting so much total dog shit in the gameplay department of all these games but god forbid we upset the developers and the fans that are just as attached to these games.
 
I

IanVanCheese

Member
People like to see a number. When I first started doing reviews I didn't score them and everybody complained. They like to see things quantified.

That said I do think it should be on a lower scale.

What even is an 8.3? You can't be that accurate. Our site uses a 20 point scale (10, 9.5, 9 etc.) and I feel even that conveys a level of accuracy that we just don't have.

Numbers should stay, but people should start actually reading reviews instead of just going off the score.
 
S

Slavik81

Member
I have $15 and I want to decide what N64 game to buy. Do you suggest I read a few reviews for every game ever released on the system?

I'd rather take the top 10 games ranked by score and only read those reviews. The score doesn't need to be some perfect measure of quality to justify its existence. It can be useful despite being imprecise.
 
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