3/5 DONT BUY EVER SUCKS: Why do we consider these ratings shite

Guy from the 80's

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I used to use an 8/10 in Edge as a standard for what I would buy or not. But over the years I eventually became disillusioned and stopped reading them.
 

Something Amyss

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crypticracer said:
Reviews and sites like meta critic have made them pointless. On a 10 point scale there is 7-10 and everything below that is considered the same (unbuyable.)
It's now a scale of 8-10, and for the super hyped releases, it's a scale of 9-10. Remember, folks, a 9/10 is grounds for a boycott, outrage, or demanding someone be fired.
 

Flames66

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When I am reading reviews of things, I generally only read the 2 or 1 out of 5 reviews. I already know I'm interested in it but I want to see what problems there are to see if there is anything I can't overlook.
 

Ihateregistering1

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The only time I really pay attention to the reviews is when they say the game is extremely buggy or glitchy, that's when I'll generally take their advice and avoid it until it's been fixed.
 

Fijiman

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It really depends on the game for me. Something like the CoD sires I don't care about the score because they'll probably give it a 9 or a 10 just because it's CoD. Now for a lesser known game I might pay attention to scores and reviews, but only as far as "was it universally panned by everyone or not?"
 

Recusant

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BiscuitTrouser said:
Prime_Hunter_H01 said:
70% or a C is the minimum passing score ingrained in to our mind as the minimum of good enough and everything up is better.
What the fuck? Is this the USA that does that?

Im at uni in the UK and our first, that is the best result you can get, is 70%. I consider 70% to be the one to aim for at least with 80% being above and beyond.

Thats so weird because it would mean 70% of the questions have to be easy enough for the average person to answer them, then one tiny fraction are VERY hard to weed out the good people. Thats such a stupid way of doing it, At my uni the average student will get 40-50% and all laddering is done from there on up.

I guess thats why I consider 7/10 to be definitely quite good. Id consider 6/10 to be meh, 5 to be a neutral time sink and all other things below to be actively unfun.
As someone who lives in the US, I'm just as baffled as you are. A C is not (or at least, is not supposed to be) the 'minimum passing grade'; that would be a D. An F is a failing grade, that's why they used the letter 'F'. A C is supposed to be average. I suppose they've changed the rules since my not-that-long-ago-really school days. I guess grade inflation is the logical next step of degree devaluing, but, well, I guess all I can say is "Good luck, young people! I hope you're not actually as screwed as this makes it look!".

Anyway, on the subject of reviews: I'll usually read a few to get an idea of what the game's like, but I pay absolutely no attention to the numbers they give. Though there are generally universal elements, a game experience is inherently subjective; Betrayal at Antara was a good game, but even at the time, was hounded by comparisons to its older, better brother (Betrayal at Krondor). Ultimately, you don't know if you'll like a game until you play it.
 

NPC009

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Aug 23, 2010
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As it is now, I don't even know why they assign some games to some reviewers. Limited people, I get. But If I hate young adult stuff and you send me to review the Twilight series... it can be well done to shit and I'd still hate it with all that I am.
Most sites/magazines do try to assign titles to reviewers that are fans of the genre/part of the target demographic, but I wonder if that's always ideal. There are plenty of good games that have an appeal beyond the build-in audience, so shouldn't we see some other perspectives as well?

Then again, in order to appreciate these different perspectives readers would have to actually read the whole review instead of jumping to the conclusion straight away, so... yeah.

A little more on-topic: I think there are two big reasons for gamers ignoring <8/10 games. The first one is pretty reasonable: time and money are limited resources, so you want to spend your responsibly. If you like a wide variety of games it makes sense to prioritise those with critical acclaim. Personally I'm not a fan of this approach, because lots of interesting but flawed games end up being sevens. The appeal of these games is limited, but it may still be gem depending on the player.

The second one is a bit nastier. Having good taste is a considered a good thing. It's something we'd all like to have and the best way to find out if you have it is to see what other people think about the things you like or don't like. Sticking to the games that end up in hall of fames and best of lists will ensure that nobody will think ill of your tastes. This is easy once you've convinced yourself anything else isn't worth your time. Some of the gamers with this mentality will feel insulted when the opinion of critics do not line up with their own. How dare those reviewers invalidate their obviously superiour opinion! Kinda silly, but all to common on certain forums and sites like Metacritic. I mean, sheesh, there are plenty of good reasons to like a game, even if the game itself is pretty bad.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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BiscuitTrouser said:
Prime_Hunter_H01 said:
70% or a C is the minimum passing score ingrained in to our mind as the minimum of good enough and everything up is better.
What the fuck? Is this the USA that does that?

Im at uni in the UK and our first, that is the best result you can get, is 70%. I consider 70% to be the one to aim for at least with 80% being above and beyond.

Thats so weird because it would mean 70% of the questions have to be easy enough for the average person to answer them, then one tiny fraction are VERY hard to weed out the good people. Thats such a stupid way of doing it, At my uni the average student will get 40-50% and all laddering is done from there on up.

I guess thats why I consider 7/10 to be definitely quite good. Id consider 6/10 to be meh, 5 to be a neutral time sink and all other things below to be actively unfun.
that's elementary/middle/high school and sort of depending on what you get into for college (or uni as you would say). we have our public schooling system setup with the whole "no child left behind" crap, and seeing as how most ghetto kids couldn't give two shits about school, grades have become extremely watered dow. I graduated with engineering in college, and let me tell you, the average score for most of our tests were anywhere from 20%-60%, the tests were just fucking brutal and were extreme time crunches, most teachers ended up having to curve grades because everyone would fail if they didn't, so it highly depends on what career you're getting into, and how the test measures applicable principles or things. (personally I think more tests are stupid,the focus should be on projects/labs/field work...by taking tests, you're concentrating on doing well on that test, which could or could not be relevant to how stuff is actually done in the field. I've known plenty of book smart kids be fucking god awful after graduating.)
 

Augustine

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I would like to posit that there is so much choice out there, that most people don't have to bother with anything below "7". Seems quite natural.
Not to say that assigning numbers to the quality of games is an effective way of measuring their merit...
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Jandau said:
The reasons are simple:

Fanboyism. People who are fans of other franchises will cling to any excuse to decry a game from an opposing franchise, even if that excuse is "It's good but not quite perfect.

Self-aggrandizing snarkyness. The simple belief that if you can hate something, then you're above all the "sheeple" who like it. A bunch of people enjoy something, but because you don't, that implies you have more refined tastes (which naturally stem from your better education, higher intelligence and longer penis). So saying that you wouldn't stoop to playing a 7/10 game is your way of saying you are above such games and therefore above people who play them.

Finally, time limitations. How many games do you play? All of them? I'm guessing not. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you have a finite time for gaming. And let's say you decide you feel like playing an FPS that day. So you go online and look at available FPS games. You narrow your choice through various criteria (like say, theme, price, platform, etc.) and let's assume you're left with 3 games. One is a 5/10, everyone thinks it's "meh"; one's a 7/10, solid but flawed; the last one is 10/10, universal acclaim, everyone says it's the best thing since penicilin. Which one do you buy?

These are IMO the three major reasons (or categories of reasons) and people can be guilty of multiple ones at once.
But why can't I just like something others don't? I love Dead Island not because I'm fan of the franchise, or I'm convinced everybody else is an idiot, or I don't have the time to play something else. I love first-person melee combat, I love zombies and having NOT played Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead the whole proposition was new to me (also happened to be my first PS3 game). And I love RE5 because I had a blast playing it on co-op. And so on.

You don't have to be a fanboy, a douche or a busy person to enjoy something others didn't.
 
Aug 31, 2012
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Unsilenced said:
TIL: I should have gone to college in Britain.

If you only know 60% of how to do something, I wouldn't say you've learned how to do it. It may mean I have to re-take a few courses, but I'm glad people aren't going into the field only knowing 60% of how to be a doctor or an engineer.
That's not how the grading system works, these are graded essays, projects etc, not questions with right or wrong answers. Someone getting 60% for a subject doesn't mean they got 40% of it wrong. There is a thread here that goes into it:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=411997

On the topic of games, maybe due to the fact that there are a lot of games out there getting 4/5 or in % terms most get at least a 70% or 7/10 (which is from what I hear considered "average") so being technically a 60% makes them look bad.
 

tilmoph

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Jun 11, 2013
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A. I just don't trust major review sites. Never have. They need to be part of the hype machine for big releases, or they go broke.
B. I don't think scores have ever really reflected how much I enjoyed a game. As an example, I liked Mass Effect 1 more than 2. I like Alpha Protocol more than Call of Duty. ME1 has an 89 on Metacritic, ME2 has a 94. AP has a 72, the only CoD rated lower was Ghosts, with a 68. Every single other CoD for PC is pulling 80's-90's. So scores just don't mean shit compared to what I will actually enjoy.
 

Conner42

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This was actually talked about in TV Tropes and I noticed it too...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourPointScale

I think it's because the publishers and the audiences have to much involvement with the critics(people are even complaining that a highly anticipated game only got a 9 out of 10. Seriously? What the fuck!)

I haven't been keeping up with video game reviews that much, though it's mostly because I don't really have the money to keep up with games anymore...

But, this though...it kind of pisses me off.
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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Johnny Novgorod said:
Jandau said:
The reasons are simple:

Fanboyism. People who are fans of other franchises will cling to any excuse to decry a game from an opposing franchise, even if that excuse is "It's good but not quite perfect.

Self-aggrandizing snarkyness. The simple belief that if you can hate something, then you're above all the "sheeple" who like it. A bunch of people enjoy something, but because you don't, that implies you have more refined tastes (which naturally stem from your better education, higher intelligence and longer penis). So saying that you wouldn't stoop to playing a 7/10 game is your way of saying you are above such games and therefore above people who play them.

Finally, time limitations. How many games do you play? All of them? I'm guessing not. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you have a finite time for gaming. And let's say you decide you feel like playing an FPS that day. So you go online and look at available FPS games. You narrow your choice through various criteria (like say, theme, price, platform, etc.) and let's assume you're left with 3 games. One is a 5/10, everyone thinks it's "meh"; one's a 7/10, solid but flawed; the last one is 10/10, universal acclaim, everyone says it's the best thing since penicilin. Which one do you buy?

These are IMO the three major reasons (or categories of reasons) and people can be guilty of multiple ones at once.
But why can't I just like something others don't? I love Dead Island not because I'm fan of the franchise, or I'm convinced everybody else is an idiot, or I don't have the time to play something else. I love first-person melee combat, I love zombies and having NOT played Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead the whole proposition was new to me (also happened to be my first PS3 game). And I love RE5 because I had a blast playing it on co-op. And so on.

You don't have to be a fanboy, a douche or a busy person to enjoy something others didn't.
Of course you can enjoy things others don't. That's not the question posed in the original post (which was basically: "Why do so many people interpret decent scores are being terrible?") and at no point did I state that you are in any way wrong to like something that's unpopular. I was just providing what I consider the reasons for attitudes of people who hate on games that get less than perfect scores.

If you find something you enjoy, go nuts! Have fun! My post quite literally doesn't apply to that. However, it would apply to the prick who, upon seeing you playing Dead Island, says "Oh, you're playing THAT piece of shit? It got slammed in the reviews, so you are stupid for playing it."
 

Super Cyborg

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Jandau said:
The reasons are simple:

Fanboyism. People who are fans of other franchises will cling to any excuse to decry a game from an opposing franchise, even if that excuse is "It's good but not quite perfect.

Self-aggrandizing snarkyness. The simple belief that if you can hate something, then you're above all the "sheeple" who like it. A bunch of people enjoy something, but because you don't, that implies you have more refined tastes (which naturally stem from your better education, higher intelligence and longer penis). So saying that you wouldn't stoop to playing a 7/10 game is your way of saying you are above such games and therefore above people who play them.

Finally, time limitations. How many games do you play? All of them? I'm guessing not. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you have a finite time for gaming. And let's say you decide you feel like playing an FPS that day. So you go online and look at available FPS games. You narrow your choice through various criteria (like say, theme, price, platform, etc.) and let's assume you're left with 3 games. One is a 5/10, everyone thinks it's "meh"; one's a 7/10, solid but flawed; the last one is 10/10, universal acclaim, everyone says it's the best thing since penicilin. Which one do you buy?

These are IMO the three major reasons (or categories of reasons) and people can be guilty of multiple ones at once.
What about people like me, who admit to have poor tastes and are just terrible people in general? I do it less because of my endowment, and more to make my self feel better, as well as compensate for size.

OT: For me, I use reviews to find out the details of the game, and if what I hear in the reviews catches my interests, then I'll get it. The example I've used a few times has been for Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars. When I saw the original articles for the game announcement, I had formed an idea of what I wanted it to be like if I was to buy the game. I wanted a game with a competent battle system, with lots of innuendos and cheesy dialogue. I also wanted the characters to be at least a little relatable. After reading reviews, the biggest complaints I saw were the terrible dialogue at times, the supposed sexist elements, and the class mating scenes. I didn't mind about the second part (since that was going to be a given with the game), and the other two I really wanted that to be over the top at times. I read the combat was good overall, and that a number of the characters had some decent characterizations going for them, so I picked up the game and loved it (Metacritic average was like 60/100).

TLDR, know what you want out of a game, and then read the reviews to see if it has what you want.
 

FrozenLaughs

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3/5 or 6/10 is 60%. In America we spend 12 years being taught that 60% is the bare minimum required to succeed; anything less is a failure.

You don't want your Doctor scoring 60 on his finals.
You don't want your Chef scoring 60 on his exams.
You don't want your Mechanic scoring 60 on his tests.
...
...
...
Apparently we don't want our money going to a game that scores 60% either. (or a publisher/developer who delivers 60% of a game)
 

Scars Unseen

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Augustine said:
I would like to posit that there is so much choice out there, that most people don't have to bother with anything below "7". Seems quite natural.
Not to say that assigning numbers to the quality of games is an effective way of measuring their merit...
That's only natural if number scores have merit. Otherwise it's just lazy self-deception.
 

Shoggoth2588

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For me, and in school, getting a D or 60%+ out of 100% was considered a passing grade. When it comes to games though, I don't really go by the review score. I have noticed though that when games get an incredibly low score, I find them a lot more fun than middle-of-the-road games. Sonic 06 and Ride to Hell are games that I had a whole lot more fun with than say, Legendary or Clive Barker's Jericho. There are a ton of games that got perfect scores or 9/10 that I've enjoyed but I don't use review scores to dedicate what games I want...Sadly, it's my limited funds that dictate that more often than not...