A Review Scoring System That Would Work

Yahtzee Croshaw

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A Review Scoring System That Would Work

Review scores are ridiculous, but if we must have them, then here is a system that should be implemented if you don't want to be bothered reading the review.

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choren64

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Aug 2, 2011
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Nice read. Recommended. 7/10...

In all seriousness though, reviews of artistic things are always tricky since everyone will have different tastes. Like he said, numbers are easy to calculate function and things, but certain people may get more emotion out of a piece of artwork than others...
 

Error418

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Feb 17, 2015
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Silly you, you almost had me thinking this was serious.

Problem is, not everyone follows gaming news and critique. Some just see a title that attracts their attention and want a simple Yay or Nay to justify their spending. Of course, one obvious trap is that reviwers might rate poorly genres they dislike, tanking a game that might have been alright to a savier fan.

You won't see AAA studies pushing for the ban of scores either, seeying as scores make it easy to quantify success, aside from taking less space at the box's cover.
 

oldtaku

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The purpose of the review score is to tell us whether to bother to read the review for a game we weren't interested in.

9-10: Wow, guess I should read the review to figure out what's so great about this. Maybe I'm interested now.
1-3: Ooo, guess I should read the review to enjoy the train wreck.
4-8: I'm not reading the cunting review.

Review sites could achieve the same effect by going with better titles or ledes. '[Game]: The [Site] Review' doesn't really do it.
 

JenSeven

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Oct 19, 2010
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I would rate this review of review-scores and reviewing methods as Essential.
At least I would if the ending conclusion didn't score a 0% on Functionality.
 

Belaam

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I considered reading this article, but it didn't have a recommended trophy.

I don't mind multi-faceted reviews that include multiple elements of the game (graphics, plot, etc.), nor do I mind a summary of pros and cons, but honestly, who are these people dropping $60 on a game they are unwilling to read a couple of thousand words on first?

It's really not that hard to read the worst metacritic score, the best one from a site you've heard of, and maybe one more from a site you like.
 

BrotherRool

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I don't see the problem with review scores. They're just very rough approximations of how positive the reviewer feels toward whatever they're reviewing.

It's only ever an issue when people expect the system to be perfect. I can give a book a 4 out of 5 because I think it's really good but not the most amazing thing ever. My thought out opinion is always going to be more useful, but 4/5 is a nice way to put those thoughts in context.
 

Yahtzee Croshaw

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Hmm I don't know about this one.
On one hand it is obvious that an artistic construct of any kind is generally hard to reduce to a number. It is an abstract approximation of a subjective appreciation, we all know that. Unless as mentioned, you start rating the pure technical performance which doesn't really hold much meaning either.

That said, I don't think dismissing scores is the way to go. While I applaud outputs or people deciding to go fully sans score (no, not you Eurogamer), I think that as a whole, scores are useful. I know everyone is dismissive and rather judgmental of sites like Metacritic or Gamerankings (or rottentomatoes), but to me they do represent an amalgamation of the global subjective abstract appreciations of a certain game.
And this amalgamation is a good way to measure the pulse,it is a good way to see the extremes, and a good way to observe what people find positive and negative.

Now personally, I care very little for scores, if a game get's 7 or a 9 it is unlikely to really modify my level of interest. I mostly follow specific reviewers, and read what they have to say because I find their observations insightful, or erotic, or whatever, but even then I'll often disagree with them. And this more direct interaction that I can have with a handful of people, doesn't really clash with the numeric values, but instead they complement each other.

After all this age we're in is all about discerning what information we find valuable in the chaotic ocean of stuff that is out there, shouting. And numbers are a good way to sift though it all.

PS: I never thought as Yahtzee as a reviewer, but more a commentator... Not sure if that's just a distinction without a difference.
 

Aerotrain

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Perfect deployment of the word "cunting".

I rate it 10/10, present it with an Essential badge and award it a Purple Teddy Bear of Excellence.
 

shrekfan246

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May 26, 2011
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BrotherRool said:
I don't see the problem with review scores. They're just very rough approximations of how positive the reviewer feels toward whatever they're reviewing.

It's only ever an issue when people expect the system to be perfect. I can give a book a 4 out of 5 because I think it's really good but not the most amazing thing ever. My thought out opinion is always going to be more useful, but 4/5 is a nice way to put those thoughts in context.
I rather firmly believe that the problem is the readers. Yahtzee touched on it a little, but it's the people who come into a review just to reaffirm their preconceived notions; when they see a number they disagree with for whatever reason, they have to throw a massive tantrum all over the internet because apparently other people holding different opinions is just something they cannot reconcile with their world view.

Of course, that point of view comes with the issue of not having an easy fix re: "get rid of review scores" and/or "read the review", because we would be trying to change the way people themselves actually act. And people generally seem to be fairly stubborn and resistant to change.
 
Jan 12, 2012
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shrekfan246 said:
BrotherRool said:
I don't see the problem with review scores. They're just very rough approximations of how positive the reviewer feels toward whatever they're reviewing.

It's only ever an issue when people expect the system to be perfect. I can give a book a 4 out of 5 because I think it's really good but not the most amazing thing ever. My thought out opinion is always going to be more useful, but 4/5 is a nice way to put those thoughts in context.
I rather firmly believe that the problem is the readers. Yahtzee touched on it a little, but it's the people who come into a review just to reaffirm their preconceived notions; when they see a number they disagree with for whatever reason, they have to throw a massive tantrum all over the internet because apparently other people holding different opinions is just something they cannot reconcile with their world view.

Of course, that point of view comes with the issue of not having an easy fix re: "get rid of review scores" and/or "read the review", because we would be trying to change the way people themselves actually act. And people generally seem to be fairly stubborn and resistant to change.
Stupid people. They always get in the way of an efficient society.

In terms of gameplay functionality, we also keep a tally of every time the player lost immersion for whatever reason, be it a glitch or poorly-written piece of dialogue, as well as one for each time they reached a failure state due to something that wasn't their fault, as determined by a brief inquiry from an unbiased panel of experts.
I wonder where something like Sunset Overdrive would fit on that scale? Breaking the 4th wall is the definition of losing immersion, but if done well it can be enjoyable and shouldn't be punished.

Also, I think Eurogamer's idea could work if they would just add an audience after each trophy. For example:
Call Of Duty: The Next One
Essential: Fans of the franchise, competitive FPS players
Recommended: People who enjoy tight mechanics in linear shooters with huge setpieces
Avoid: People who hate twitch gameplay, people who demand fresh and intricate stories
 
Dec 10, 2012
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I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind this article. But I think Yahtzee may be missing the point entirely.

That being that any, and I mean any evaluation of a piece of art, and especially video games, is going to not only be a matter of personal opinion, but will also take more than a few sentences to fully explain, and the result of this unavoidable fact of life being that not everyone wants or needs your entire breakdown of each major aspect of the game, and just wants to make things faster and easier with an approximate summary of a reviewer's opinion represented in a single bit. This is why Metacritic exists, because being able to get at least a vague idea of a person's recommendation (or condemnation) and integrating it within the structure of several other such graph points can give you an idea of whether a game will be enjoyable or not in a much faster way than having to read half a dozen full reviews.

The truth is, we need both approaches to game reviewing.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Jun 5, 2013
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I always translated scores into grades from school.
6 or below is failing, thus not worth buying.
7 is barely passing, but decent. Wait for a bundle release with other 7s.
8 is good, but not worth full price. Wait for a discount.
9 is amazing and worth full price, but no extras and debatable if worthy of getting at launch.
10 is PERFECT. As in flawless. Pre-order it, get the DLCs, get it at launch, have its children, play the living hell out of it forever and ever.

As a side note, no game has ever been perfect, no matter what marketing departments pay for.
 

shrekfan246

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May 26, 2011
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Thunderous Cacophony said:
shrekfan246 said:
BrotherRool said:
I don't see the problem with review scores. They're just very rough approximations of how positive the reviewer feels toward whatever they're reviewing.

It's only ever an issue when people expect the system to be perfect. I can give a book a 4 out of 5 because I think it's really good but not the most amazing thing ever. My thought out opinion is always going to be more useful, but 4/5 is a nice way to put those thoughts in context.
I rather firmly believe that the problem is the readers. Yahtzee touched on it a little, but it's the people who come into a review just to reaffirm their preconceived notions; when they see a number they disagree with for whatever reason, they have to throw a massive tantrum all over the internet because apparently other people holding different opinions is just something they cannot reconcile with their world view.

Of course, that point of view comes with the issue of not having an easy fix re: "get rid of review scores" and/or "read the review", because we would be trying to change the way people themselves actually act. And people generally seem to be fairly stubborn and resistant to change.
Stupid people. They always get in the way of an efficient society.
Pretty much.

I know that I upgraded myself to the HuMan CPU when it came out, so that I would no longer need to be burdened by petty things like emotion. Unfortunately, it would seem that not many followed in my path.
 

moggett88

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"All it takes is for a 'Recommended' or an 'Essential' to be given to one game that's isn't all that, and the title is meaningless." - I had to read this sentence several times and have multiple massive brain hemorrhages before I realised there was an extra s in there tripping me up. Well played Yahtzee.
 

Thanatos2k

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I'm not sure why some people hate scores so much. Scores are valuable. Scores are data. Data beats parsing language every time. And the people who say "You can't rate art!" annoy me. Yes you can. Just give it a score out of 100. It's easy to rate things.

Most reviews are meaningless rubbish that parrot the basic information about a game but rarely tell me what I need to know. Most professional reviewers are too caught up in telling us what they thought about the game rather than doing their jobs and trying to tell me whether *I* will like the game or not. Too many reviewers have become arrogant to think their opinion somehow matters more than everyone else's, especially the target audience for specific games.

So usually I read a few of the reviews from the top, bottom, and middle of the score spectrum. Give me 50 reviews with no scores and I'll just ignore them all.

That said, if video games wanted to go with a rottentomatoes approach with an aggregated pass/fail to produce a quality score I'd be right behind that.
 

BrotherRool

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shrekfan246 said:
BrotherRool said:
I don't see the problem with review scores. They're just very rough approximations of how positive the reviewer feels toward whatever they're reviewing.

It's only ever an issue when people expect the system to be perfect. I can give a book a 4 out of 5 because I think it's really good but not the most amazing thing ever. My thought out opinion is always going to be more useful, but 4/5 is a nice way to put those thoughts in context.
I rather firmly believe that the problem is the readers. Yahtzee touched on it a little, but it's the people who come into a review just to reaffirm their preconceived notions; when they see a number they disagree with for whatever reason, they have to throw a massive tantrum all over the internet because apparently other people holding different opinions is just something they cannot reconcile with their world view.

Of course, that point of view comes with the issue of not having an easy fix re: "get rid of review scores" and/or "read the review", because we would be trying to change the way people themselves actually act. And people generally seem to be fairly stubborn and resistant to change.
Too true, apparently when sites remove review scores there's often a noticeable drop off in traffic to their reviews. And if they're willing to stop looking at a review altogether because of changes to the score, then the chances of convincing people to treat review scores in a more sane and less obsessive way... they're not high.
 

Olas

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Dec 24, 2011
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I think it's unfair to call review scores "meaningless", they clearly have some meaning, even if it is fairly ambiguous and reductionist. But people use reductionism all the time. When my parents ask me how my day went I usually utter a one or two word reply like "good" or "nothing special" and typically that's good enough. They don't need a complete rundown of my entire day and a detailed analysis of everything that happened.

Basically there are many degrees of detail that one can go into with an evaluation. A review score is the low-end extreme, a longform review is the other, neither is inherently superior.
 

Silent Protagonist

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Aug 29, 2012
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I agree that single scores are largely meaningless and unhelpful. I am not convinced they are completely without merit, however. The only time I find they are helpful is if they are very low, especially given 7/10 is the minimum most sites will usually give a game, since it suggests there are some fairly objective reasons the game would not be worth my time rather than relatively subjective ones such as the reviewer not being a fan of the genre.

I think multi score systems could be a bit better, but as Yahtzee said for one to be 'accurate' it would end up being more cumbersome than reading a review. The best, simple version I came up with would be Technical, Story, and Gameplay. Technical would be the presence of bugs and crashes, as well as the performance of the game's graphics. Unfortunately, as mentioned by Yahtzee, to make this category really accurate you would need an entire QA department so my system is flawed from the very start. Story would consist of judging the quality of the characters, plot, dialogue, etc as I think would be obvious from the name. This category could possibly be the most subjective. Gameplay would be judging the quality and/or uniqueness of the game's mechanics and how enjoyable the parts of the game where story is not happening are. Also a fairly subjective category and could vary greatly depending on the style of play. Certainly not a perfect system, most notably because it is somewhat tailored to narrative driven games, but I think it is quite a bit better than a context free single score.

Another issue is whether or not reviews themselves are becoming obsolete with the prevalence of Let's Plays that allow potential buyers to see some actual gameplay and decide whether or not it appeals to them based on their own preferences, rather than those of a reviewer.