Jimquisition: Hate Out Of Ten

[Jimothy Sterling]

Hate Out Of Ten

Review controversies are nothing new, but things went from bad to worse this year with gamers going crazy every time a major title got scored by various outlets. The "Year of Threes" have created more high profile titles than ever, and spawned more insane fanboys than the world knows what to do with. Even worse, the review score system has gotten so thoroughly screwed that 8/10 just doesn't cut it anymore. It's now become Hate/10.

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[LordOmnit]

Excellent summary there at the end with the nine thing.
My feelings exactly.

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

This is all well and good, but we all know that Jim is more likely to drop his obnoxious Jimquisition persona than for idiot fanboys to finally grasp that reviews are not a duty to the producer- but a set of numbers based on one person's opinion. This overinflated nonsense of all tens all the time will probably not go away for awhile.

Please prove me wrong...
Please.

 

[Yopaz]

Yeah I agree completely. I've seen people complain about games getting 8 too much lately. Then there's those who complain about too many tens. I hate them both equally...

 

[gigastar]

And there is the root cause of most Escapists being Escapists rather than being in the slew of other review sites.

While i forsee that not many people who are not part of the Escapist will see this video and of them even less will care about it, it raises some extremely good arguments.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Good points. And on the Uncharted front, allow me to mention once more the insanity of the G4 review by Adam Sessler. A 4/5 and the comment board went nuts.

 

[Link XL1]

ya no sorry, i watched the first episode and didnt like it. thought maybe i'd give jim another try, but NOPE i still cant watch this guy's videos. i just dont like him

 

[ph0b0s123]

I give that video 8 out of 10...

Seriously, though all review sites need to do a rating reset. With what would have been a 10 now being a 7 out of 10.

 

[Giest4life]

These have been exactly my feelings for sometime lately: 10/10 has become a meaningless milestone. Either we are living in the absolute golden age of gaming, where everything created is on par with the works of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, or that we've gone way too overboard with fanboyism and marked even the most average of games a 10/10 simply because it's a game we appreciate, of if we like the developer.

 

[Hatchet90]

Yeah, it's getting pretty sad. I saw someone complaining about Skyrim not getting higher than a 9 on Gamespot. They said that Gamespot received more "compensation" from Dark Souls and thus a higher score (9.5). WTF?!

Good points. And on the Uncharted front, allow me to mention once more the insanity of the G4 review by Adam Sessler. A 4/5 and the comment board went nuts.

Here's his response to the comments, if you haven't already watched it.

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/55954/sesslers-soapbox-i-hate-numbers/

 

[PeePantz]

Who fucking cares? Seriously, this has gotten ridiculous. Between the bitching about scores and those bitching at those who score *****, video game score reviews get entirely too much attention and press. People like Jim Sterling make it a big deal, causing developers and publishers to actually notice such things.

 

[RootBrewski]

Thank God for Jim doing this episode, it's something that really needs to be addressed more often, Adam Sessler is the only other person I can recall commenting on this in recent memory.

It reminds me of when I was on the bus the other day and I heard a group of high school students going on for about 20 minutes (I got off the bus at that point) on the "low score" that Uncharted 3 got and all I could think was if they cared as much about their grades as they did the reviews, and not just them but all students, we could easily solve this health care professional shortage here in Canada.

 

[Deminobody]

Ties in nicely with: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3607-Metacritic-Isnt-the-Problem

OT: It all goes back to fans who need some sort of "objective" proof that a game they love is indeed a masterpiece. The problem is when fans forget that numbers =/= objective data. Subjective reviews will always lead to subjective scores.

 

[soul23]

yea i agree when i see a 7/10 or 8/10 score i think that's a great score maybe i'll try that game. a 10 means perfect, and i get that a game might seem perfect to someone.but still perfection is something humans have been striving for for generations. and suddenly reviewers are popping out 10's like rabbits.

 

[Voltano]

Normally I think of review numbers as a summary of that reviewer's thoughts on the game. I prefer to read these reviews as a different perspective on the game from my own so I could form my own opinion on the game. MovieBob may say Zelda or Mario great games, Or Yahtzee may enjoy the platforming fluidity of a "Prince of Persia" game on the previous consoles--but I just have my own tastes in genres and hardly care for platformer or action/adventure games.

But...Damn...This kind of behavior comes up when a person's opinion on your "perfect" game is not the same as your own? How dare they give it below 10 when in your mind its a 10? I wonder if this is connected to that "Anonymous Fuckwad Theory" Penny Arcade hypothesized. >.>

Good episode, Jim.

 

[Giest4life]

And there is the root cause of most Escapists being Escapists rather than being in the slew of other review sites.

While i forsee that not many people not part of the Escapist wont see this video and of them even less will care about it, it raises some extremely good arguments.

Not only don't the Escapist hand out 5 stars cheaply, they also have a very reasonable and clear definition of what their scores actually mean.

Five stars. This is as good as gaming currently gets, the crème de la crème. This doesn't imply perfection, merely that the experience you'll have will be exceptionally enjoyable.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Good stuff, Jim. I never understood why some people can't wrap their heads around the notion that someone's opinion may be different from theirs, but we need to shut those assholes up.

 

[Avatar Roku]

As with all things, ther is a trope for that [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EightPointEight].

Good episode, Jim.

 

[stormshot]

you could always solve the problem by giving games deserving of an 8 a 10 out of 12 and I know that is 0.8333

 

[Bluecho]

This is why, as a critic of comic books and manga, I refuse to assign a numbered score. Besides it being unnecessary and prone to undermining a complex opinion, scores can so easily become inflated beyond normal proportions. After all, scores are merely an arbitrary metric for quantifying an opinion a critic has for a particular work. Arbirary and subjective.

There's a critic out there by the name Angry Joe (at Blistered Thumbs, check him out) whose scoring system actually makes 5 out of ten an average game. And that was such a breath of fresh air. It means there can be greater stratas of good, and a Perfect 10/10 (something I don't think he's given yet) is a pretty big deal.

Critics that use scores, you need to put your foot down and start being more critical. And stop handing out 10s like they're coupons for an extra burger with an order of fries and a drink at Whataburger. Tens mean that the game is perfect, and goes well beyond the call of duty when it comes to being a fun, engaging, and enriching experience. If you're going to use a score, make sure it matters.