Jimquisition: Review Scores Are Not Evil

Frozengale

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Review scores in and of themselves are not bad. They are actually really great. They give you a quick glimpse of whether a game is good or not as viewed by a certain person or site. I like the */5 scores that the Escapist gives their games but sometimes I already know a lot about a game, I've been following it for months, so all I really need to know is whether it was good as everyone thought it was going to be. If I see it gets a really bad score then I'll usually look deeper into it and find out why and see if the problems listed would hinder my experience to the point that I wouldn't want it.

The real problem with review scores is how much emphasis is put into them. People will point to a game and tell you how bad it is with no other explanation then, "It got low scores." Companies focus on trying to get a high Metacritic score and will make stupid decisions because of this. People will Review Bomb a product because of some perceived slight. And quite possibly people will give something a good score just because they are paid to. Scores become this ominous thing that holds such a tight grip over the video game industry, and so many call for its destruction.

In reality the thing that NEEDS to happen is we need to change how we score games. There are many places experimenting with this in various ways. You can separate the game into categories such as Gameplay, Aesthetics, etc. and give separate scores for each of those. You can change the criteria on how a game is judged. You can give pass/fail grades to the games. There are a myriad of different techniques being tried, and I hope we find one that works the best, simply because the "Overall" grade that we tend to give games now a days doesn't really do them justice. But then again that's why you should read the review as well.
 

empirialtank

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personally i always liked X-play's old standards.

5/5 exceptional, everyone should play this game.

4/5 good, worth your money

3/5 average, worth renting, or buying if your a fan of games like this

2/5 bad, if you spent more then ten bucks on this, you were ripped off.

1/5 horrible, don't touch this sh*t with a twelve foot pole being held by someone else.

its nice, simple and keeps people from getting upset over that 8/10 crap.
 

Jimothy Sterling

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xPixelatedx said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
take their ball and go home as Konami did
...Wait, maybe I am out-of-the-loop here, but were you blacklisted by Konami because you said something mean about their game(s)!? Because if that's true I am going to be a little shocked and disappointed with them.
Yes, they got upset with me because of my Konami Jimquisition video, as well as some negative reviews. I am now less than dirt in their Eastern office.
 

Trokil

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Yeah, numbers totally work.

The 5 out 10 = bad, 7 out of 10 average and 10 out 10 good game "and the publisher also made a lot of advertisement on our site" system is flawless. The last spunkgargleweewee incarnation CoD Black Ops showed that.

Review scores are a stupid idea, because corporate chimpanzees now use the for team reviewing and bonuses. EA does it for example. So all hail to metacritic. Of course now everybody wants good review scores, so publishers and developers do everything for a good review and the system is getting more and more corrupt. Because videogames are serious business.

And because most game reviewers are not earning as much as the TV or movie critic, bribes have a bigger impact. Of course there is no money getting paid, just add space, early access or free trips to game presentations.

Jeff Gerstmann once gave a bad score to a game, gamespot and Eidos already had made a deal about and we all know what happened. Review scores made the system corrupt and that's why most people in the business want to keep them. Because as long as the do, publishers and developers will do everything to make reviewers feel like a very special snowflake and will pay good money to their employer. So review scores will ensure that the spice is flowing.

And the spice must flow.
 

Kapol

Watch the spinning tails...
May 2, 2010
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Wait, Jim takes our advice on fashion tips? Then I say he should do an episode nude! Muhaha! My evil plan is coming together! Now I just need to get the duck and a ray-gun.

Anyways, back to more serious business. I actually really like review scores. Why? Because they normally are a general indication if a game is really good or not. I'll normally look at the review of a game and read through it if it's something I'm already considering picking it up. But if it's something I don't care much about, I normally glance at the summary, the score, and move on. But if it's almost universally praised as a good game I might decide to check more into it. This has happened with quite a few games in the past and it's almost never lead to disappointment. Now, I might be missing out on a lot of games I might have liked because I didn't read the full review. But given my current financial situation (Read: Because I'm too piss-poor to be able to afford many games) I have to be more selective on what I pick up.
 

Lvl 64 Klutz

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Apr 8, 2008
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mjc0961 said:
Lvl 64 Klutz said:
It depends on how you look at the 10 point grading scale. If you look at it like an academic grade, then 7/10 *should* be the average/mediocre game. That's how most reviewers see it, even. Just look here on the Escapist where 2 and a half stars is usually accompanied by a "don't bother" recommendation and anything below that is pretty much considered garbage.
Which is wrong, because if 7/10 is the average/mediocre game, then you have only 3 higher numbers to give a game a better score and 6 smaller numbers to give the game a worse score. This "7/10 means mediocre" nonsense is why people cry foul at 8/10's. 8/10 does not mean slightly better than mediocre, it means very good or great. 5/10 is mediocre, not 7/10.

Perhaps I shouldn't have included the term mediocre, because you're absolutely right. Halfway between unplayable and perfect would be mediocre. But if we're looking at what should be considered "average" both mathematically and a standard of quality, then our medium should be aiming higher than halfway between unplayable and perfect.

That was the point I was trying to make. A game with 6/10 shouldn't be considered better than average. It should be a game that has it's fun moments, but definitely has room for improvement.
 

thesilentman

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Jun 14, 2012
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DVS BSTrD said:
I don't care about scores, I care about the reasons behind them.
And that's the /thread for me.

If people are that gullible to be misled by scores about games that they haven't played, well, I can't help anyone. There's a reason that I don't trust scores anymore. Hint-it's not the inflated average.
 

Bocaj2000

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My compromise has always been to use X/5 instead of X/10 or X/100. When it's X/5 it's easier to interpret 3/5 as average than 5/10 or 50/100. It makes the review feel more like a suggestion than a grade on a test.
 

Magmarock

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I personally dislike review scores because I think they devalue the review its;ef; and let us not forget that Geff who worked at Gamespot who was fired for giving Kane and Lynch a low score.
 

TrevHead

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I agree review scores aren't bad in itself it's just that ppl put way too much importance in them. (metacritic, the industry, gamer)

Imo review scores are a symptom of a consumer market, where there are so many games all fighting for our money that most gamers put every little effort into choosing what games they buy and play. I a perfect world ppl would do their homework into discovering new games. Instead most ppl don't bother, they'll just play sequels and the same genres over and over. Where only the most hyped games are successful only ppl repeatedly tell them it's a good game, same goes for games like FTL ppl are interested due to the buzz surrounding it. (even if it's a good game) Thats most gamers who read reviews already plan on buying the game anyway.

This is why games that are clones or have gimmicky game mechanics sell best because that's what ppl understand, while so many good and unique games that might be critically acclaimed like Vanquish, Okami, Beyond Good and Evil Skull Girls and Akia Katana go under the radar and bomb at the retail counter. Then years later ppl are falling over themselves to sing it's praises and demand sequels even though 99% of them either ignored it of slagged it off when it first went on sale.
 

Flunk

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I didn't realize that this was an actual problem. I guess there are whiney idiots protesting everything these days.
 

Tamrin

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Jimothy Sterling said:
xPixelatedx said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
take their ball and go home as Konami did
...Wait, maybe I am out-of-the-loop here, but were you blacklisted by Konami because you said something mean about their game(s)!? Because if that's true I am going to be a little shocked and disappointed with them.
Yes, they got upset with me because of my Konami Jimquisition video, as well as some negative reviews. I am now less than dirt in their Eastern office.
I remember watching the news once and the interviewer asked the person, "How does it feel to be rich" to which the person replied, "It feels great". It was bullshit because of how that person got to be soo rich. He ran a Ponzi scheme. But of course the journalist never would have gotten that interview in the first place had the guy thought he was going to get negative PR from the experience and had that interview turned serious the guy would have just walked out.

Journalists have the responsibility of calling saints, saints and assholes, assholes. Journalists are not supposed to be used as PR tools. Journalists are not pals of companies or certain individuals. If you call out Konami for doing what Konami does and they choose to back that up and, as you put it, take their ball and go home then they only have themselves to blame when people get upset at them.

We don't, or shouldn't, want Konami, EA, and others to fail, but when they do fail and fail hard it's because we wanted them to succeed that makes us upset and so vocal. It is in the best interest for all when they do good. If they treat you less than dirt because you did your job AND theirs then the problem isn't you. The defiance in not realizing that they are the root of their own problems is like Konami shit the bed and when people found out they just put on a diaper then acted to treat others with contempt out of embarrassment. That diaper is not a solution to the root problem that they are still shitting themselves.

At the end of it all they just create this cycle of shit and disdain followed by more shit and disdain and that is truely sad.
 

Xanadu84

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Another said:
I don't mind review scores, if it's a true scale score system.

In a scale of 1-10, five is average. Not 7 or 8. 7's and 8's can still be really good. Iv'e enjoyed a fair few games that have received such.
I'm rather irritated with that point. 5 does not have to be average. 5 just happens to be the middle number. I don't know about how you get graded but for me, if I scored a 50 on a test, I'm not going to complain that I failed because 50 is, "Average". To say that a 7 or 8 is average is EXACTLY as arbitrary as saying that 5 is. No, 5 is not inherently average. What is average is dependent on the kind of scores most games get. If average games get 7.5, then 7.5 IS average. Like...you know...by math.

All you have to do is think of review scores like letter grades, and everything makes sense. Whining over AAA games are just like the class genius who is obsessive about not losing a single point. To not accept review scores as following a trend like this is just pointless stubbornness that the rest of the world doesn't want to conform to your unit of measurement. You might as well tell someone that they are stupid because that road trip was NOT 15 Kilometers, it was 9.3 miles damnit, and your dumb for saying otherwise! If you must insist on 5 being average, just do the conversion in your head.
 

Andy of Comix Inc

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Scores are fine. I like scores. Even on the sites where 7/10 is "average," if its kept specific to the site its on then I don't really mind at all. I love Destructoid's scores that are very clearly marked and have purpose, I love Giant Bomb's scores which have one star through five star mean a very specific thing. Scores are great.

Metacritic, on the other hand...

Honestly. I'd be fine with review scores that don't align with each other (5/10 on Destructoid isn't 5/10 on IGN) if Metacritic weren't so incessantly popular. If Metacritic didn't weigh certain outlets more heavily than others based on ad revenue. If Metacritic wasn't the biggest point of call that publishers use to gauge critical opinion, to the point where jobs are on the line due to Metacritic scores. If Metacritic didn't convert - or in some cases, outright guess! - what the scores are out of a percentage. Giant Bomb themselves have said, hey, our five star rating doesn't convert to a out of ten score, and an out of ten score doesn't convert to a percentage! Since they only give whole stars. So when Metacritic says "Giant Bomb gave this game 80%!!" that's disingenuous. And then you get, say, Fallout: New Vegas, where the devs lost their bonuses because it rated below... what, 85? It's bullshit.

So scores are good. Compiling all those separate systems that every website uses almost on a writer-by-writer basis, and attempting to compile them and aggregate them, and then weighing the importance of jobs and bonuses and contracts on top of it? That's bullshit. If ever an argument for abolishing scores was strong, it would be that it would also mean the death of Metacritic. And that would be a victory.

Xanadu84 said:
I'm rather irritated with that point. 5 does not have to be average. 5 just happens to be the middle number. I don't know about how you get graded but for me, if I scored a 50 on a test, I'm not going to complain that I failed because 50 is, "Average".
I believe he's referring to 5/10 meaning "of average quality." Not the maths of it. On an opinion scale of 1 to 10, 5 should be the middle opinion, and if you weigh 1 as "worst ever" and 10 as "perfect," then 5 comes out as "average." Of course once you apply maths to the score system then things start to get a bit skew-whiff, but I think most people accept that the qualities associated with number scores - especially stars - are permanent, not dependent on a bell curve or what have you.
 

Colt47

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The problem people typically have with game scores have nothing to do with game scores. The issue is that people seem to look at the game score like it is some kind of enjoyment meter, where the closer to the high end it is the more the person is going to enjoy it. This really isn't the case, as there are interesting games that score only a 7/10 just as there are cookie cutter games that get a 8/10 to 10/10. One has to account for their own personal tastes.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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Jimmy my boy, I dare say you were looking at that glove like you've got a hot date tonight...by yourself. :3