Why do most games never get below a 7? EDIT: And how to we fix it?

[Elamdri]

Much of the gaming press considers 7 to be average for some asinine reason. I assume that's why. Also I imagine on sites like IGN they won't get those phat advertisement dollars next time from a publisher if they bash one of their games to oblivion. Note trying to be a conspiracy theorist here, just saying.

Right, but the point I'm trying to make is that giving a game a six is mathematically NOT bashing a game. It's actually mathematically PRAISING a game.

Technically yes. Your saying its above average. The problem with that is, despite the game being above average, it is worse then most of its peers, so few people are going to be willing to spend $60 on it.

Not true. If a game is is a 6, then Mathematically it MUST be better than 60% of it's peers. Likewise, a 7 must be better than 70% of it's peers. You're still thinking with the idea that all games are going to be a 7 or higher. But if the system worked like it is supposed to, a 6 must be better than a majority of it's peers.

 

[Rayne870]

Much of the gaming press considers 7 to be average for some asinine reason. I assume that's why. Also I imagine on sites like IGN they won't get those phat advertisement dollars next time from a publisher if they bash one of their games to oblivion. Note trying to be a conspiracy theorist here, just saying.

Right, but the point I'm trying to make is that giving a game a six is mathematically NOT bashing a game. It's actually mathematically PRAISING a game.

Technically yes. Your saying its above average. The problem with that is, despite the game being above average, it is worse then most of its peers, so few people are going to be willing to spend $60 on it.

Not true. If a game is is a 6, then Mathematically it MUST be better than 60% of it's peers. Likewise, a 7 must be better than 70% of it's peers. You're still thinking with the idea that all games are going to be a 7 or higher. But if the system worked like it is supposed to, a 6 must be better than a majority of it's peers.

What kind of math is that?

 

[midget_roxx]

I'm sure there are a few reviews giving lower scores but you don't hear of them. Check out metacritic and look for the bad games.

As for all the game being rated high, that's because the mainstream reviewers get paid off by the game companies to give them good reviews

 

[DirgeNovak]

That's because when most gaming sites were created around 1995, games were mostly for kids. So these sites created a ratings system that's similar to schools. In school, a 6 is weak, but passable. A 7 is average (in the sense of meh), an 8 is good and 9-10 is outstanding. Anything below 6 fails. Changing that system now would be weird, and newer magazines don't challenge this "rule" even if most gamers would understand.

And besides, too many gamers are idiot fanboys. You have no idea how much hate mail and death threats Jeff Gertsmann received after giving Twilight Princess an 8.8/10.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Because reviewers get fired if they give less than a 7. Plain and simple.

 

[Fearzone]

This isn't a curve system. Gamers want to know from these scores if we are getting $50 or $60 worth of game if we buy it new, and for most games to be worth that, they should probably be scoring at least an 8, or if they made some forgivable blunders but are still fun, then a 7. One hopes all newly released games score in that range.

Scores of 1-6 can serve as a warning of just how poor value a game is. If, say, someone were a fan of a certain genre, but a newly release game is sub-standard, they might still get it if it is a 5 or a 6, but not if it scores a 2.

You may not like the current rating system, but it is functional.

Maybe the point of the OP is if there might be score inflation due to marketing pressures, but if so, that should be asked more directly.

 

[GuitarSlingingManiac]

Believe it or not most bad games don't make it past early development. A lot are scrapped or put in the closet for later refinement. Most developers won't risk their company reputation putting out something they aren't comfortable with and have confidence in. After games pass through that filter they end up going to reviews and such so usually games are at least average in quality.

As far as reviews go I would be happier if more reviewers broke up their score or had annotated scores such as Reviews on the Run. They rate from 1-10 but have a pros/cons list to go with it so you can get an idea of where the game really shines or what it is about.

I'm going to guess Mindjack wasn't one of these games.

 

[Rayne870]

I'm going to guess Mindjack wasn't one of these games.

Exactly!

 

[Verlander]

My theory? Old standards. I challenge anyone to give Goldeneye more than a 5/10 compared to MW2. Go on, I dare you. Sure, it may have been fun at the time, and God knows we keep it close to our hearts, but it wasn't amazing by todays standards.

Keep that in mind, and all modern releases are incredible. Which is why yahtzee and zp is so popular-people like shit to fail

 

[Verlander]

well i bring graphs!(no really graphs, but you know i wanted to use that frase)
http://i.imgur.com/OqSpE.jpg

I would argue those movie scores, but the premise is spot on

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

It's because most games that make it far enough to be sold to a customer are AT LEAST average

But we don't care about games that never made it out the developer's door. What we want to know is how a game is compared to other titles alongside it on the shelf. "Average" doesn't mean compared to all games including vaporware, it means all games that actually make it to shelves.

Personally, I favor a system that spaces scores out evenly over a 1-10 range, so every time you give a number score, you ask yourself, "Is this game in the best 10% of games we've reviewed over the last year?" "Or is it in the 80-90% percentile?" And so on.

So 10% of games get a 1, 10% get a 2, 10% get a 3.

Alternatively - I know there are a lot of UK Escapists - we could go by the UK uni grading method. So most games get a 2.1 or a 2.2, and ever so often a game gets a First i.e. sorting between the barely passable, the boringly competent, and the brilliant.

 

[Elamdri]

My theory? Old standards. I challenge anyone to give Goldeneye more than a 5/10 compared to MW2. Go on, I dare you. Sure, it may have been fun at the time, and God knows we keep it close to our hearts, but it wasn't amazing by todays standards.

Keep that in mind, and all modern releases are incredible. Which is why yahtzee and zp is so popular-people like shit to fail

That could easily be solved though by comparing games within a console cycle. Obviously, it's silly to compare Golden Eye and MW2, and you're stupid if you try. It's like Apples and Oranges.

But there is nothing wrong with Comparing MW2 and Medal of Honor.

 

[Naeo]

People compare the 1-10 scale with the F-A (0-100) scale of grades in the American school system. 10 (100) is perfect, as it should be. 9.5 (95) is awesome. 9 (90) is pretty good. 8 (80) is meh. 7 (70) is walking a fine line. 6 (60) is bad. Anything below that is not worth it.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

I still prefer the WiiViewer's rating system "Buy it, Rent it, Forget it" that way no pubs get their feelings hurt and you actually have to read a review rather than just say "That game got an 8.7, if it was a 9.0 I'd buy it but forget it now".

 

[AgentBJ09]

7 has become the new average precisely because so many games get such high scores. In a time when there's an 8-10 game every month, a score of 7 doesn't cut it any more.

I would disagree. I think this is a more likely explanation...

Remember, a 70 in public school grading systems is a D in high schools, and a C in colleges. That is Below Average and Average, respectfully. Maybe this isn't fully true, but I believe the reason why so many people rate with a 7/10 being the average is because of this fact, not because of quantity of released products.

I believe that a 5/10, the Blistered Thumbs method of rating things, should be the average on a gaming rating scale.

 

[Elamdri]

I think they take it from the grading scale where 70 = C = average. And just like most parents gamers want their games to get As or Bs because Cs aren't good enough for them. Any game that's 5 or below would simple be unplayable/failing.

What kind of parents do you have? I was always told that a C was a pass.

I got grounded for C's...

 

[Bags159]

Well most games aren't completely terrible.

As much as I dislike Call of Duty and Halo, if they were the only shooters in existence I'd play them.

My theory? Old standards. I challenge anyone to give Goldeneye more than a 5/10 compared to MW2. Go on, I dare you. Sure, it may have been fun at the time, and God knows we keep it close to our hearts, but it wasn't amazing by todays standards.

Well considering MW is mediocre junk... I don't think that'd be terribly difficult.

 

[Savagezion]

Games come out all the time that get piss poor scores. 3s, 5s, 6s. But you don't know about them because they are crap games. G.I.Joe Rise of Cobra. Type that into metacritic. There are plenty more where that game came from. You know what made that game "unplayable"? Bad camera controls. If they fixed that "downright unplayable" feature it would add up to just a random shitty game.

Seriously, this isn't a problem. If all you pay attention to is the AAA titles, then "DUH", of course everything scores a 7. There are LOADS of games out there getting shit scores. Pick up any gaming magazine and you will find them. But if you are saying F:NV (I would give that a 7-7.5) or some other triple A title should be a 4 or something, then I think personal bias is probably coming in. It would be like me reviewing a FIFA game. I don't even like soccer so I would give it a 2-4 while a soccer fan might give it a 10. I don't care much for F:NV as a RPG fan but I certainly see it has appeal. (If it wasn't pickled with bugs, I would take it up to an 8.5-9) But as far as my preference goes it would sit around a 5-6. You have to look outside of your preference and look at what the game was trying for and how well it achieved it. THIS is not broken in the current reviewing system IMHO.

 

[mornal]

The whole 1-10 grading system is a lost cause for the reasons already stated in the thread (we compare it to schools).

It'd be a lot easier if we just changed to the whole 1-5 stars are mentioned earlier, where a certain amount of stars means a certain thing. For example, 1 star means "Don't buy this game, it's genuinely horrible" and 5 stars means "This game is credit to industry".

The star system keeps people from easily associating the 1-10 (and by extension, A-F) scale with a game, and we don't have a scale with average in the 70th percentile.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

I guess I just don't really see how this is a problem if you already know about the skew. It reminds me of how people complain about grading systems where below a 70% is failing (which, as far as grading systems go, seems to be a pretty good system).

There's nothing intrinsic to a 1-10 scale that says the distribution should be even and there's definitely nothing about video games suggesting that their quality should be evenly distributed.

In fact, I think the current use of the scale tends to make a lot of sense. A truly, truly terrible game can be MILES away from even a mediocre game. The only difference is that we're just not used to even seeing truly terrible games anymore due to lack of press, bad reviews of such games that prevent people buying them, and the general rise in quality of AAA titles (say what you will about the quality, but recognise that there are very, very few E.T.s anymore). Since we only play relatively good games for the most part, a "bad" game from the relatively good camp often seems much worse than it would if we were to consider truly bad games. In that light, I think the scale fits pretty well.