On a ten point review scale, what number should represent an average game?

[Shiken]

RolStoppable said:

Shiken said:

Average should be a 7, meaning it is a good game but nothing spectacularly impressive about it. No one should be turned away by this score.

6 should be below average. It is playable, and even fun. Worth the money for those into the style, but below the normal standard of quality.

5 means it is functional, and there is nothing left to see here.

anything below a 5 is broken, and the numbers 1-4 signify just how broken it is.

Now an 8 is above average. These games are what many people should start to consider as heavy hitters.

A nine is a must own game. These games can have their flaws, but they are considered to be overshadowed by several pros that make it a game that should not be skipped.

A 10 is near perfect in the eyes of the reviewer. Nothing is perfect, but this comes damn close.

Unfortunetly this is not how a lot of gamers see these scores. A 7 is considered bad and depending on the IP, an 8 can be seen as a let down. I have seen people skip games because they only got an 8.

At this point I believe the numbered scale is flawed. Read the review and read the list of pros and cons at the bottom. Too many people have different ideas of what each number means for it to work on an effective numbered scale.

The reason why a lot of gamers consider 7 a bad score is that they've played games that were rated as such and said games were bad. The error here isn't on gamers, but rather the reviewers with their inflation of scores.

There are significant flaws in the review process of both retail and digital-only games. Retail games that tick certain boxes like production values have a base value of about 7/10 assigned to them, so even if they suck, they can't really get a bad score. Indie games are commonly overrated as well, probably because reviewers draw comparisons to 7/10 AAA games and conclude that they enjoyed the indie game more. Thus the score inflation of AAA games carries over to indie games. The conclusion that the indie game is better may be correct, but the scores are out of line because of a fundamental error in the review process.

Very true.  There was a time when almost every game got an 8 or a 9, and anything lower was pretty bad.  Some reviewer might try to go against that trend now, but because many of the bigger review site will still rate AAA games on somewhat of a curve, it is hard to tell who is being honest.

 

So while I believe gamers have had their perspectives mislead at times, it is deffinetly the reviewers from (I wanna say mid PS360 days?) that started the trend.  I understand why some people think the way that they do.

 

But again, this just further enforces the fact that the numbered review system has become so flawed in general that it should just be done away with all together.