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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Scores used in reviews

I'm pretty sure this topic has been discussed a lot before, probably even on this forum. Personally, I never engage in online gaming discussions, so please enlighten me on the subject:

Why are gamers so obsessed with having their games reviewed in a scale of 1-100, when it's okay to have music and movies reviewed in a 1-5 scale system? Everybody knows that the percentage system used for video games is complete crap and doesn't make any sense. Everything with a score below 75 is considered not worth buying, and everything below 65 or so is considered terrible.

Games rarely get metascores below 60. Out of the 254 games released within the last 6 months 37 got a metascore below 60, and all the rest between 60 and 95 (source: GameRankings). So, in essence the games are reviewed in a scale of 60 - 100.

The intention of a review is to give the reader a subjective impression of the quality of the product. Should you spend your money on it or not? If you have to attatch a number to the review it should be either 1-5 or 1-10 (whole digits). The percentage system  makes room for meaningless discussions like "game x is better than game y because game x got 91% and game y got 90%. 1 percent = nothing, no quality difference.

In the first case it would be 1 (terrible), 2 (bad), 3 (average/good), 4 (very good) and 5 (excellent). In the second case it should be terrible (1), very bad (2), bad (3-4), average (5), good (6-7), very good (8), excellent (9) and perfect (10). I know Edge magazine is using the second system, and most gamers simply don't understand that their scores arent on a scale of 60-100. And giving a "good" game a 6 is very strange to someone who is used to see "good" games reviewed to scores between 75 and 85 percent.

 

These are my opinions. Please discuss. :)



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this has been discussed so many times its not even funny, buuuut,

yea youre right that games are judged on a heavily skewed scale but thats because gamers and gaming media have allowed it. ive heard a lot of people saying that games below a 5 or so have glitches or are unplayable, which is ridiculous because it skews the scale. deep down, i believe that reviews should be done away with and people should just stop reading them completely, thus eliminating the power of their scores, buut, if this cannot be done than the scale should be changed so 1-3 scores are given to games with glitches or unplayable sections and anything 4 or higher is technically a complete game, and should be rated thusly, this would put lots of averge games in the 6 range, and the rest would fall in to place.



Everyday I'm hustlin'.

 

Wii and DS owner.

I only use reviews these days to know information about a game, not for the score or to decide what game I will buy. After all, I recently got the"amazing" Twiligh Princess, which I found dissaponting, and though the were lower-rated games that were much better.



Above: still the best game of the year.

why have a review score in the first place, there is no need unless you cant read or you need a quick by the numbers reason to buy this game.

I read the review to make sure its a game i want by simply disregarding the score and the opinions and move onto what the game is about and what are its flaws and highlights and match it to what i like and if it ticks my boxes i buy. I do not buy a game if it got a score of 8 or anything like that.

Tho i do tend to read reviews i wouldn't if it got a terrible score.



Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong

After buying a few highly rated games that i have found average or disappointing i have decided to wait a few weeks till i buy a game. If you wait you can get them cheaper and know which reviews hold up.
I have found that hype soon dissipates after the game comes out if its not good and the urgency to get it when it comes out first goes away too.
For example - when LA Noire came out i heard nothing but good things about it. Lately i have heard that the game can be monotonous, predictable and hasn't got the best control so i have lost some interest in it (correct me if i'm wrong!).



This is not an exit.

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idk i like the system.



I find the best solution is to discount review scores and focus entirely on the review text itself. That still doesn't prevent me getting annoying when others use reviews to 'prove' that 'x game is better than y game'.




its not easy to give games lower than a 60 because they are games. How can even call most games bad? The fact of the matter is (imo), that most games are good and alot of games are amazing. If anything scores below 60, then only buy if you are a fan. What you say is true, but is it really a bad thing? I don't think so. Video games are just different then movies.



oh and i didnt even get on EDGE. ok. I understand that EDGE truly likes to rate on a 1-10 system. However, games can only truly be rated by comparison. A game is only good, if it is better than the rest. EDGE tho, does not compare games AT ALL. They gives games that are great a score of 6, ok fine. But then when you look at other games with a 6, you see that its not even worth bothering. Example, ffXIII and WKC. Both got a 5 i believe. Now, i could care less what those two games get. But there is no way in hell that they are both equal in score. If i play WKC, and hate it, should i get FFXIII? The answer is no, according to EDGE. And thats just stupid.



My problem with the current system is that reviewing games isn't an exact science - how do you tell a difference of just one point? And more importantly, why should it matter? Having such a large scale implies that the score represent a very large portion of the review itself because it's so precise. Do we even need to know more than that a game a great (5) instead of slightly greater than some other game (92 vs. 90)? In the end, you'll still have to read the review to get a better idea about the game (and this is no reason to completely ignore the score).