Who else doesn't give a hoot about VG Chartz game ratings?

[Reasonable]

naznatips said:
People, you have to understand the important part of the review, and the part I am very strict about when editing, is the content. I'm far more concerned about how completely the content reflects the game, its style, its positives, and its negatives than I am about how well the scores, which are always ballpark at best, reflect your opinions. Reviews are to be read.

You can't possibly create a review score that everyone agrees with because as has been pointed out, everyone will view each issue and each positive with different severity. Complaining about all scores not matching your opinion is like suggesting everyone in the world share it. What we can do is make our reviews detailed and complete and try to give you a great idea of what the game is about and what things in the game might be potential positives or negatives for you.

The score is a ballpark of the reviewer's opinion on quality, but the review content is a detailed article about the game. Try reading them sometime.

I totally agree, as I commented myself earlier, that's why I'm mystified at the scoring system as it is.  With that focus you'd be better with a single percentage score, an overall tilt, and dropping the three categories IMHO.

The second you have those scores you're inviting people to go okay 8 for that, 6 for that, 7 for that, job done.

Give a single score and push the focus to reading the review to find out why.

If you really want to buck the (IMHO terrible) modern trend to provide handy dandy digestible news then drop the score entirely.  Be different.  It's read the review, draw your conclusions and proceed.

I'd love to see reviews with the balls to drop scores and stick to words.

The other issue with scores is they are not always followed well enough by reviewers or the reader.  It's normally very easy on any site to find some reviews where the scores show a completely different understanding by an individual reviewer, throwing the whole system out of wack.

Trust me Naznatips, right now just having the Value section introduces a bias to your system, and its not going to go away.  So long as the current system sits there I'd be willing to guarantee you that you'll hear no end of complaing how game X managed a 7 for Value vs game Y which only got a 6, and how come game Z managed a 9?

Every review I've read has been well written (I haven't read them all) and the content has been good.  But the scores (which even your own comments BTW undermine) are the issue, and the mechanism behind them.

FYI I mean all this constructively.  I like the site which is why I post here and read forums here, etc.  And I think it makes sense for its direction to have reviews - but I don't think you have the right system just yet and I'd advise making changes early when its easy rather than later.