Review Inflation

[TWRoO]

r505Matt said:

Onyxmeth said:

TWRoO said:
I was diheartened when the community here chose the 100 point scale for this website's reviews.... although the poll did I think have 2 different ones that are essentially the same scoring system (0.0, 0.1, 0.3 through to 9.9, 10.0.... and out of 100 are the same thing)

Out of 5 or less if a score is somehow vitally needed.

I like this method also, and only in single digit increments.

5=Amazing
4=Great
3=Good/Average
2=Bad
1=Unplayable

This allows the reviewer to express themselves through the written portion of the review and not use the numbering as a crutch, at least it should help in theory. This way also, 5 doesn't have to mean perfect. It just describes the cream of the crop, or upper echelon of games.

A clear cut 1-5 rating is both good and bad. The good, it's clear cut, so it's a very stable way to review something. You can also have as much range as you want (3.45 if you really need it) so thats not an issue either.

The bad thing though, is that if you actually use only signel digits, well, that's kind of silly. To have only 5 degrees is VERY limiting. If you made a list of 20 games you considered as 5s, I'd bet that you would be able to pick out games in that list that are better/worse than others within that list. So they aren't all the SAME 5, they're all different 5s, which makes it VERY hard to trust that sort of system.

The bigger issue though is that it's TOO concrete. Reviewing is all relative, and that should be reflected in the system as well. To say the quality of average games today is the same as the quality of average games 15 years ago is silly. That's why reviews are raising up, since we all remember those games (those of us that aren't new to gaming, or incredibly young), and that influences reviews mildly enough to need the wiggle room that a non-concrete system gives.

 

The whole point was to cut down on the range... we are not talking about whether the highest mark is 5, 10 or 100 here as it makes no difference if there are the same number of tiers. scoring out of 100% is exactly the same as scoring out of 10 to the nearest 1.d.p.

That's the point.... making it more limited is a good thing. reviews are an opinion, there is no accuracy in an opinion so there is no need for accuracy in a score. My opinion says Mario Kart Wii should be rated above Super Mario Galaxy, but so what, they are both (to me) 5* games, so lets just leave it at that so that there are fewer arguments about which games scored what.

Quality of how well a game is made is nothing to do with how good the game is... All the money and time in the world can be put into a game and it still may not be enjoyable. Review scores shouldn't need wiggle room.