GameSpot Strikes again! Gives Pokemon White version 2 a disappointing score~ So bad it would make Pachter sick to his stomach.

[Chandler]

Torillian said:

ECM said:

Torillian said:
the idea that you can't have fun with a game below 7 is a large part of why there is score inflation that people often blame the journalists for. 6.5 means decent, and a decent video game is still pretty fun.

Scores are arbitrary and meaningless. There is no standard across which all games are judged by fixed criteria--this isn't figure skating or gymanstics-- and thus score inflation is every bit as arbitrary and meaningless. (After all, a 9 to IGN may not fit the same, theoretical, criteria as a 9 from GS.)

Now, that said, if the gaming media has constructed a world where a 6.5 to 99% of the readership is mediocre (it is, and GS is part of that problem) then they need to assign their arbitrary scores with this in mind instead of using it as a way to drum up traffic.

(Personally, I prefer no scores at all since they are almost always 100% arbitrary and rarely even adhere to the stated standard of the particular outlet doing the rating, nor are they even consistent across the *same critics* milieu...granted, this wouldn't be solved by nixing scores since, if nothing else, game critics are mercurial, fickle, and eager to please the right audience, whether it's their boss or a slice of their readership, but it would at least *force* people to focus on what the critic is saying rather than some meangless letter or number.)

(And I speak from personal experience on all of the above, having been the EIC of a game mag/website (yes, print) in the late 90s/early 00s.)

You can't blame the gaming mdedia for constructing a world where 6.5 is mediocre and then force them to stay within it.  If the media wants to change how the readership views the scores then they have to go against the preconceived norms.  If it's in the media's power to set that expectation in the first place then it's also in their power to go against it and reverse it over time.  Any review that reads like a decent game and gets a 6ish score is only helping the matter.  

Personally I like giving a game a score at the end of a writeup, so I'd prefer it to no scores.  

 

The problem is, they only leave the norm for the occasional Nintendo title. I will take this statement back after they scored Black Ops 2, Assassins Creed 3 or Halo 4 appropriatly, but I have a feeling I won't have to. And I don't mean that they have to score those game in the 6-7 range, but if they go 9 to 10 range they are clearly back on track for normal scoring. Using different scales for different companies is just the very definition of bias.

 

Edit: Kotaku scored Pokemon B2/W2 a YES and thats good enough for me personally. I am not into Pokemon myself but I got Pokemon white for my brothers birthday and he already dumped over 100 hours into it in 2 weeks and now my cousin is getting a 3DS XL for his birthday with black 2, so the oppinion of Gamespot doesn't change whats happening in the real world anyway. Might as well generate some traffic.