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Shaunodon on 08 December 2020
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Ka-pi96 said:
Shaunodon said:

Because the more sources that can reliably judge the quality of a game, and the more you have reaching a similar outcome, the more you should be able to trust that you're getting an accurate assessment.

It's not about everyone 'copying' eachother. That would be counter-productive. Obviously every reviewer should be independant. But if they're all doing their job correctly to judge the objective quality of a title, then they should all be delivering scores and points within a certain value to be accurate. Or are we going to have the argument now that 'objective quality isn't a thing'?

When 38 reviewers give it at least 90+, five more give it 80-85, and one gives it 78.. then those scores of 60 and 70 are big outliers. At least with the grading system Metacritic is judged by.

Saying 'they use their own grading system' only makes the matter worse. If you're gonna judge games by your own standard rather than the one that's universally recognised on the aggregate site, then you're only further muddying the data. You're not helping the average consumer.

Except if you specifically exclude sources that are different then you're actually reducing the accuracy.

Objective quality ISN'T a thing. On a technical level it is, in regards to frame rates and the like. Those are objective facts. They just are what they are, regardless of whether people "agree" or not. Whether a game is fun, enjoyable, has a good story, has interesting characters, looks good etc. are all subjective. If they weren't subjective then you wouldn't even need reviewers any more since you could just use a computer programme to determine the sole objective "quality" of a game. But they are subjective, there isn't one factual objective answer, there are countless subjective opinions.

You're also wrong about reviewers that use their own grading system affecting the data. That would be true if they only reviewed a tiny number of games. If they actually review a fair few games (which Gamespot certainly do) then the way they do their scores is widespread enough to be fair. All of those games are affected (positively or negatively) in the same way.

A computer system can't judge the human elements of entertainment or art, which is why we're meant to have reviewers with the necessary education, experience and wisdom to judge them to a certain degree.

But if everything is subjective, we may as well just grab 100 random gamers off the street and pay them to review every game. If there's no objective way to define the quality of a title, what's the point of even having 'professional reviewers'?

By your logic, nothing a majority of reviewers say will be helpful anyway. Makes me wonder why someone with that mindset would even look at aggregate scores or come to these threads. Why not just find one who directly shares your mindset and only listen to them.