JWeinCom said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Happy to hear your thoughts!
I will say that a lot of outlets start at 5 and go to 10, meaning a 7.5 is considered average. We feel strongly that the full scale should be used. A 5/10 for us isn't the bottom of the barrel; it's a mediocre game with an equal number of positives and negatives.
This isn't about steering writers toward an artificially low score; it's about exploring the full 10-point range and providing a more nuanced analysis for our readers.
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I would have three objections to that.
First of all, readers are generally not going to view your scores in isolation. If the average score of a game is an 8 and VGChartz scored it a 7, then the readers impression will be that you liked it considerably less than the other outlets. As a mod, I've obviously seen situations where people get very upset when anticipated games, TLOU2 and Xenoblade Chronicles HD for instance, are upset with scores around a 7. You could fairly say that they're interpreting what that means incorrectly, but the end result is that the reviewer's intent and the reader's impression are not matching up. So, you can address that issue by either making sure every reader is educated to your particular scale, or by changing the scale to match reader expectations. I don't think the former option is practical, leaving the latter.
Moreover, I'd say that the whole scale doesn't have to be used. If the scale is relative, then that makes sense. If the scale is meant to be objective, then that doesn't necessarily make sense.
What I mean is, that if a scale is meant to measure "goodness", and all games are pretty good, then I think it's fine for the average score to be a 7. Also, the system is going to naturally filter out bad games. Games are apparently selected either because people are interested in them and buy them, or because reviewers send codes. If reviewers are voluntarily spending their time and money on a game, then most likely, it's because they have pre-release information that makes them believe the game will be good. And, if reviewers send a copy of their own initiative, it's probably because they believe the game is good and will receive a positive review. Of course, this isn't always the case. Devs may be in denial, and first impressions can be wrong, but generally, games reviewed should be towards the higher end of the scale.
Most importantly though, I don't think the system is actually using the whole scale. Again, as a mod, I checked in on reviews because people can get a bit nasty when big games don't score what they think it should. In doing so, I noticed... a lot of games get a 7. I actually analyzed this about a month ago. Of the last 89 games reviewed (as of August) 39 of them scored a 7. That's nearly half of the games reviewed (43%) which is a pretty huge chunk.
The reason for this is that the review scale artificially curves the score to a seven. There are ten potential values that can be given to a game. Three of those values in the system (8,9,10) are reserved for GOTY candidates. Obviously, very few games should be getting these scores. On the flip side 1,2,3, and 4 are all devoted to bad games, with the bottom three being reserved for games that are "atrocious", "irredeemably bad", and "not even worthy of a bargain bin purchase". So, a full 70% of the scale is reserved for games that are either among the very best or among the very worst the industry has to offer. That really doesn't make sense to me.
I would say that a lot, even most, games that get reviewed are going to be good but not goty worthy. Again, this is because the games that are reviewed are reviewed because a writer presumably expected it to be good or a publisher wanted it to be reviewed (presumably because they thought it had a decent chance at a good score). The only possible score for good but not GOTY games is a 7. And as we see, that's the score that a large plurality of games wind up getting.
This is an issue of resolution. A scale should be the most detailed where it is needed most. The scale can differentiate between crap games really well. For instance, we can tell from the scale that "A Cat Girl Without Salad" was shitty, but Down To Hell was REALLY shitty. That differentiation probably doesn't matter to anyone who didn't develop one of those games. On the other hand, the scale offers no way to differentiate between DBZ Kakarot, Resident Evil 7, Xenoblade Chronicles HD, The Last of Us 2, Shenmue 3, and Shinsekei: Into the Depths. People may actually be choosing between those games and want to know which is better, and the scale offers no way to differentiate between them. (Yes I know there are words too, but let's not pretend people care about the words nearly as much as the number).
As a last note, from August to last December, 39% of games received a 7, 3% get a 9, 13% an 8, 19% a 6, 11% a 5, 4% a 4, and 1% a 2, and 0% score a 10, 3, or 1. So, the numbers aren't really all being used. And, five kind of is the bottom of the barrel, because only 5% of games scored below that.
So, yeah, that's why I think the system is flawed. And honestly it wouldn't be that tough to fix it. Changing the definition of 8 from "viable GOTY candidate" (btw there were last I checked 18 viable GOTY candidates including the Switch port of DMC3, Twin Breaker, a brick breaking game, and Clubhouse games) to "very good" would give a way to differentiate between good games and very good games, while also bringing the system more into line with reader expectations. Adding in half stars would also help. As a result there would be 4 potential values that a good game could receive, rather than just one. This also solves the problem of half the scale being useless (which it still is under the current system) by essentially doubling the top half of the scale, and essentially turning 5-10 into a ten point scale, which is how most sites do it.
I didn't mean this to be an off topic rant, but I like reviewing games and may be interested in doing so in the future. The problem is that out of all the games I've played this year pretty much all of them would be good games that weren't quite GOTY candidates, so I'd basically be handing out 7s to every game. And, I don't think that would be an effective way for me to actually convey my opinions of games to people, so I feel like this scale isn't really workable.
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