I don't think it's healthy to take these ranking games to seriously...

I've read and understood every post :)

The reason i said every game is because that's what i mean.  I don't care how good a game is, 100% of people can't agree that a game is worth a 10/10 or 9/10 or whatever.

What you are talking about is selection bias.  Only people who are fans of a particular genre should review a game and people who aren't shouldn't spoil the fun for everyone else.  I mean that's a nice idea but what about people who don't know if they like the genre or what about games that straddle genres? What about games that appeal to a wide range or people, are they destined to get lower scores because not everyone who reviews the game is necessarily a fan of the genre? 

This is why reading a review should be more important than just the score.  If you were reviewing a FPS for me for example and you gave it a 7/10 but stated that you generally aren't a big FPS fan, it gives me a context in which to consider the review and then i can choose to look elsewhere for other opinions from people who are perhaps more likeminded.  GT have said they value innovation and some people have called bull or said innovation isn't important to them.  OK, if that is the way you think then don't consider their reviews. This is why i feel people lean on Metacritic and the like too much, finding someone who reviews games in a manner similar to your own way of thinking will serve you much better. 

If, however, you are taking an online poll or conducting some kind of meta review then ALL scores should be counted, regardless.  Why?  Because you are speaking to all potential consumers of the game, not just the fanboys that are going to buy the game regardless.  Our friendly neighbourhood Xbot wants to know from the point of other Xbots how good U2 really is, to know if it's worth buying a PS3.  He knows that all Sony fanboys/Sony sites are going to wax lyrical but they are looking at it from a different point of view than him.  In that context, one Xbot giving U2 an 8, might be enough to convince another that the game is in fact awesome.

In all this of course quality does have a major role but lets draw a comparison with music. Let's say i went to a Pavaroti concert (difficult i know under the circumstances)  I don't care how good a singer he is he's not getting a ten out of ten from me. Why, because i don't like his style of music, it's just not for me.  That doesn't stop me acknowledging the talent that he has (had) and of course that should have an influence on the score that i give his concert, let's say i give him a 7.  When, however, i write a review for the concert i would state that i am not and was never a fan and all of a sudden, that 7 score now looks pretty good.

What we are witnessing at the moment is analogous to me calling someone biased or an idiot for liking/not liking a certain band, music or movie.  Score inflation is rampant in the industry at the moment and regardless of the reason, complaints about a 9.3 are ridiculous.  Perhaps awarding a 9.8 to GTA in the first place was equally ridiculous but then fanboys were pretty happy at the time because it put GTA above Mario Galaxy.  Now that a platform exclusive is comparing unfavourably, it's become a problem again. Even if we propose that the GTA IV score was an error in the first place, should we now be bound by that and be forced to score any game that's better than it 9.9 or 10.  What happens for the games that come out later that are EVEN better?  Suddenly we have no ability to discriminate between the best games just because at one point people were giving out inflated scores, it has to stop somewhere or at the least we have to concede that the elusive 10/10 is a moving target and since the release of the aforementioned games, the goalpost has moved.

In the end I am strongly of the opinion that it's all motivated by fanboy ridiculousness and not offense at the integrity and consistency of the review process as some claim. People have to be allowed to have opinion in any forum where opinions are asked for.  We have the right to be smart enough to decide whether to value their opinion or not.

My longest post ever, to commemorate becoming a VGchartz Pro.

thats an opinion too.

Your post was pretty long, it's right above this one so i highlighted some of it only :)

Yup fanboys are awful!

What about when that opinion will be counted the same as a non-biased review? like in rating threads where all score are counted sadly.

I didn't really understand what all that other stuff has to do with the fact that some people are just biased, but you said it yourself that there are people who rate things lower than most others would. but what i don't agree with is that i should be happy people make biased opinions about stuff they don't like and just act like it's a good and deserving score :/

but i get what you're saying though, it's just that as you said, these reviews by those people should be looked at in a different way than you would look at a normal rating by a person who doesn't detest certain styles/genres/companies... etc. That's not what's happening though. they all get treated equally for some reason

btw: WOW @ that post, i almost gave up reading it half way through! (but i did read though, lol). but now i'm tired, feel like watching some TV...

Simply and briefly;) it's impossible to separate 'bias' from people who just don't like something as much, or like something more than you do.  Therefore to be fair we have to include all scores, but we need be smart enough to realise that a score and a review are not the same thing.

Thanks for reading my post, I almost gave up typing it.

hsrob you should try the book writing business lol.

Yeah, i think it's about 1/2 done with that one post alone :P

BS... why should anyone justify their score? I arrely if ever vote but when compared to other FPS franchises the Halo one is in the 6 region for me. Its not a bad score, its not a mediocre score ( that would be a 5 I guess) its a decent score. 8 is a great rating IMO, and any game that gets an 8 should be proud

So no, give games whatever scores you feel they deserve... if somebody gives U2 a 3, then good for him I dont care and neither should you

I get you, but I think most in that thread really just thought it deserved an 8. Only 1 or 2 people stood out as dud votes.

It's gonna happen, there are some people that come on this website soely to bash the opposition, they have no life whatsoever.

Seece, you're totally missing the point if you only are able to detect 'dud' votes.