Historically speaking, have you ever noticed that on some games, the reviewer consensus is much higher than the player consensus? And other times, the reviewer consensus is much lower than the player consensus. What do you think causes this?
They are a big deal because they are much further away from the average score then the 10s. If most people give the game a 7, but 10 people give it a 0 and 10 people give it a 10, then the 0s have a much bigger influence on the average then the 10s do.
In order for the 10s and 0s to have equal impact, the average score would have to be a 5. And because we interpret a 5 to mean awful, very few games get that.
No, I don't think that's the case. If a game is hitting around 5-6 because its less than average, and you have a bunch of fans throw in 10s and then you have people throwing in 0's... its almost the same. You also have to keep in mind for the sites that have stars, you can't actually give zero stars but you can give max stars.
Well note that I specifically said that a game getting a 5 was the only case when the scores would be balanced out. Very few games average 5 though, which is why on average the 0s will impact much more then the 10s. A 5 is generally viewed as an F.
Good point about the stars though. 2.5-3 stars is about average, so star systems will tend to be less effected by extreme scores.
I mean it's not that I don't share your concern. I just think that the people that rate games artificially high are of equal concern as the ones that rate them very low. For some reason fanbois tend to get a pass when haters don't, and really, we could do without either of them in the score board. While I rate games I like fairly high, I don't typically give them max points or stars or whatever and often point out negatives for even games I adore. And I think the average for games should be in the 5-6-7 range with the higher scores reserved for extraordinarily good or bad games.
The part about sharing my concern may be where you misinterpret what I say. I'm not expressing a concern or making any kind of judgement about people who rate high or low. I'm just saying that statistically the overall effect of the artificial scores is to lower the average user score. I agree with you that it would be better if the average score was a 5-6, but that is not currently the case.
I think most people tend to view games scores as simililar to academic grades, where anything less then a 65/100 is a F.
Well I originally said I didn't think the 1 star or bottom scores were such a big deal because there are inflated high scores that counter them. You then said it was a big deal which I took to mean you were making a judgment because you said it was a big deal. In any event, I made an assumption which appears to have been incorrect.
That last bit is certainly true which is unfortunate. I mean a "C" score to me for a game means its fine and some people will love it but maybe it's not so mainstream that gazillions will line up at midnight to get it.
Ah no I just meant that it was a big deal in the sense that it had the overall effect of lowering the average score. Kind of a big deal from a statistical perspective, but maybe not from a real world one!
For the last bit, that's also why scores can be really inconsistant. There is no one definition for what a particular score means, particularly among users. A score which means average to you might mean awful to someone else.
True on both account. I know metacritic tried to level things out a bit in comparing scores, but yeah we as gamers don't really have a way to have consistent meaning between the scores at this point, user scores or pros.
They're not a big deal. The problem isn't with the users, it's with reviewers. With the rare exception, an AAA game will get a review between 7-10. Always. The other numbers might as well not exist. For something like Fallout: NV, 7 is considered a failing score by Bethesda.
Users on the other hand actually will give out a 0 if the game is unplayably broken (like say Final Fantasy 14). The review sites won't. And honestly, that game doesn't deserve better then a 2.
hehe it might be worthwhile to go back and reread the discussion between me and Nesrie regarding what I meant by "a big deal".
Yeah I think we talked about this earlier maybe about how you read a review that pretty much says the game is a piece of garbage, the reviewer can't believed it was released it in this state and then give it something like a 7 which completely baffles me because, to me, 7 is an acceptable score.
I never have. I also can't, since our academic grades are G, VG and MVG and it's being changed in less then a year to have 13 steps.
I wonder if it was american reviewers who started that standard....and now I know it is because of their academic gradesystem....
95-100 A+
90-94 A
85-89 B+
80-84 B
75-79 C+
70-74 C
65-69 D+
60-64 D
55-59 E+
50-54 E
45-49 F+
40-44 F
Correct?
Myself I see it like this:
10 - A masterpiece that got everything right
9 - A truly great game with almost nothing to complain about.
Will edit tomorrow
Simple answer is because most commercial game's journalists aren't really gamers at all, they are , well journalists
I see a trend where even a poor shallow game will get a very high score as long as it's relatively bug free, polished and accessible. In fact I think to be a games reviewer these days, being a "n00b" is some sort of prerequisite.... and lets not get into the big publishers rumored payouts for a good score.
I very rarely find myself agreeing with any critics these days or there scores, except maybe Yahtzee, but he doesnt give scores and even he hates RTS/TBS and fighting (which is my favorite genre's). So I generally don't trust what he says either.
In the end try a demo or rent.
Too Human was a game that was slaughtered in the press, but me and my friends love it. It's not polished or user friendly, but man once you get a hold of the combat system it's a hell of a lot of fun.
Because the general panning I suspect we will never see the sequels and that makes me a sad panda.
As for scores I generally don't like them because people tend to just focus on that. No game is ever perfect so I don't think any are entitled to a 10.
Talking about reviews and perhaps how to manage it a bit better - try looking at www.Boardgamegeek.com that seems to manage things quite well, I wonder what a computer game version of that might look like.
I like that website, but it's a mess to wade through.