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Back in the old days of 8bit computing, I remember a few magazines used to explain their scoring system.
Most magazines reviewed a game out of ten. A score of five would be an average. The game is just ok. Not brilliant but not terrible either.
A great game would be an eight or nine. Very rarely would a game receive a ten as that indicates perfection.
In today's world, the way people talk, it feels like a game needs at least an 8 (or 80%) or it's not even worth touching.
Duke: Why the hell do you have to be so critical?
Jay: I'm a critic.
Duke: No, your job is to rate movies on a scale from good to excellent.
Jay: What if I don't like them?
Duke: That's what good is for.
It's similar with movies and TV. I think a lot of people see a 50% rottentomatoes or a 5.0/10 on IMDB and automatically assume it'll be unenjoyable, but that isn't always the case in reality.
I'm not a fan of RT because I find their critic score absolutely meaningless. IMDB is much better for me, I find the average people score rating usually matches my appreciation of a movie. I am trying hard to remember a single movie with a score of 5/10 that I enjoyed though.
Rt critic scores are, imo, one of the best rating scales. Think of it as a percentage chance a fairly average movie watcher is going to like this movie. It's not saying "this movie is 75% good". It's 3/4 reviewers felt it was worth watching, and does not comment on if they thought it was amazing or just okay. Marvel stuff tends to score high because mostly, despite not being some peak cinema, it provides an entertaining experience that earns a passing grade from most people. Movies that are more niche tend to get a lower score but that doesn't mean they're bad, just more niche.
I like this because it's easy to understand what it means with a little research. Most game scores don't do that and I find it annoying
IMDB is especially useless when it comes to comedies, they hardly ever reach a 7/10. Hot Shots - 6.7/10, Ghostbusters2 - 6.6/10, Naked Gun 33 1/3 - 6.5/10, Gremlins 2 - 6.4/10, there is a whole lot of amazing movies hidden in the 6-7/10 range.
Blazing saddles is a 7.7 but man that feels a bit too low even
Yeah, especially for the way Rotten scores are made. Some of the most divisive work is the most interesting.
I don't like the whole Rotten Tomatoes thing or judging a film by it's box office numbers. If it looks interesting, watch it yourself and make up your own mind. 😊
Broadly, I agree with what you're saying. Totally just devil's advocate-ing and speculating to provoke thought, so feel free to ignore. I wonder if the enormous number of games available plays into this. I can almost always dig around and find at least one 10/10 game from the last couple of years that I haven't played which is already on sale for cheap. Comparing that to a 7/10 game that just came out at full price... I'd almost certainly enjoy the 7/10 game, but I'd spend less money and likely have more fun with the 10/10. The newness factor may not be enough to bump the 7/10 game to the top of the queue.
With so many great games available an 8/10 might actually feel like a logical minimum for a lot of people, which may influence the scale that reviewers use. If people tend to ignore games with 7- scores and a reviewer feels that a game is good enough that it deserves attention, they may be tempted to bump it up to 8/10 just to get it on radars.
Meanwhile, back in the day there wasn't such a glut of games to choose from. And with better QoL standards, common UX principles, code samples, and tools/engines, games may legitimately just be better on average than they used to be, making it fiddly to try to retrofit review scores onto the same bell curve as older games. To reverse it, I can see how an 8/10 game released in 1995 might be scored significantly worse by modern reviewers for lack of QoL/UX features, controls, presentation style, etc, or even just be scored lower because in modern times it would lack the novelty it had at the time it was released.
This ignores subjectivity. What is a 7/10 for most gamers could easily be a 10/10 for a specific type of gamer. Rather than focusing on review scores people should focus on the niche of games that they really enjoy.
And this is why I don't read opinions from general review/gaming sites. For example, I judged whether I'll play Starfield purely on overviews from YouTube creators who focus on Bethesda RPG-s (Camelworks, Fudgemuppet et al) and space exploration games (Obsidian Ant). The opinions of FPS folks, Fromsoft freaks and D&D diehards is irrelevant🙃
Or, as I've always said, if 2001: A Space Odyssey was made today, it would score 4/10 on IMDB and people would complain that it's a slow slogfest with no action and boring dialogue.
Not to mention the subjectivity of what "7" means. I've tallied enough judges ratings to know that some people treat 5 as average, some people treat 8 as OK, and some treat anything below 7 as failing.
I don't see older games being rated lower as a problem. Yes standards rise over time as games and technology gets better, that's fine! If you took a mediocre modern AAA game and showed it to a reviewer 20 years ago, I'll bet all my money it would be game of the year.
It makes more sense to let standards rise and adjust reviews to still keep a reasonable rating scale.
I blame the school grading system for it. 70% and below is already a failing grade in many courses. So by extension anything that gets rated 7 or below is asscoiated with failure.
I am not from the US, so I don't know how long this grading system has been in use there but here in Central Eruope that's a rather new thing. That's why a 5/10 didn't feel as bad 20 years ago while today a 7/10 feels worse.
Interesting take. I've been in educational institutions in South America and Australia and usually the bare minimum you need to pass is a 6, occasionally a 5/10. I think expecting most people to score a 7/10 to pass is a bit unrealistic, unless we are talking about school for gifted children or something. No idea that was the standard in Central Europe
It's not the standard, it's just something that started to pop up in some university courses. Anything before that we usually are just graded 1-6/A-F. But even 15 years ago when I attended University there were a few courses that required a 70%+ for passing and what I have heared this has become more common. It's basically to weed out people and reduce the number of students since university is usually free.
I'm in college now and I haven't taken a single course where 70% wasn't the bare minimum for passing. I even took a comp sci course and it was the very first year that department lowered the passing grade from 80% to 70%. Apparently for the past 30 years of the comp sci department's existance, a B- was barely passing.
I think I know some friends whose majors have 60% as the passing grade, but my major is a science and it's all been 70%.
I think it definitely depends on how the course is assessed, what content it covers, and how much of that content the student needs to have absorbed to be considered to have met the requirement to pass. I just completed one in the UK where, to put it in simple terms, you had to get 10/10 to pass, and you got higher grades if you went above and beyond. But that's because each module had a set of criteria and you had to demonstrate proficiency in all of them at least once in the coursework, and you got extra credit if you demonstrated "very good" or "excellent" proficiency. (This grading system is unusual in this country, but it exists for very skills-focused courses, where demonstrating proficiency with doing something is more important than showing you know something.)
By that standard, a game with "only" 7/10 would have significant chunks missing in a way that would make it unplayable. A 10/10 game would be average: everything that's meant to be in there is there, but it's only done the bare minimum to make a functional game. Every part of the game that could be described as "very good" or "excellent" would earn it ratings above 10.
Not that I'm saying games should be graded this way. It'd be ridiculous and confusing. But it just demonstrates that what constitutes a "failing" grade definitely varies not only between countries, but between different courses. Which means I actually agree that basing game reviews on the grading system of the US educational system is flawed: it makes too many assumptions about what constitutes "passing" or "failing".
The you're addressing here is The four-point scale, which exists primarily because rating a low score on a big developer's game is a good way to ensure you don't receive review copies ahead of release, something reviewers live and die on because their fans want to know ahead of time whether the game is any good. In that sense, it's a bit of a paradox - you can't be sure at face value whether the 4 out of 5/8 out of 10/83% was something that the reviewer genuinely levied against the game as a fair criticism of flaws and/or commendation of positive experiences, or if they give it a high number because they're afraid of biting the hand that feeds.
That's why when it come to score, i just look at the total score to see how many people dig the game, and only watch/read review that doesn't include scoring and might have similar taste as me, and only read negative review in steam to see whether i can put up with the bad part of the game.
Yeah, and back then the review mags were just paid for advertising. Not much has changed.
That writer woke up and chose violence, and I approve.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to posting the personal phone number of a Twitch streamer because I found out that she has a boyfriend in real life.
this made me lol
Beautiful. I'm playing it now and gotta say, I hate everyone who has talked about it up until now. From the die-hard fanboys who say it has to be the best game ever created, to the anti-bethesda circlejerkers who roam every gaming community telling people how it's a terrible game even though they have not played it.
I'm tired of everyone and their opinions about gaming. I bought it with mid expectations, and I am happy with my purchase.
Honestly, the game is exactly what I expected from all the pre-release info. It's a Bethesda RPG in space. I didn't expect a space sim, so I didn't expect any sort of dynamic streaming for seamless planetary transitions and the likes, because they very clearly stated that this wasn't a thing.
And the capital G Gamers seem to be more bothered by pronouns, body types, female leaders, all the "replaced white people", etc. lol
Seriously, stay away from the Steam forums folks.
Same. I know game reviews have been getting worse lately, but the whole discourse around Starfield feels particularly terrible.
incredibly based
Isn't this the outcome from it all?
Rational people who aren't fanboys or haters buy and play games with low expectations, and are rarely disappointed.
Something went wrong. Please disable your blocker on TheGamer.com
Understandable, have a nice day.
Just click on the “I have disabled my ad blocker” and you can see the article just fine. It doesn’t check.
Lol, that works, didn't see that button down there
Not sure what shitty ad blocker you're using but I can see the entire article without ads.
I normally avoid clicking on links and instead form my opinions based entirely on the comments, but in this case I went ahead and clicked. This article really spoke to me. I feel like this author truly gets me. What a joy to read. 10/10.
LOL this was great, Mike is funny! Dunkey released a similar type of video for his Starfield “review”
I was cracking up at him starting out with the “FUCKING PRONOUNS” dude. A++ choice 🤣
Also, I don’t know the difference between game journalists and game critics,
Neither exist in any meaningful format? There's clickbait game stories and people who halfass review games, but it's well under 1% who meet the bare minimum standard to qualify as anything resembling a journalist or critic. Games coverage is way worse than the people reacting to it.
I'm sorry but this sound like a strong opinion and its quite funny considered the article
I prefer the rock paper shotgun approach of not having any review scores whatsoever. I'd rather read why something is good or not than the other way around.
Oh my god this article is modern artwork, 7/10
PSA: Site doesn't like adblockers, so...
Hi, I’m a stupid person who gets mad at video game review scores! You might know me from my normal, not-a-red-flag internet comments over the years including hits like, “This game character doesn’t look hot enough”, “I didn’t give this franchise permission to change,” and my masterpiece, “Zelda? More like CEL-da!” We were so mad about Wind Waker that we said we’d never play the series again! And did any of us learn anything? Of course not. That’s why me and everyone like me are now yelling at real human beings who didn’t completely like a game we were excited about. They liked it! But ooooohhhh not enough! video of the day
You see, when I’m excited about a game, that means the game is going to be good. That’s it! As the only sentient person on Earth, I’ve come to understand that my tastes and my tastes alone are the baseline for everyone. And because I’ve structured my personality around what I watch and play, anyone who disagrees with me is doing a 9/11 multiplied by Pearl Harbor.
Related: How To Pretend You Actually Played All The Big Games This Year
Everyone knows this. I have over three dozen social media accounts that spam every pop media news site with my feelings on how the industry should be run. Crackerjack observations like, “This company should use a new game engine.” Do I know what a game engine is or does? No! Why would I? I watched half of a YouTube video by a guy who’s never actually learned how games are made. He also has extremely confident opinions on Japanese culture despite never having been to Japan nor even met a Japanese person in real life.
It’s just not okay that some things I want aren’t worshipped by everyone. These ‘journalists’ should plan on giving video games a high score months before they’re released. Also, I don’t know the difference between game journalists and game critics, which somehow only makes me angrier at all of them. If I’m excited about a game, I expect those journalists to consider what I think is fun. Because I am the arbiter of reality, my opinions are objective truth. Giving a game a score lower than what I expected is breaking the commandment to not bear false witness. Starfield-space
Oh, and they’re also lying if they give a good score to a game on a console I don’t own. Very important! They should know I don’t have that specific mass-produced system, so how dare they fucking give any exclusive on that platform above a 7. To be absolutely clear, I’ll never play those exclusives, but I will have strong opinions as to why they’re not nearly as good as the games I will play. I’ll do this without any sense of irony because I’m a pure blockhead who may have been told I’m special too many times.
It is literally impossible that a game reviewer might have minor issues with an otherwise enjoyable game. Games are only perfect or garbage. There is no middle ground in art. If they didn’t enjoy a single specific gameplay element, it’s because they are terrible people who didn’t care enough. There is no possibility that anything in a game I haven’t played yet is either wrong or undercooked. Unless - I want to reiterate - it’s a game made by those fucking losers paid to give up their honor by working on a product for a competing, but nearly identical system.
Anyone who’s been to school knows that an 8/10 is essentially an F and a 9/10 is an insult to corporations that I would die for if they asked me to. If a review liked everything but the user interface, it will become my full-time job to put together a furious PowerPoint presentation that somehow still proves the original opinion absolutely right. Oh, and if they criticize the story, you know I’m writing a long thread that both brings up and compares it to movies douchebags like when they’re 19. Cydonia Entryway Starfield
And we all know that video game reviewers are paid off to give games good or bad scores, right? I’ve never seen proof of this, but it sounds true to me. That’s why so many of them live with four roommates in a two-room apartment! If I had to guess how much a video game reviewer makes, I’d say - and maybe I’m underestimating - $750,000 a month? That’s probably correct. So my level of vitriol is absolutely commiserate with their sin of grading a game I wanted lower than I expected. Or higher.
You might think I’d come to understand that I’m specifically the problem here. But people like me are either 13 years old or completely broken. That’s why I need to reply to every one of a reviewer’s social media posts with “STOP SHILLING!” Sure, some of us get hit by life and realize that our opinions aren’t established facts that are being ignored in bad faith by people online. But others like me get hit by life and turn into supervillains that feel personally attacked when a reboot of a video game series doesn’t put big boobs on a formerly pixelated character. Starfield Battling The Datura
Anyway, thank you for listening to me. Remember: nobody with different opinions on how good a video game is should be allowed to live. Remember: my dumbass friends and I are the only ones who know what’s good. Remember: the other console is exclusively owned by sex pests and criminals. Okay? Reviewers need to stop writing their opinions and start writing mine. That’s the only way I’ll be able to trust them again.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to posting the personal phone number of a Twitch streamer because I found out that she has a boyfriend in real life.
I gave up on looking at the number score years ago. When games get dinged for having a lousy story (which I always skip given the chance) or not supporting multiplayer (which I've used maybe a handful of times and even then just to get the trophy) a number score is meaningless.
Sure, these are good things to talk about in a review because sometimes it matters and helps set an expectation, much like, oh, just about everything else. Just lay it all out there and let me decide what's important before I jump in.
Didnt like the webpage police fony, 0/10 article. An affront to humanity and deez nutz.
Just test it like cyberpunk 2077 and you'll be alright