Are sites like Metacritic and Gamerankings ruining reviews?

[Brendon Lindsey]

I still get at least two emails a day from readers complaining about reviews in general. (Not even ours, most of the time...) It seems people have constantly been crying for a change in the system, but don't know what to, or expect us to come up with something everyone will love.

To me, though, sites like Metacritic and Gamerankings--which are crucial for smaller and lesser known sites to develop review traffic at all--are holding back any possible growth. You have to partially conform to their 7=average system, you have to give it a score/rating easily translated to a % out of 100%, people pay far more attention to the number compared to other numbers rather than the text or your own review guide, etc. I'm just curious if anyone else here has had a time where they thought of a way to do reviews different, then realized, "Nope, that would probably get us kicked off of __..."

Or am I just inventing issues where there are none for no reason other than I like conspiracies?

[Heidi Kemps]

I do hate the way review aggregators don't take into account the different scoring systems when they compile things, but at least Metacritic provides snippets from the review to help put the score in more context.

I've always disliked the 7=average assumption. For the outlets I've worked for, I always rate games on a scale where 7-10 would be something I'd be willing to spend some amount of money to play, 6 being iffy, 5 being mediocre, and below just being craptacular.

There's always been a vocal minority calling for score-less reviews, but I don't see those happening anytime soon, for a myriad of reasons - first and foremost being that most readers (teenage/young adult males) typically don't have a huge attention span for long-winded game analyses.

[Alexander Karls]

There's a problem with gamerankings/metacritic in that they don't do things like RottenTomatoes.

I love the idea of an aggregator, and I think it's the only place you should see a 1-100% rating, ever. The problem is the system that video game score aggregators have in place.

[Alexander Karls]

I think we should all abandon the 1-10 scale. If you switch to a simple, "Buy It, Rent It, Don't Buy It" score, no one is going to be confused. And you can still back that up with secondary scores.

Regardless, I think 1-5 will always be better than 1-10.

[Steve West]

I agree about the 1-5 scale. We use the full scale, where I think the 1-10 scale falls into a perception of outlets putting their scores within a certain range....and then the 1's and 10's are used to make a dramatic statement. Although all the 10's lately kind of undermines that.

Once the "thumbs up, thumbs down" system is released I think i'll grab that up. That, to me, is the best review score around.

[Alexander Karls]

Have I shamelessly self-promoted in a while? No? Good....

http://www.kurosau.net/2007/how-to-write-video-game-reviews/

One of the first issues I address is the importance of the right scoring system, and why 1-100% (or 1-10) sucks.

[Steve West]

Heh. I've read that before. Even thought about linking my writers who aren't familiar with reviews as a starting point, or bullet point listing the topics.

I've always found that when reviewing more is not necessarily better.

[Pat 'iTZKooPA' Mulhern]

I agree, I think the 1-10 system is hopelessly busted. Reviewers who use 1-5 generally come A LOT closer to what I would rate the game than those using the 1-10 scale.

[Brendon Lindsey]

I'd love to just do a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, or not have any score at all. My favorite reviews (and the ones I think are the most worthwhile) are the few I get myself and another writer, or two writers, to just chat about the game. You know: "I liked this." "Really? I thought X was X." "Well that's because you're stupid!" followed by something like "Would you recommend this game to people?" and no score.

Unfortunately, none of that sits well with Meta or GR, and unless you're a gigantic site that's the only way people will visit your reviews from the rest of the Internet. I really think there needs to be something else in place that allows more variety in how reviews are done when having them all together. Something like Rotten's system where it's just a % based on who liked it enough/who didn't like it would be great, but with the whole "7 is average!" thing, almost every game ends up 90%+, and I know a lot of game journos don't bother trying to get onto their list because of all the things you need to do and fill out/fax/whatever to be considered a review source on a site that's primarily for movies.

[Steve West]

Yeah. I really prefer RT's system as well. My EIC has been pushing me to get on there, as he's been on for years and it's great for traffic. And their "rules" for getting on are easier than the gaming aggregators, and significantly easier than for movie reviewers.

[Brendon Lindsey]

Yeah, I found it pretty easy compared to what most people told me when I first signed up... But the traffic for game reviews seems to be nonexistent on RT. It's all about movies, and it will always be about movies. If there was a games-only version of it then we'd be in business.

[Alexander Karls]

Strangely enough, after Gamezilla closed down, I found blurbs for several of my reviews had mysteriously appeared on RottenTomatoes...it was a strange day.

[Pat 'iTZKooPA' Mulhern]

While I was reiviewing on my own blog I never gave scores but general reccomendations. Such as "If you enjoy the franchise you will probably enjoy this, otherwise pass," or "If you are interested in puzzle or FPS games at all then you must play Portal, like now."