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Eurogamer is moving to a five-star review rating system, beginning this week (starting with Zelda Tears of the Kingdom).

Topher

Gold Member
Hate it

5/5 = 100
4/5 = 80
3/5 = 60
2/5 = 40
1/5 = 20

There's no 75, 90, etc etc

Not an effective way to score a game.

Is a 3/5 a 60 or a 75? Huge difference.

They could always use half a star. 3.5 = 70. Either way, this is more effective than a 10 point system where half the scale is ever used.
 

Filben

Member
The granularity of a 10 point score system or the godawful 100 was always kind of fake and in reality not distinguishable. It's hard to find words for the difference between 6 and 7 points, or 8 and 9, basically any n+1 difference.

On a scale to five however arguments being made for a score over another is most likely more transparent and comprehensible.
 
I much prefer the out of 10 system IF it was used properly.

5/10 should be an average game
7/10 should be good
9/10 should be near perfect.

Instead it's
5/10 is terrible (meaning 1-4 is no worse)
7/10 is not good
9/10 is it's a very good game
 

yamaci17

Member
i have my own intricate scoring system

90 100 5
85 90 4.5
80 85 4
75 80 3.5
70-75 3
65-70 2.5
60-65 2

i know its weird but it works for me.
 

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
Hate it

5/5 = 100
4/5 = 80
3/5 = 60
2/5 = 40
1/5 = 20

There's no 75, 90, etc etc

Not an effective way to score a game.

Is a 3/5 a 60 or a 75? Huge difference.
So, no half stars? That is just they being spineless. A lot of games will be bundle on the 4/5 ratting, being anywhere between 80~90. Not that I care too much, metacritic and other scores are only fun to see the fanboys warring. I choose my games based on the feedback of other fellow players or by gameplay footage online.
 

Cashon

Banned
I dug up an old reddit post to explain why a 5 star system makes sense. A reddit user mapped the distribution of all review scores on metacritic around 4 years ago. The graph is below.

b139cjlawbb11.jpg


If you ditch the outliers(a game below 50 is considered bad in game reviews), games are roughly scored on a 5 point scale centered somewhere in the 70s. A 5 point scale where three is average is much more intuitive than arbitrary point increments.
This is beautiful.

Yet, people here are still arguing in favor of a 10-point scale.

Copied my own post from the Gamespot 6/10 thread:
"The 10-point scale had always been dumb. What can be said on a 10-point scale that can't be said on a 5-point scale? Broken, Bad, Okay, Great, Excellent. That's really all you need.

Personally, I keep track of every game I finish. Only the games that I actually finish. Once I finish a game, I give it a rating of 1-4, based on a rubric that I created. 4, because I won't finish a game that I consider broken.

4 - One of the best games I've ever played. Fun throughout with few moments of boredom, no control issues, very few visual/audio issues.

3 - An all-time great that just doesn't reach the highs of a 4. Maybe it's too long or has a boring segment. Maybe the graphics aren't polished or the controls could be better.

2 - An all-around decent game that is somewhere between actively fun and boring. Possibly has a fair number of glitches or other annoying issues.

1 - Almost a bad game. Tedious to play, low production value, etc... But has just enough redeeming qualities for me to finish it."
 

StereoVsn

Member
The head of Nintendo of America has been accused in the past of several kidnapping and false imprisoning the same woman. Its common knowledge he'd done it for close to 30 years.
It's almost 40 years and we have first hand witnesses out of Brooklyn, NYC who can help bring him to justice!
 

Lasha

Member
This is beautiful.

Yet, people here are still arguing in favor of a 10-point scale.

Copied my own post from the Gamespot 6/10 thread:
"The 10-point scale had always been dumb. What can be said on a 10-point scale that can't be said on a 5-point scale? Broken, Bad, Okay, Great, Excellent. That's really all you need.

Personally, I keep track of every game I finish. Only the games that I actually finish. Once I finish a game, I give it a rating of 1-4, based on a rubric that I created. 4, because I won't finish a game that I consider broken.

4 - One of the best games I've ever played. Fun throughout with few moments of boredom, no control issues, very few visual/audio issues.

3 - An all-time great that just doesn't reach the highs of a 4. Maybe it's too long or has a boring segment. Maybe the graphics aren't polished or the controls could be better.

2 - An all-around decent game that is somewhere between actively fun and boring. Possibly has a fair number of glitches or other annoying issues.

1 - Almost a bad game. Tedious to play, low production value, etc... But has just enough redeeming qualities for me to finish it."

Your metric is roughly how I imagine a score system should work. Personally, I kept a list of every game I played for years organized in order of how much I liked them. The process starts with a symbolic "is this game better than Crazy Taxi" and concludes with me splitting the list until I find its spot.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Comical.

x/10 "wasn't working" so they halve the precision and its suddenly more useful ?

Apparently they believe remedial division is beyond the capability of their readership.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Why not make it a 1,000-point scale? 100 times the precision!

The idea of a score is to give as brief and succinct a summary as possible for people without the desire or ability to digest a written review. The logical endpoint of which is the Siskel/Ebert thumbs up or down model. The next step up is enshrining a low, mid, high spectrum which can be expressed alternatively as "buy", "don't buy", and "wait for sale"

Anything beyond that is just degrees of redundancy in a functional sense. Its just a presentational gimmick.

At the end of the day precision is meaningless, because the nuances of the reasoning behind giving whatever score are absent. 94 is less good than a 95 but when those numbers are put in by different reviewers each with their own subjective tastes and take, how is that in any way meaningful or helpful to the reader?

Short answer: It isn't.

You might as well call anything between 90 and 99, a 9/10, or a 4 1/2 stars out of 5, because it is the exact same thing!

Its basically why I kinda chuckle at people bemoaning review scores mostly using only a portion of the scale available to them, the phenomenon where a 5/10 is basically the lowest you tend to see. If that's your belief then just treat 5 as a floor for "not recommended", and make your judgement based on the remainder!

The numbers don't matter; the only instructive thing is the position across the scale or the most generally useful portion thereof.
 

GHG

Member
And they magically did it on new Zelda's launch and proceed to flop it. You simply can't take these sites seriously.

They wanted the clicks and attention clearly.

This is what a numbered scoring will get them. It's deliberate.
 

Tsaki

Member
And they magically did it on new Zelda's launch and proceed to flop it. You simply can't take these sites seriously.
8/10 is a flop... If they wanted the controversy they'd give it a 3/5. The simple answer is that for Eurogamer TotK is a 8/10 game. Don't look much into it.
 

XXL

Member
And they magically did it on new Zelda's launch and proceed to flop it. You simply can't take these sites seriously.
Britains Got Talent No GIF by Got Talent Global

4 out of 5 in no world is a flop.

I haven't actually read the review, which is the most important part and way more than the number.

But, 4 out of 5 is a great score for any game.
 

NickFire

Member
Going back to a rating system is the right move.

A meaningful apology to the broader gaming community would probably be the best move they could make though. Stars or no stars, I still consider them more interested in passing judgment on people than games, and find their opinions to be meaningless in the context of video games.
 

Retinoid

Member
I still laugh at the concept of the 100-point system. How on earth do you differentiate a 9.1 from a 9.2? Ratings with lower scales will always carry more weight because it requires the reviewer to at least consider the differences between scores.
 
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SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Best rating is no rating. Write what you thought about the game and let readers decide for themselves after reading about the game.

Not going right to a score and deciding based on that.
 
It's no coincidence that Eurogamer chose to start using this scoring system with Zelda. The 5 point rating scale maximizes traffic to the site by creating outliers on MC.

You can describe a 4/5 game as "incredible" in a review while still justifying the rating by pointing out a small flaw or two. Without the nuance of a 10 or 100 point scale, you evade clickbait accusations because there are no "perfect" games.

Random game that gets a lot things right, but is super short and has some bugs.. not outlandish to give it a 5/5, but that "100%" will go right to the top of MC and get all the clicks.

High profile game that executes on everything well, but doesn't necessarily break new ground.. how about an "average" 3/5.

Mildly disappointing, 2/5.

Despite my accusation, I actually prefer the 5 point scale or even no score at all. It would just be better for aggregation purposes if there was an industry wide standard for scoring games.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
Okay, guys, check it:

E.T.- Bury these games

Craig - game sucks, but there is no need to be upset.

Green Rat - Mid

Abby Anderson - FORE

Kamiya- this game is so good, I'm blocking you until I finish.


Perfect GAF rating system.
 

DrXym

Member
Eurogamer has become unbearable lately, what’s with all the woke shit? Oh and a 5 point system is shit.

Edit: case in point, Eurogamer raising funds for Mermaids, a charity under investigation by the charity commission. Why a videogame site is associated with a charity whose aim is to mutilate kids I will never know.


I and many others were banned from their forum for the high crime of asking where the Hogwarts review was. Virtue signalling is the order of the day, not actual principles that matter. If they had principles they'd boycott EA and Nintendo since Saudi Arabia is a major stakeholder in both and has a terrible LGBTQ record but they won't.

And that aside yeah they've gone massively downhill in recent times with the quantity and quality of reviews noticeably declining. The only bright spot is the Digital Foundry but the rest.. meh.
 
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