Should games the crew has checked out (QL, Unfinished, etc) have a simple rating of whether they liked them or not?

Quick Looks are not reviews. Often they haven't played enough to properly critique the whole game. Even when they have, the point of those videos is to show a snapshot of the game, not to critique it's whole.

Every time a game appears in a stream, video or podcast they link to it on a wiki page, so you can find their opinions on games. That said, I do agree it would be nice to be able to get an overall idea whether they were positive when looking up a game from over a year ago. That said it's hard in a non-review format to effectively show their opinion and whose opinion it is (since often they don't all agree as is clear from Goty awards).

The QL literally shows you the game and they usually express their opinions over it. Not sure what a numerical rating of a bite sized experience would accomplish.

No, because a lot of the time Quick Looks and Unfinished videos are the GB staff playing a game for the first time. Giving the go-ahead to their audience to drop money that early on doesn't seem like a smart idea in the long run. They sometimes don't even go back to the games they Quick Look. So saying something along the lines of, "yeah, the first 30-45 minutes of this $60 game is great" isn't very helpful.

The most recent example would be Dan's impression of Agents of Mayhem for the first several hours that he played it. He was quite enjoying that game, until he got further in and realized how boring the entire game actually became, as evidenced by his review of it.

I wouldn’t mind it, but you usually hear if they like it or not while they’re sitting on the menu in the first five minutes of a QL anyway.

No because a quick look isn't a review.

In principle, yeah sure it would be great to have a quick one line reference on a game that has been covered of what views the staff have expressed about it. In practice, it's not as simple as a yes/no rating on games they've checked out because very often Quick Looks of games are them touching a game for the very first time and they never touch said game again, in which case even that one line wouldn't be too useful and I'd vastly prefer people be directed to the video itself.

unless you view the QL you wouldn't know that

So you're saying you'd just rather have a number tell you if the game is worthwhile or not? Metacritic is over here.

If you're looking for a specific person's opinion, then just watch the Quick Look. I can't name any game where their opinion on what they've played up to that point hasn't been clear enough, and most of the time you know what their impressions are within the first five or ten minutes of the QL.

Also, when Giantbomb does Quick Looks, they often make mistakes or give some misinformation about the game they're playing. It's usually tiny things, but it's always enough to let me know that they haven't played enough of a game to give anything beyond initial impressions. Giantbomb is not the place you come to for final opinions.

Just jump through the quick look, surely you'll know wether it's for you or not within 5 minutes.

A Quick Look can be treated as a review as far as I'm concerned, but I don't think they need ratings or numbers---just as full textual reviews don't.

I understand why people are responding negatively to the idea, but I think a simple sort of thumbs up / thumbs down system similar to Netflix wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I think it'd be neat to be able to go to a page for, say, The Witcher 3 and see a table that listed all the GB staff members and a check mark in a "love", "like", "didn't like", "hated", "didn't play" type breakdown. Obviously such a small thing would be so low on a list of priorities as to never be created but I think it'd be a fun feature.

Yeah, nah.

Unless your tastes in games align exactly with the staff member, or reviewer, boiling down their opinion into a single binary rating is going to steer you into a wrong direction more often than not.

I don't think that's necessary. People can just watch the Quick Look or Unfinished and get a sense of it. Also, talk about a game can appear elsewhere, whether it is podcasts, Playdates, UPF, or what have you.

Binary ratings are even worse than numerical scores, in my opinion.

They fucking love Motorbike. Vinny and Jeff and just laughing the whole Quick Look.

It was kind of already said here, but you have to understand the way they do quick looks. You would only want that to happen if they had already finished the game so they can really give you a valid opinion, and yet when they had already finished it and do a quick look, they generally have already put up a review or will be doing it shortly after, so the answer is no.

No. Naturally understanding their impression of the game is enough. Putting any sort of rating would seem sleezy to me. Review the whole game or show it off, don’t review your first impressions of a game.

I don't think that would be useful at all. They usually very clearly state how they feel about the game at the moment

Since reviews are mostly subjective, number ratings are bad to me. I'd rather hear what they have to say about a game. Their personal game of the year lists are decent ways to remember stuff they individually enjoyed but not perfect. I wish they kinda had a master list of stuff they liked enough.

GiantBomb has become an enemy to some game designers in some instances because when it does do reviews, it uses a simplified 5 point scale. Unfortunately for the games, a 4 out of 5 gets you an 80 on Metacritic, which is lower than most game designers want. Imagine if they go to a 2-point yes/no scale and that goes into Metacritic as a 100 or a zero. That would be hilarious.

Boiling down a 1hr video to a yes or no doesn't bring any value. I mean, we've spent so much time talking in circles about reviews in gaming as it is. Someone saying they liked a games means it might be worth checking out. A review quantifies those thoughts. a QL is good for people googling "Should I buy X?"

If I wanted thumbs up/down quantification, I'll just look up YouTube reviews and skip to the last 30 seconds.