I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the '5-star' rating system

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nathanthomson11

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#1  Edited By nathanthomson11

As I look through Giant Bomb's review scores, I find myself questioning the 5-star rating system. I'm not questioning the reviewers or their final verdicts on games but the system itself. I love Giant Bomb's reviews as they are both funny and informative, something Gamespot could never handle but I find the 5-star rating system some what limits us. Most people just say "Well just doubt the score and you have it out of 10" but would Giant Bomb really have given games like Braid, Battlefield: Bad Company, Geometry Wars 2, Burnout Paradise and many others 10/10. Yes, all those games I mentioned were great but in my opinion a very select few games should ever recieve a perfect score and every game has flaws but thats besides the point. Does anyone else agree with me that the 5-star rating system somewhat limits us?

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DARKIDO07

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#2  Edited By DARKIDO07

No, what is the difference between a 8.6 and 8.4? the five star ratting system (as long as you use half stars too) its perfectly fine.

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deactivated-5b3f096aee80a

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Good for you, there are many other threads you can complain about this in. Do a search, here's one...

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xplodedd

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#4  Edited By xplodedd

its good. it just tells you, by the way 5 isn't perfect. five just means the game is good, and fun playing. look it up in the FAQ

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crunchUK

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#5  Edited By crunchUK

i like it a lot

it means they aren't given a score which means clear superiority over one or the other it's just degrees of quality that are rather general which means that there is room for personal taste which doesn't inflict in the score... or something like that (i hope you get me) it's very good indeed putting it this way

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brukaoru

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#6  Edited By brukaoru

I think the a review scale of five is much better than ten. Using a scale of five clearly tells you "this game is awful/bad/mediocre/great/excellent." With a scale of ten, the numbers are all over the place, I don't understand how anyone can use mid decimal points to rank a game higher, as DARKIDO07 stated.

xplodedd said:

"its good. it just tells you, by the way 5 isn't perfect. five just means the game is good, and fun playing. look it up in the FAQ"
Exactly. Just because a reviewer gives a game the highest score possible does not mean the game is perfect. It just means it's very good. It's the same with movie reviews.
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DualReaver

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#7  Edited By DualReaver

I prefer it, it's a much more casual and fun way of looking at games.
Instead of judging the game on every little thing, they bring it all together and say "You should really go check this game out, it's a blast to play" and discuss why they think that or "I didn't find it that fun, I wouldn't recommend checking it out" and also discuss why they didn't find it all that fun.

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samcotts

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#8  Edited By samcotts

Nah, I think it is perfect. If it scores 5/5, it means they strongly recommend the game. Screw whoever thinks about just doubling the score to get the 10/10 rating, because that's not how the star system works. The star system is what makes GiantBomb unique, and it's easier to judge whether it is a good game or not.

With the 10/10 system, any game below 7 is thought to be worthless, which leaves 7 pointless numbers, if you understand what I am saying. With the star system, any game below 3 stars is thought as below average, which makes more sense. I don't know if I'm making a whole lot of sense myself, but I know what I mean.

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nathanthomson11

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#9  Edited By nathanthomson11
Sentry said:
"Good for you, there are many other threads you can complain about this in. Do a search, here's one..."
Who says I am complaining, I am merely making a topic about it as I am undecided.  If I'm not mistaking, your the one complaining right now.
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nathanthomson11

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#10  Edited By nathanthomson11
brukaoru said:
"I think the a review scale of five is much better than ten. Using a scale of five clearly tells you "this game is awful/bad/mediocre/great/excellent." With a scale of ten, the numbers are all over the place, I don't understand how anyone can use mid decimal points to rank a game higher, as DARKIDO07 stated.

xplodedd said:
"its good. it just tells you, by the way 5 isn't perfect. five just means the game is good, and fun playing. look it up in the FAQ"
Exactly. Just because a reviewer gives a game the highest score possible does not mean the game is perfect. It just means it's very good. It's the same with movie reviews."
True, I never really thought of it that way. So really its a completely different system, which has both its ups and downs.
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duxup

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#11  Edited By duxup

I don't mind the star system.  I'm more concerned about the reviews, some feel a bit "phoned in".

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deactivated-5b3f096aee80a

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nathanthomson11 said:
"Sentry said:
"Good for you, there are many other threads you can complain about this in. Do a search, here's one..."
Who says I am complaining, I am merely making a topic about it as I am undecided.  If I'm not mistaking, your the one complaining right now."
Replace 'complaining' with 'expressing your opinion' then. :P

And no, im not complaining, just telling you there are already threads like this and you should learn how to use the search button next time... it is there for a reason you know.
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gameshark5

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#13  Edited By gameshark5

I'm not sure the '5-star' rating system is a ban fan of you

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deactivated-5e12c8fcf3f2c

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5 star is great, instead of saying 6.5 and 6.4 and confusing the hell out of your readers, they just tell you whether a game is great, good, okay, a little painful, or crappy.

(but i dont like the score jeff gave ut3. -_-)

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Bear

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#15  Edited By Bear
Xeros606 said:
"5 star is great, instead of saying 6.5 and 6.4 and confusing the hell out of your readers, they just tell you whether a game is great, good, okay, a little painful, or crappy.

(but i dont like the score jeff gave ut3. -_-)"
Going by Gamespot reviews Dead Rising got an 8.4 and Saint's Row got an 8.3. Even if you read the full reviews it would be difficult to figure out why Dead Rising is "better". So by saying Dead Rising is just that much better would mean you should go out and buy Dead Rising over Saint's Row? When really they are both good games and the one you buy should be based on which style of game you prefer. If these were to both equal out to 4 stars then people would consider them both great games and use their personal taste to decide one over the other.
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#16  Edited By duxup
Xeros606 said:
"5 star is great, instead of saying 6.5 and 6.4 and confusing the hell out of your readers, they just tell you whether a game is great, good, okay, a little painful, or crappy.

(but i dont like the score jeff gave ut3. -_-)"
I don't care either way but the idea that the decimal system is too complex for readers is downright silly.  It is the decimal system...  You can use that AND tell people if the game is "good" or not.

The impression I get with a lot of the simplified scoring systems out there is that some sites are just afraid of upsetting users so they simplify the scoring as much as possible.
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#17  Edited By Dan

If it were up to me (and let's be clear: it isn't and never will be) I'd have no rating system at all and force people to actually read the review. I don't believe you can express a complex opinion as a number, neither do I believe you can turn "goodness" into a metric.

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Under_Influenz

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#18  Edited By Under_Influenz

i think it's great. As a matter of fact i would prefer a 3 level system. Skip, Rent, or Buy.

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Arkthemaniac

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#19  Edited By Arkthemaniac

Quit caring about Gamerankings. You'll feel better.

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duxup

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#20  Edited By duxup
Dan said:
"If it were up to me (and let's be clear: it isn't and never will be) I'd have no rating system at all and force people to actually read the review. I don't believe you can express a complex opinion as a number, neither do I believe you can turn "goodness" into a metric."
The problem with that is that if you want to look for a good game you want to sort out the crap first and see what is good out there.   If you're looking over a big library reading all the reviews is not piratical.
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deactivated-5884be30433ec

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Dont pay any real attention to the star rating. Read the actual review. I like it because of that. Game scoring is no exact science.

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Dan said:
"If it were up to me (and let's be clear: it isn't and never will be) I'd have no rating system at all and force people to actually read the review. I don't believe you can express a complex opinion as a number, neither do I believe you can turn "goodness" into a metric."
The blurb they write and the star rating go well together. I think they need some indicator for sorting reviews. But there is no real difference between 5 star and 4 star games.
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#23  Edited By HitNRun
nathanthomson11 said:
"As I look through Giant Bomb's review scores, I find myself questioning the 5-star rating system. I'm not questioning the reviewers or their final verdicts on games but the system itself. I love Giant Bomb's reviews as they are both funny and informative, something Gamespot could never handle but I find the 5-star rating system some what limits us. Most people just say "Well just doubt the score and you have it out of 10" but would Giant Bomb really have given games like Braid, Battlefield: Bad Company, Geometry Wars 2, Burnout Paradise and many others 10/10. Yes, all those games I mentioned were great but in my opinion a very select few games should ever recieve a perfect score and every game has flaws but thats besides the point. Does anyone else agree with me that the 5-star rating system somewhat limits us?"
The five star rating system is excellent. I agree with you in the sense that I would prefer they hand out more 4 stars and save 5s for relatively rare occasions, like the grandaddy of the five star system, Next-Gen Magazine did. Fives should be reserved for "revolutionary" games and "skip work" titles, not stuff like Bionic Commando.

However, the amount of headache and argument saved by the star system is considerable. Nobody's going to be writing them letters questioning their humanity for what they give Zelda, Metal Gear, etc. (Edit: or threatening to pull ads)

And the fact that it frustrates people who instinctively enumerate a game's worth into a number related to 10.0 or 100 is the best thing about it!
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#24  Edited By Giantkitty

I'm in favor of the five star system, but have half stars in between (no, don't have quarter stars). Let's say there are two excellent games, but one has online play and the other doesn't. You could give one a five star and the other 4.5 stars, rather than giving them both five stars (making them equal, and they're not) or giving one 5 and the other 4 (but they're not that different)

I do believe giving scores of 83.78 is just silly and falls under the fallacy of false precision. It gives a lot less credibility and more pretentiousness to the review when I see numbers like that.

[gamershark5]
>I'm not sure the '5-star' rating system is a ban fan of you

So how many stars would the 5 star system give nathanthomson11?

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#25  Edited By callik

5 star rating system is perfect; no one bats an eyelid when they see something is 5/5 since they rightly assume it's a very good game, but as soon as that becomes 10/10 people bash it left right and centre and bring up the inane 'perfect game' argument.

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#26  Edited By xruntime

No, 5 star is good because there's no damn point in nitpicking about stuff to give a precise score. It's either a horrible game, a bad game, a decent game, a good game, or an excellent game. DONE. OVER. NEXT!

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#27  Edited By Dan
p4ddym1607 said:
"Dan said:
"If it were up to me (and let's be clear: it isn't and never will be) I'd have no rating system at all and force people to actually read the review. I don't believe you can express a complex opinion as a number, neither do I believe you can turn "goodness" into a metric."
The blurb they write and the star rating go well together. I think they need some indicator for sorting reviews. But there is no real difference between 5 star and 4 star games."
In that sense, I can live with the star review system. I understand it's a shorthand for how big their smiles are while playing a game and it has a purpose for at-a-glance impressions, but I guess what I'm saying is that I take issue with anybody placing any real importance on review scores. At least with the stars you avoid the can of worms that numbers induce.