PLEASE update the rating scale!!! 80 or 100 is not appropriate.

According to people who put Metacritic on a pedestal, anything less than a 90 is complete shit and represents obvious bias.

@delt31 said:

Yes I can look at it as 4 stars equals great but when you have a scale that is SO compact and doesn't allow you to decipher between what is a Mario 3d land 4 stars vs what is a Fruit ninja 4 stars, you probably have an issue.

If someone can't be bothered to actually read the review to figure out what the difference between the Mario 3D Land and Fruit Ninja review is, then Giantbomb is not the one with an issue.

RTFA, that's why they write those things. If you can't decide which of the two games you want, why would you just use an arbitrary number based off someone else's opinion to make your decision?

Read the review, watch a quick look, maybe listen to a relevant podcast and then make your decision based off of your relevant interests. If you're trying to boil all of those factors down into a simple number to make your choice for you then IMO you're doing it wrong.

One of the best parts of Giantbomb is they don't fall into that stupid review scale trap that big sites like IGN or Gamespot do. And it's damn refreshing because of it.

A 5 point scale is fine. If you think that a game needed to get 4.5 stars instead of only 4 then you are putting way to much emphasis on the score number. Just read the review and see what the positives and negatives are then decide based on that if you should buy the game.

@Rappelsiini said:

No.

Yo guys- Phases of the moon.  That should be your review scale.  You're all wrong.

@Sooty said:

@Inkerman said:

The number of stars do not translate into percentages, I believe the translation is as follows; 5/5 - PLAY THIS GAME!!!! 4/5 - This game is very good, we would recommend you play it. 3/5 - This game is good, but has some problems. 2/5 - Don't play this game unless you're a fan of the genre/series or can overlook the numerous problems. 1/5 - Do not play this game.

That is extremely dumb then, as games like Catherine got 2 stars. It makes no sense at all if you look at it like that.

It makes perfect sense. Catherine is a very niche game, being a mixture of block puzzles and anime cutscenes. It's not mainstream, it's got very little appeal to anyone who doesn't actively seek out that genre/type of game. Add in the fact it has numerous issues, it fits a 2 star rating very well.

@mfpantst said:

Yo guys- Phases of the moon. That should be your review scale. You're all wrong.

They gave Zelda a waxing gibbous?!?! I'm never coming to this site again!

@DeeGee said:

@Sooty said:

@Inkerman said:

The number of stars do not translate into percentages, I believe the translation is as follows; 5/5 - PLAY THIS GAME!!!! 4/5 - This game is very good, we would recommend you play it. 3/5 - This game is good, but has some problems. 2/5 - Don't play this game unless you're a fan of the genre/series or can overlook the numerous problems. 1/5 - Do not play this game.

That is extremely dumb then, as games like Catherine got 2 stars. It makes no sense at all if you look at it like that.

It makes perfect sense. Catherine is a very niche game, being a mixture of block puzzles and anime cutscenes. It's not mainstream, it's got very little appeal to anyone who doesn't actively seek out that genre/type of game. Add in the fact it has numerous issues, it fits a 2 star rating very well.

http://www.giantbomb.com/help/

While we don't believe any game is perfect, we recommend this game without reservation.

Still very good and easy to recommend, though it doesn't quite live up to its full potential.

The halfway point. An inherent appreciation of this game's specific gameplay style, characters, subject matter, and so on may play as big a role in your enjoyment as the actual quality of the game.

This game's problems outweigh its good qualities.

This game will make you wish you had died in a fire moments before turning it on.

@pw2566ch said:

Actually, I think everyone should throw away all review scores. Just post the review. No score. It will literally get rid of Metacritic (the gaming portion) and throw off the publishers completely.

Shacknews does their reviews without scores and I really respect that. Also, I've sort of given up on written reviews and prefer more personal-experience based, informal stories about games that come up on podcasts (damn it, I need Idle Thumbs to return!).

The score should just mean an overall summation of what the game is. The details are in the review. Have people forgotten how to read or something? I wouldn't give five fucks if a game I'm looking forward to is 4 or 5 so long as the review describes it's strengths well enough to warrant my purchase.

@LordXavierBritish said:

What if instead of stars there was a picture of a naked lady.

If I had that one meme picture of spongebob taking money out of his wallet I would use it here.

The only way for them to even think about changing it would be for the rest of the community to ask over and over, and seeing as no one likes that idea, it's most likely not going to happen unless they personally have a change in mind. I personally don't prefer the star rating, but I don't mind it.

Their scale doesn't convert that way

and no.

The definition of their scale is here: http://www.giantbomb.com/help/

Scroll down to "what's the deal with your rating system?"

It explains it quite thoroughly. The stars system is not intended to be read in percentages.

I don't understand how that game got that score, are we back to 1996?

Is it that much better when compared with Super Mario 64?

I give this thread a sqrt(97) out of 13i + 23 purple hats.

You know what's really bad? 4/5 converts to 8,000,000 out of 10,000,000. It's like Patrick took off TWO MILLION points. Let that sink in. It truly is a new low for games "journalism." They really need to fix that scale. The game seems more like a 9,945,889 out of 10,000,000 to me.

I have read through the majority of the replies (huge response rate - some were a complete waste while others were helpful). Here's the thing. I only write this b/c of how much I appreciate this website. If I can summarize what the majority of you are saying, it's that the scores don't matter and that the review text does. AGREED. I read his review first and was happy with it. Then I see the stars and using logic, determined it was 80%. I know - I wasn't supposed to do that....the review is qualitative not quantitative. If that's the case - HERE IS THE SOLUTION.

Don't use stars! Don't use numbers! User a rating scale that is descriptive only! See below

1) Amazing,

2) very good,

3) good,

4) OK,

5) weak.

See when you use objects to represent X out of X - logical kicks in and people do the math. With words, there is no math!!!!

You guys know that make sense but I suspect GB wants to cater somewhat to people dying for a QUANTITATIVE way of judging the review. That's fine with me but you can't do both guys. Hence my suggestion.

I'm well aware that the guys on the site want the reviews to answer whether you should buy it or not 

These conversations are a byproduct of how our society wants instant knowledge and gratification without doing any investigation or critical reasoning (i.e reading a review). Put that in your pipe and smoke it...son.

Frankly I'm surprised they haven't adopted this idea yet.

I think a 10 point scale is vastly superior, but I'll take 5 over 100 any day, so split the difference I guess.

@delt31 said:

Amazing,

very good,

good,

OK,

weak.

I could go for that too if it was completely devoid of any sort of mathematical (i.e. stars) representation.

thanks brand new account for talking down to a community you have no standing in

Numbers don't mean anything. They just serve as a mini review to let you know what they thought before you read the rest.

@Psycosis said:

Frankly I'm surprised they haven't adopted this idea yet.

Now that is some in depth information that will certainly help me to decide regarding tough purchasing decisions. And so easy to read! Thanks Giant Bomb!

Hahaha no, we don't want those stupid ratung scales here.

People have to understand what 1 to 100 really is. Not in the context of western school grades.

Maybe people should stop getting butt hurt over reviews?

The 5 star scale is a great scale, it's the best and easiest at a glance reveiw score to use. Also, people should not use Metacritic.

@delt31: You're a subscriber. Subscribers have access to videos of a dude drinking from a questionably sanitary flask. Give that a look to find your answer as to why the 5 star scale will be unyielding.

Scrap it all for just two ratings. Meh, and Eh

This thread again?

The Giant Bomb rating system is not designed to be so pedantically translated into a percentage. 4 stars means "This game is pretty great!", it doesn't literally reflect an 80% score. It allows the staff to go with a gut impression of a game instead of having to subjectively apply it to some ridiculous review algorithm.

The reason they use stars instead of numbers is because they are deliberately trying to avoid that regimented review process.

I mean... uh... fake your own death?

The 5 point scale is fine for movies, why not games?

@delt31:

What's the difference between a game that is a 90 versus 100? What would make a game just not good enough to get a 100 but not bad enough to get 80? Give an example of some games that are 80, 90, and 100-level games and why the 80's games weren't 90/100 quality, 90's games weren't 80/100 quality, and 100's weren't 80/90 quality. I ask because I'm having a hard time figuring out why a game would get a 90.

This isn't about Mario Land 3D, it's really about Zelda isn't it? Anyway, I'm not buying either of those games because they both received 4 out of 5 stars. 4 is way too low now that 5 is the average.

I'm starting to get the feeling that people don't even want to be bothered to read reviews anymore.

You may exit the bomb of large mass.

Unless you work for a company that pays you based on your game's performance on Metacritic, *erhmm*

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU EVEN CARE?!

@ op

I think you're wrong. having more scores between 80 and 100 percent would accomplish nothing except to make fanboys feel better.

@delt31 said:

I love this website. I support it with a membership but the rating scale...

Here we go again :/

The moral of the story is that Metacritic is too highly valued in the community by all parties.

I really enjoy the five star system. It avoids the reductive arguments that go on for literally hundreds of pages on that other site that I go to sometimes.

@Dagbiker said:

Your grip should be with megachronic not giantbomb

My god why is that so funny?

The Metacritic stuff is getting ridiculous... RAGE's 83 average was called "negative reviews" in the articles about the rumor that Bethesda had delayed Doom 4.

You don't really want 8.8 bullshit here, do you?

I am utterly disappointed that not one user has posted the definitive thread on this topic. BE ENLIGHTENED. 
Also, it's not going to happen. I was one of those kids who cried foul when Gamespot went to .5 increments, but I've outgrown the idea that review scores somehow translate into a game ranking system. The point of a score is to give me an at-a-glance idea of a game's quality, nothing more.

NO

Game review scores are interesting, but provide little benefit beyond a simple encapsulation of the review text. How well the text represents the game under review is what should be considered important.

@RollingZeppelin: I could see sites like IGN being able to do it but I think it would force them to only focus on the big games instead of reviewing every video game that comes out, which actually might be for the better, but I don't think it would happen. Also I think I have a more cynical view of human nature than you seem to if you believe that we could achieve that kind of internet community.

So what you want is a 1,000 point scale? (Face it, that's essentially what it is when you use tenths of a point and go from 0 to 100) instead of a 5? Why not a 10,000 point scale (1-1000 in tenth of a point increments)? Why not a 100,000 point scale in tenth increments?
 
You have awful, bad, okay/good, great, fantastic. What more do you need? I don't see the problem in "it's either 80 or 100" (assuming you're doing some meaningless conversion to another site's scale). 100 is really fucking good. Also, 80 is really fucking good.

I love this website. I support it with a membership but the rating scale is unnecessarily harsh. Four out of Five or Five out of Five (80 vs 100) is not appropriate. There needs to be a 90 or something in between. I'm well aware that the guys on the site want the reviews to answer whether you should buy it or not but cmon - mario super land 3d as an 80? I believe even Jeff would give it a 4.5 out of 5 or something like that.

Please consider redoing the scale.

Thanks!

waaaaah