I like Game Scores, as long as they are accompanied by "Rent It" or "Buy it" or "Die in a Fire"

Game scores are great. Gone are the days of asking your friend if a game is good. Now you have a realiable source to see if this expensiive item is worth your time.

N'Gai really needs a new picture.

Personally, I'd rather have a friend's input because I know for a fact what his interests are, and how comparable they are to my own. I don't get that reassurance from game reviewers.

@rljohn: I really wish reviewers would say that more often.

Agreed. People put far too much stock in game scores. It'd be better for things as a whole if they were done away with altogether.

Games scores save lives.

Interesting points. It's what sells games at the cash wrap. Someone looks at what GameInformer gives a game, and that will be the deciding factor whether or not they buy the game. Such is the culture.
You see this kind of thing in movies too, but not so much in music...

Great panel of people by the way, like the game media industries finest.

@Iz1ck: Which makes no sense if 90% of the games you hate are getting 9s.

I guess it's fine if your gaming is in tune with the reviewers.

The scores themselves are worthless, to me.

A friend of mine's podcast started scoring it on how much they think it's worth. So a $60 game may be "worth" only $45. Or they may say "I got it for $20 used, but I think it's worth much more."

And with that, I might as well plug the podcast
[www.diehardgamerradio.com]

But he's right. No one will read the review if there is a grade. They just look at it and decide from there. I'll admit I've done it a few times when I was younger and slower, but I learned that a good reviewer will tell you everything you need. Some games are great, even if they don't score high everywhere. No More Heroes isn't anything special in any category, but it's just so fun to play.
The score won't tell you that.

My 360 keeps giving me the "this disc is unreadable" error message on all of my games. just wondering if anyone has gone through this ordeal and can tell me the hell im gonna go through b/c microsoft makes cheap s***.

Hooray for Crecente!
 
Overthrow the evil numbers empire! Long live subjective reviews!!!

I don't see game scores as a make-or-break factor. they don't really ever persuade me to buy or not buy a game. They often do persuade me to RENT or not rent a game...and I always read the articles that come with the scores (if I'm interested in the game).

I don't think there's really a problem with a game score. It's just that people should also pay attention to the content of the review as well since that's the most important part. The score really does help publicity and advertising but it really helps express the reviewer's final thoughts more clearly like exactly how terrible is terrible, how awesome is awesome, or how important and how much of an impact a certain criticism has. Sure, they're taken out of context or have too much importance put into them but sooner or later, everything does. One only needs to remember Fahey's Hello Kitty Online post to see that or the great quotes on ads for games from reviews that aren't entirely representative of the review (like the quotes in the Assassin's Creed ads from the IGN review).

@dv8godd: (BTW... I'd have given my usual wall-o-text response, but I'm already debating the usefulness of ratings numbers in another thread)

It's a good guide line but anyone that just reads the scores is missing out. A good game score has so many different views and points based on a reviewer.

We put too much attention into the lone point of information. The score.

@dirkdiggler9: I don't think that has anything to do with game reviews.

I started ignoring various kinds of scores many years ago after reading a group of reviews across mediums that showed that the letter/number/grade/star/thumb values had nothing to do with the review proper. What does ** out of **** mean when the accompanying article mentions nothing about positives or negatives about the movie/show/game? Is a game that gets a B still worth a rent when the review itself is barely three sentences long?

I have never gained interest in something because it got a high score. Army of Two for instance. It didn't interest me before, it got some high reviews, I've seen some gameplay videos, I'm still not interested. This could be said for lots of games, but that's the most recent one so it sticks out in my memory because most of the reviews I've seen were just today. Anyway, I prefer to read reviews than to just look at a number or letter grade. It gives me an idea about what to expect from the game (if it's a well done criticism) and then I can decide for myself whether it interests me. Yeah, criticism. That's what I like. Reviews (or scores, I should say) aren't important to me, but criticism is extremely helpful.

Unless a ton of sites give a game consistently high scores or consistently low scores I don't pay attention. Assassin's Creed showed the main problem with game critics... they don't take enough time to play the game.

scores doesn't mean much, I like to read what the flaws and pros are, like Patapon got an awesome score but the fact it has no pause turns me off a lot, the score doesn't say that, as well as Ratchet & Clank got an absurdly low score from GS, but the complaints are what made me love R&C in the first place, so scores are just bad opinions, reviews are hard to trust, scores are even worst

It think it's insulting to wrap up a game into a single grade. What about games that have so much time you have to invest in the game, all the different locales, sounds and gameplay elements you will encounter.

What does a game do right, what does it do wrong? How are you supposed to ascertain all this information from a letter grade or number?

@dirkdiggler9: It means that there's a PS3 too close to it and is sending signals over bluetooth which interferes with the 360's ability to be awesome! Chuck the PS3 and you should be fine. If that doesn't work then it's because you broke it by your negativity. If this is the case (and it is) then send $150 along with your 360 and a long apology letter to MS and demand it be sent back in 12 weeks or more. If they feel you are sincere enough, you may get it back in 6 weeks. When it comes back, pay penance by purchasing two Arcade systems and two 120 GB hard drive add-ons and buy MOAR GAMES and never speak of any of this to anyone. At least this way when you come on Kotaku again, we can both stay on topic and discuss some commenter's dislike of N'Gai's (that name does weird things to apostrophes) pictures.

@Arttemis: Actually, a lot of it matters on how familiar you are with the reviewers and their preferences.

For example- Game Informer. I won't deny it. I subscribe to and read it. And after a few issues, I figured out what game types the reviewers liked and didn't like, and was able to distinguish based on that. For example, if Andy McNarma, the head editor, reviews any game that doesn't have gameplay that was invented in the 80's, he'll like it less. Reiner likes Action RPG's and baseball. Kato is the go-to guy for racing and sims.

It just matters how well you can distinguish their personality before you look at their review scores.

I stopped using scores to reviews a while ago. You are better off not reading game reviews at all. All it does is make you jaded before you even purchase something.

I understand that games cost a lot of money, but its so much more fun to experience a game without someone else's review clouding your judgment. Just try it. Buy your next game with out reading any reviews for it. See how much different of an experience it is. After experimenting with it a few times I found I couldn't go back.

If I still read gaming reviews I would probably not be a gamer any longer.

Is there a video or audio recording of this talk?

@Bones_Jackson:
Same here. Reviews and scores got too biased and ridiculous for me in the late 90s/early 2000s. Especially if reviews done on a game were by an editor that had made it known they didn't like said genre of the game they were reviewing.

I garner more insight on whether or not I'll buy a series (or big change to a previous series I've been purchasing) on gameplay videos, demos, factual information on base gameplay and story, and my friends that are into the same genre of the game I'm looking to buy.

I give this story a 8.0 out of 10
and I give the comments on this story a very strong 9.0 out of 10!

As I think was commented in the most recent 1UpYours Podcast, the only review "scores" that are necessary are "Buy It", "Rent It", or "Toss It". These might provide some incentive to read the little letters that accompany the rating, namely the review.

The only reason scores make or break someone's interest in a game is because they're given out, other than that they're entirely arbitrary, and I think most gamers realize that. Tori, you seem to intimate that videogame sales would somehow drop if reviewers stopped handing out scores... All of the benefits that you suggest scoring has can also be drawbacks. And for all of the weight that scores supposedly have... perhaps you could explain Beyond Good & Evil to me? I seem to recall it got mighty good scores... yet I seem to have missed the massive tidal wave of sales... not to mention announcements of sequels?

@Iz1ck: reliable my ass.

Whatever happened to demos?!? I like to try games before I buy them. I don't trust anyone's opinion 100% anymore.

People don't read reviews, not because of a score, but because so many reviewers are so in love with their own words that the reviews are often longer than the scripts of the games/movies they're reviewing.

Ebert has used a scoring system for decades, yet he's a Pulitzer Prize winner, and one of the best essayists to ever work in the field of movies. I look forward to each one, even when I violently disagree with him.

I'm not too keen on scores of numbers or letters.

The fact that there's a score will cause people to not read the story and the fact that the journalist believes that people will not read the story will cause them to sum up the game in as few words as possible. I would rather have an insightful narrative about the game.

The problem then lies in can the magazines allow for enough pages to give a proper description of a game? Lately when I've picked up magazines there are plenty of articles but they all seem rather short. How can I be assured that I'm getting a proper description of the game that the article is about if it's half of a column worth of description?

@okenny :): Heh you're cruel! ;)

@dirkdiggler9: The only people that can help you can be reached at 1-800-4MYXBOX. Unless you have a store warranty. Your console is likely on the road to doom already, what you're describing is how my 1st one went.

I do't think anyone mentioned this but game scores can also affect ROYALITY RATES from publishers to the game develoers.

I remember reading an article saying that if this one certain game developer didn't get 80's or above aggregate on Metacritic that the publisher would give them a reduced rate on their royality checks for the game in question.

That's just f&*@ked up. A publisher relying on the total whim of some random game "journalist" who has pretty much no cred (remember that an aggregate score means all reviews are considered equal even the blogger kid who decided to publish what he thought next to the more quality reviews) to pay their devs.

You better believe scores are important, heh.

The panel at the GDC was one of the most disappointing I saw. The guys seem to live in some kind of ivory tower, as none of them touched the REAL problems of gaming journalism: How to fund a magazine/website/TV show without selling your soul. Especially when you have to finance yourself and are not part of a larger network like MTV.

It's also interesting to note that I hardly heard the words "reader" or "user" during this discussion. It was all very self centered navel gazing - as I said, dissapointing.

@Magnum1024k:
Precisely what I want to know. It'd be awesome to watch a vid of this.

I want to come out strongly against the 'maturer than thou' crowd who claim to have grown out of review scores.

I'm 31 and I definitely use scores (especially metacritic) as a filter for buying games. It's easy to tell from the text of a good review what type of game something is, whether it sounds like the sort of thing I'd like... but usually hard to tell how good it is, beyond the 'abysmal' or 'fantastic' exceptions. Most games are basically OK, but I don't usually want to play games that are basically okay. It can be hard to tell the difference between basically okay (about a 7 on most of the stupid review scales) and actually good (about an 8) just from the words.

If there's a game I know about and am looking forward to (say, the new Phoenix Wright game - yes I know it came out a little while back, I haven't picked it up yet) then I probably won't bother looking at reviews at all, unless I start hearing bad things about it or something. If I did, though, I might check the score wasn't really bad. A 6 would make me rethink the purchase. More usually if there's a new game which kind of sounds cool but I don't know much about it, I'll definitely be more interested if it gets an 8 or so.

Another advantage of scores is that you don't necessarily want to be given details of the plot or gameplay. Some games are better unspoiled. You can look at a review score and if it's high enough then you don't need to worry about such details.

The other issue with reading reviews is that some reviewers dislike good games (and vice versa). Say I read the 1Up review, the guy from 1Up didn't like the game, does that mean I shouldn't buy it? probably not if everyone else likes it. That's why, in terms of picking games to buy, a metacritic score is so much more valuable than any single review score - and also than the text of any single review.

I give this thread a 6; it has some good riffs but it's hard to dance to.

I disagree with the scores. A lot of the games that we few as classics now likely wouldn't have scored high up on reviewers lists because of bugs, glitches, unoriginal gameplay (all those awesome adventure games), and other possible faults. But the review system back in the 80s and early 90s was still immature, and so gamers took risks on games they didn't know much about and had a lot of fun.

I miss those days of walking into a store, seeing a box that looked interesting, buying it, and going back to find a really fun game inside. Sure, sometimes you got something bad, but the discovery was a large part of the fun.

I have no problem with scores, I just wish reviewers would learn how to actually review a game. Nowadays reviewers will not tell you whats enjoyable and what is not about a game. They will not describe the gameplay and the atmosphere the game creates and etc. They are more likely to say the game was great/bad, great graphics (What the hell does that even mean), most likely they ignore the sound, they do not describe the gameplay mechanics and how they work with the game, but they have no problem saying the gameplay sucks/is sweet (without telling you why). Then they finish it off with a score that makes no sense and does not follow whatever they wrote before hand.

I actually find more specific scores more useful. I just take them as coming from the particular reviewer and not magically objective. From there, I tend to read reviews from reviewers or even sites that usually see things the same way I do.

If reviewer X gives a game a 6/10, I know they considered it more good than not (not "better than average - but average is 7!") and if the game otherwise looks interesting to me, I'd check it out myself. If it doesn't, I might think "meh, so-so."

If the same reviewer gave it a letter grade... well that could be all over the map. That could be a C-, it could be a B+. It means nothing.

If they say "buy/rent/toss", then it might be useful... if I always thought exactly the same way as the reviewer 100% of the time. Otherwise it's pretty useless too.

@Jim Reilly: Nah. His picture is fine. What he really needs is some qualifications.

how about just giving the pros and cons and let the consumer decide like it used to be???!?!?!?!?!? I try not to read reviews anymore, I've never bought a crap game, NEVER!!!!!! How you ask, you read up on the game, NOT REVIEWS, i'm talking about gameplay, graphics and story and make up my mind that way! it's not that hard really.