MetaFuture Talks Review Inflation

MetaFuture, a game journalism analysis site, has recently refocused on review scores from the big gaming sites. The author takes an interesting approach, taking a look at Gamespot's review spread and IGN's tendencies. Unsurprisingly, both sites tend towards the 7 to 9 range, making it debatable whether their numbers are actually useful. The site's eventual goal is to normalize the review scores from the major sites, and actually make them useful. From the article: "Games will still get an average score from all contributing reviews. But a site's contribution to that average will depend on that site's own individual normal curve-- with the immediate left and right of the bell's tip signifying three stars on a scale of one to five. Watch the drama as the biggest sweethearts see their 8.4 score for Gun and Car IV get pegged as three stars." This is the reason Slashdot videogame reviews don't have numbers anymore.

Comments

Re:Hasn't this been done before?

[mikeisme77]

Those are different though as they only average all the review scores for particular games. This site is attempting to 'rate the rating' and thus apply weights to their review scores when calculating it into the total score--thus bad reviewers who consistently give certain genres and whatever a high or low score won't inflate or deflate the overall rating by as much.

Grade Inflation? Or Grade Distribution?

[DingerX]

The percentage system is something of a mystery, but it does correlate fairly closely to how the US A-F system, translated to the 100 point scale, is supposed to be applied to grades in big US Universities.

The center of the distribution is supposed to be around the high 70s/low 80s. (C+/B-).
Back when I was the TA monkey handing out grades, the recommended distribution was 40% Cs (70s) 33% Bs (80s) 10% As (90s), and, well, the Fs (
The distribution looks pretty much like that. Incidentally, the same system can be seen for wines as well.

Bottom line, these guys are tough graders; or the industry pumps out a lot of schlock.

I prefer the Michelin system: if it's worth bothering with, describe the game. If it's particularly good, use the star system:
* - A good game in its category.
** - worth ordering
*** - worth a trip to the store

...or wait, those more cynical could use pirating/buying.

Money for Reviews

[Enderandrew]

Atari has openly paid for reviews in the past. Anyone remember the plethora of 9 and 9.9 scores for Driv3r? I am not bothered that most games rate a 7-9. I'd assume that most AAA titles should be on the good end of the scale. What bothers me is how many games receive a 9, 9.9 or 10. Shouldn't those be reserved for the truly exceptional? Or are there 10 games released every year that are TEH GREATEST EVA?