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Predicting Launch Title Review Scores
Next Generation is hosting an article attempting to prognosticate the spread of review scores for the PS3 and Wii. Author Matt Matthews does this by examining historical precedents for previous system launches. From the article: "Next month Sony's PlayStation 3 will launch with only two games which will get an average review score of 90% or better. On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii will have three games which will average scores of 90% or better. And it is almost certain that each of those consoles will launch with two absolute stinkers, games which consistently score below 60%... How can we know this? Because history tells us that this is what happens with console launch titles." For even more analysis of the data, Matthews has additional charts on curmudgeon gamer.
Wouldn't "Preview Scores" be easier.
The publishing companies will pay off the review mags so that 2 games will be guaranteed 90% or more, and "okay" games without the budget to pay for their percentage will be in and around the 60% mark.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
The problem with game ratings is they aren't fair or useful. What, exactly, is the difference between a 92% and a 93%? In order for them to be accurate and useful, game reviewers should be using the entire scope of their scale, not just the middle and top. A really bad game shouldn't get a 60% -- it should get a 10%. An average game shouldn't get 85%, it should get 50%.
Similarly, various review sites use category-based ratings, for instance, graphics are rated separately from sound effects. The game might have a low graphic, sound, and gameplay, but get a good overall grade. That doesn't make sense and they usually justify it in their review text by saying "We felt the average score of 80% just wasn't enough, so we're giving it an overall score of 90%." Why? If everything was so bad, your scores should back it up.
These and many other reasons are making game reviews less relevant and more like blog posts than concrete reviews.
This is just like when the guy on the Weather Channel predicts how many hurricanes there will be in a season- the figure is always incredibly wrong, and the only people who care are hurricane fanboys. "Oh wow, three major hurricanes this year? This year is going to be so much more active than last year when they predicted two major hurricanes!"
What's the deal with all the gaming news? I mean, I like to read the occasional bit on next generation consoles or a new game, but four out of the last five articles have been in the gaming section. If this keeps up I'm going to have to get rid of gaming articles entirely. Is there a huge game convention going on right now that has somehow not been an article by itself?
I think this approach to analysing computer game review scores is pretty flawed. Naturally, a percentage of games are going to be better, and a similar percentage is going to be worse than the average. All this shows is that there's a consistent mean score, and that the rest of the scores operate in a bell curve. It may be that the reviewers for GameRankings are required to work within a certain spread of figures for their reviews.
If anything it probably says more about three or four people working at GameRankings, not an industry wide standard.
criticizing the newest gran turismo's gameplay when you haven't played 1-4? some of the things that many reviewers despise are signature parts of the game, so it doesn't really matter that "except for ____, i really liked it"
the most confusing part of game reviews, which is causing me to have no faith in them whatsoever, is when a "highly respected" reviewer obviously can't stand the genre. why would you have some 19 year old that can't stop playing quake do a review of civilization 4? worse yet, a reviewer that gives an expansion a bad mark when they haven't played the base game.
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*Playstation 10 NintendoUniverse XBoxForever comparison
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*More info
"Your play habits show a definite trend towards RPG and first person shooter titles, both of which are strongly represented on the Playstation platform. Further, a random sampling of your friends culled from 1500 websites, chat rooms, and virtual playgrounds indicate that 69.7% of your friends plan on purchasing the Playstation 10, while only 34.6% plan on purchasing the Nintendo Universe, and only 23.4% the XBox Forever. Do you agree with this recommendation, or would you like more information?"
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*Stop, More info on other titles
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*No, info on RPG and first person shooters
"I'm sorry, at this time there are no RPG or first person shooter titles available for the Playstation 10 that have an average review score over 50. Predictive analysis of your play times indicate that should you purchase any of these titles, you would engage in only 4.5 hours of play. Playstation 10 highly recommends that you purchase Tony Hawk Sky Boarding Extreme and Shadow the Hedgehog: Commandos. Do you wish to accept these recommendations?"
*You told me PS10 had great RPG's and FPS's, WTF?
"Invalid input. Playstation 10 Virtual Console download complete. By default, Playstation 10 has begun the download of your two included games, Tony Hawk Sky Boarding Extreme and Shadow the Hedgehog: Commandos. These titles were selected for you based on analysis of your play..."
*Stop download, I didn't want those two games.
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*..........No
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I would highly suspect that numbers are creeping upwards as time goes on, both because average game quality as a whole continues to improve and because console manufacturers continue to focus on launch game strength, going so far as to reimagine previous gen late lifecycle games as games on new gen systems(e.g. the Starfox game for the GameCube, could argue Twilight Princess for Wii as well).
That said, if anyone will score below "expectations", it will be the Wii, as only crazed Nintendo fanboys will think that moving over to a drastically new control scheme will happen without a hitch. Heck, this isn't even a prediction - the hands on previews already state that the only games that work well with the Wiimote are those that are built from the ground up with the controller in mind.
The Nintendo 64 launched in North America with only two games: Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. The choices were to exclude the N64 entirely, include it with only two games, or include more games. We opted to include the games released through the beginning of December 1996. The next game after that, Mario Kart 64, was released in February 1997.
There is a huge difference between "launch" and "launch window," but they want you to forget that in hindsight, figuring 3 months is no big deal when you look at it 10 years later. The N64 was released on September 29, 1996 in North America with 2 games. That's it. Was it a poor amount of launch games? Perhaps. But it doesn't change the fact that it was launched with these 2 games, one of which is ALWAYS in the top 10 games of all-time list (and very often #1 or at least top 3). The Wii launches in a few weeks, and I'm curious how the LAUNCH games are. I have no concern how the games will be in February 2007.
That answers "which console could you buy when it was launched, sit at home for three months, buy more games, and then with the console and these now-released games, have fun?" rather than "One day 1, which system could you buy and go home to have the most entertaining time?"
Doing a launch window comaprison is a valid article, but it's a different article. True, including games 3 months into the N64's life might have saved that nice little Excel chart showing that most consoles launch with games scoring 75% +/-5%, but it conveys FALSELY that most launch games are "meh" games.
I'm not impressed with current review metrics. The numbers are almost always irrelevant to me. Dead Rising scored less than Perfect Dark Zero. Playing both games, I've found the difference between them staggering. Dead Rising looks far, far better, plays far, far better and the story is far, far better. Perfect Dark Zero doesn't really look or feel good, and the controls are klunky.
Reviewers are far easier on console games at launch than they are later. You could argue that this is because launch titles aren't going to be as polished as second wave titles due to time constraints and familiarity with the system's development. I don't buy that argument personally because it defeats any attempt at making the reviews scalable. If a launch 9 is a second wave 7.5, how the hell am I supposed to understand the numbers?
On top of this, there's the blatant "We're bought out by the industry and won't drop scores less than 6 unless the game is blatantly bad and from a studio no one ever heard of".
Meh.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
And it is almost certain that each of those consoles will launch with two absolute stinkers, games which consistently score below 60%...
And this is almost certainly why I stopped reading games magazines - their scales are so off base that it's hard to differentiate between a good and bad game. 60% should not be a stinker. It should be about 'okay.' 0 - 10% is a stinker. The Australian games mag 'Hyper' was criminal with this - 87% meant pretty dull, 89% meant pretty good, 91% meant awesome. Bollocks to that, there's 100 points on the scale, use them!
Czech language for absolute beginners
It's a bell curve. Who woulda thunk?
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