Welcome to the Symposium: A Discourse on Game Ratings

When you're out looking to purchase a video game, do you ever find yourself looking for reviews online? If you do, is there a specific rating underneath which you simply wont spend your money on a game? Shawn Elliott of 2k Boston, formerly of 1Up.com, has recently coerced a number of his colleagues to participate in public disquisition regarding a number of curiosities that have been raised over inside of the games journalism field, from how hype affects reviews to how those reviews affect consumer purchases. Shawn recently supplied the first piece of his symposium for public consumption here on Blogspot. Weighing in at just over 13,000 words (and still incomplete!) it's an enlightening, if a bit beastly, read.

Opinions are primarily divided over the issue of whether or not review scores detract from the reviews themselves. Are the scores there just to give readers something to complain about on the boards as they attempt to leverage that rating against another game in comparisons?

Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb: Well, I won't deny that scores stir up message boards and social networks and such. But to claim that's the only reason they exist is a pretty narrow, jaded view. I think scores are primarily there to serve as shorthand for folks that won't or can't read the full review. They're meant to serve as part of the summary. A deck, a score, and, depending on your publication's review style, some pros and cons or whatever.

I don't believe there is any denying that those of us actively seeking out a score for a game we're deciding whether or not to purchase are looking for "the jist" of the review, and will, at times, use those scores as a buyer's guide for those of us in a rush to figure out whether our favorite websites agree that a game is worth the $50 or $60 down. A question becomes raise, then, as to whether we actually read reviews on games we aren't already certain we intend to purchase from the get-go.

Shawn Elliott, 2K Boston: Some of us suggest that our audiences sees scores as buyers' advice. Actual sales rarely correlate with review scores in cases where games are not also heavily hyped and marketed. Increasingly, gamers pre-order games prior to the publication of reviews. Interactive demos allow our audiences to decide for themselves whether or not a game will be worth their dollars. In addition, word of mouth and message board discussions inform our potential audiences' purchasing decisions with an intimacy and directness that we cannot provide. Finally, review aggregation sites such as Metacritic mute the bias of individual reviewers and provide a bigger picture.

I suspect these circumstances suggest that our self-perception is, well—a throwback to a time when magazines and websites were gaming's gatekeepers.

The strong correlation between a video game's hype and sales provide a window through which to view an unfortunate reality of modern games journalism; regardless of just how well-received your Psychonauts or Planescape: Torment is, no one is even going to know it exists without the marketing to support it. If the only players reading your review are the ones who intended to purchase it from the beginning your influence only reaches as far as that particular game's advertising.

When scores come into play there is more at stake than reader opinions. Pay bonuses can be determined by how well a game scores on metacritic, marketing coverage can be restricted from websites that provide low scores, and development teams can be broken apart in part based in perceived performance. When games score well, everybody gets a piece of the pie. When games do poorly, everybody aches.

Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Sore Thumbs: Shawn, that’s why this business is so messed up! Publishers want good reviews. Editors want exclusives. Magazines and websites want advertising. Advertisers want good reviews.

The read is an entertaining and informative one, and I would strongly suggest that anyone with even a passing interest in games or games journalism glance over it. For what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that scores should remain as a part of the review process, but could afford to be revised to provide a more qualitative analysis. Examine 1up.com and note that they use letter grading rather than number crunching to summarize their impressions of each game. I have an easier time understanding a B+ in the context of a review than I have trying to figure out whether a 7 is supposed to be 'fair' or a 'good.' When I review video games for my blogs I tend to assign two letter grades per title; I gave Spore a C for gameplay, which would be directed at the hardcore gaming crowd, and an A for its innovative and attractive features which provide more appeal to the casual crowd. Far be it for me to tell anyone how they should be reviewing their video games, but I can't help myself in feeling as though they're getting something wrong. Perhaps Shawn's symposium will result in an addendum or two to the way popular gaming websites handle their analysis. I look forward to reading more of this discussion as it unfolds.