ARE WE TOO GENEROUS WITH GAME REVIEWS?

author=Wise Sooz
You kids really have strong feelings about rating systems. Like, "need to go outside and quit typing multiple paragraph rants over and over" feelings.

I should be asleep because work tomorrow and I am instead arguing with a green haired cat girl :/
Heh.

author=Sooz again
There is no perfect or ideal system. If you don't find the scores trustworthy, just skim the damn reviews that people spent actual time and effort on and decide whether you think their taste is similar to yours.

That is what I do! I agree.

And...

I think we are now talking about Steam as a community instead of Steam as a system. Different things!

Reasons > numbers. Ya.
That is why 3 or 4 does not tell me anything.
Filtering based on Like/Dislike and reading comments is easier in my opinion. And you can still review the review backstage like usual.

At this point, Pom is compromised anyway. You think it is a good game just like you think the other one is bad.
Opinions. But that is what reviews are. I have not played Pocket Mirror though so I will not go into that discussion whether I agree or disagree.
I liked Pom! Not good as a game but the message is cool. However, it attracted a lot of attention and now it is pretty much a good game by default and that is what you can expect in most reviews.
And I cannot recommend it as a good RPG Maker game.

Sleep now! THAT is what is important! GOOD SLEEP!

author=Pancakes
I don't think anyone is really getting worked up or emotional about this. I hope not, at least.

YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LIB!

... Yeah this is why I think we should do away with a visible star rating system, thumbs up/down, or any piece of shit that allows people to just skim over junk without actually paying attention to the merits of the review themselves. I seriously feel like it's a system that not only opens up less room for the abuse that occurs on this site and so many other platforms for games, but it will also encourage more people to actually try out games and developers to not feel like the world has ended when they receive a 1/5 score.

I'm with you Ratty. While I like the feeling of a good review I've never been on the end of a bad one. I can't imagine what kind of detriment these 1 or low star ratings give to blooming developers. We've all been there and I hate to think that we are losing potential indie game developers because of it.

I work hard to make what I release something that hopefully people will like. I also look at this "hobby" alot differently than the majority of fly by night users, I believe that's how alot of us here at RMN regard ourselves, even if we poke fun at that every now and then.

We are here to stay. and yes while we overcame hardships that sometimes negative comment or review brings and I don't want to dissuade others from getting to where we are today. I know I've said some stuff in the past that doesn't jive with this but its what I really feel.

The star rating can be done with. The big question is to how to dissect the bad from the good without a system in place.

Reviews can remain intact. Star Ratings can be done away with, without destroying people and their love for a hobby/career.

I'm strong enough not to be hurt by others comments, and maybe you are too, Sooz.
just because someone can't handle something doesn't mean they don't deserve the chance to continue their work.

I never thought art was about survival of the fittest. It's a personal expression. one that numbers or ratings should never rule out.

Honestly, I'll play any game if it's what I'm looking for at the moment. Regardless of score.

People like to fill their desires, good content or not.

author=InfectionFiles
Reviews can remain intact. Star Ratings can be done away with, without destroying people and their love for a hobby/career.

I'm strong enough not to be hurt by others comments, and maybe you are too, Sooz.
just because someone can't handle something doesn't mean they don't deserve the chance to continue their work.

I never thought art was about survival of the fittest. It's a personal expression. one that numbers or ratings should never rule out.

Hence my use of the word "public":

author=Parasitis
you probably aren't suited for any public creative pursuit

There is nothing keeping someone from pulling an Emily Dickinson and just making stuff for themself and/or their immediate loved ones and never showing it to anyone else. People do this all the time and nobody cares.

If you're going to submit your work to a venue for public perusal, however, you need to be prepared for the public to react, and the public is not always going to like your stuff, and the public does not have any reason to spare your feelings.

You're basically proposing that we do away with dancing across the board because it hurts for someone with a broken leg to do it.

author=Liberty
Sorry to say, but you need ratings to weed the shit-but-good-looking games from the good-but-bad-looking games. Without those ratings, people ain't gonna bother with the actual good games, instead relying on eye-candy. It's an unfortunate part of human nature that people just don't have time to read reviews and hey, I'll admit I don't. I don't want my playing a game skewed by what someone else thinks of it. I don't want to know what's in a game before I experience it myself, so a quick star rating is perfect for knowing if it's worth my time or not.

No stars? Neat, new territory. Lemme at that.

Low stars? Well, I feel like a shitty game today and I've probably got one on my hand so sure, let's roll with this.

Middle stars? It's probably decent. I'm bored. Sure I'll give it a go.

High stars? Ah, looking for some quality game today. Let's go go go.

If, after playing, the stars don't match my thoughts on the game -then- I'll look at the reviews.

I'm pretty goddamn sure I'm not the only one who does this because it's pretty much human nature to judge at a glance, and a star rating helps with that so that you don't have to waste your precious goddamn time looking for the kind of game you feel like playing at that precise moment.

My counter-argument to this is that if you have the time to go out of your way to play a game to begin with, why is it so hard to just look at the review itself to determine whether it's actually worth your time?

@Sooz: You're completely misrepresenting what I said. I recommended abolishing the star-rating system, not reviews themselves. A scathing review of a game has the same kind of impact as getting a low score, only with the review by itself, it could potentially get people to pay more attention to the reviewer's opinions on a game before trying it rather than going "DURR it has less than X stars imma not play it."

Because I don't like to. I only like reliving a game (through LPs, media, reviews) after I've played it. I like going in completely blind. Half the time I don't even read the descriptions for a game, or only glance at them. Hell, I don't even read who made a game 90% of the time (that's more because I don't care though).

I like to make my own opinions on a game and not read what others think before I've played it. Afterwards, I'll check the reviews to see if what I thought was the same as they did, but only afterwards.

As for the time thing? I don't play even half the games I download to play. They sit in a folder that I purge every so often. That's where time comes in. It's easy to download a game for a later date without having to engage with any aspect of the game outside of the immediate visual aspects - images, stars and if a description catches me by the first line, that too.

If I do end up playing the game, I'll check out the reviews but only after the fact because I've then become invested in the game by having played it and given it that time. Never before. (Well, unless there's drama and I have to step in as a mod or something.)

That's why personally I like star ratings - I know at a glance what I might be getting out of a game straight off the bat. If it's wrong, then I'll be either pleasantly surprised or have to write a review to discount the star rating that was on the page.

I can see the confusion and trouble with the system, but I do prefer it by far from other alternatives the way this site works.
This isn't the most viewed or biggest site to host games for - it is a great site to get feedback for. Scores without reviews won't give the dev anything concrete to improve on.
Reviews work splendidly for that mixture - stars aren't enough to know a game is good by. It isn't.
However, I would like a "recommendation" feature. Not likes or anything because that's vague as fuck. Can you recommend it for others to play?
I think that would actually really help, especially with peeps like me where you could view it on their profile and have a huge list of stuff to look at.

I said it somewhere before and I'll say it gladly again - the way the star system works is a little tricky, because here oftentimes (I certainly pay attention to it when I give ratings), it is a mixture of enjoyment and design elegance.
That is to say, if the quality of the parts is very low, but well-put together to an enjoyable game, it still won't get the 5 stars. Even if the "enjoyment" factor is worth 5.
It's why I love recommending certain games over and over again - like Hero Maker, which is one of my favorites which I gave a 3.5 rating. Harsh, I know~


When I started out looking for games here, I was sorting more by stars, and that's a crappy way to go about it. I don't think I found a single game I actually wanted or enjoyed playing. Some people score their reviews on enjoyment alone, and that makes it a little tricky. Mid-tier stars like 2.5-4.5 usually actually work better to find good games because of that. By now I go for 90% unrated.
It's also good to have featured games, because you orientate by them first when you are new to the site. Knowing they are decent selected games. I think it would actually be wise to have the way it works mentioned somewhere.

I am good at working through their style and descriptions on gamepages tho, so usually when I see a page I know whether I am likely to enjoy it or not, regardless of rating. Well, I probably pay least attention to the whole description. (helps to go for short games). Not that that would stop me from reviewing them, hah!

It's a system that's especially tricky when you are new, and I think having an additional way to recommend or not recommend games would be lovely to see.
Also, use spoiler tags in reviews. Seriously. I know I am guilty of this too, but for explicit story spoilers or similar it's such a neat thing to do.

I would keep the ratings, for however discouraging they can be, they can also be encouraging and the more information you can get at a glance, the better. It's just important to be wary when it's sitting at a single review, and to always look at the gamepage as a whole.
There are many games I have seen getting a low review score throttling their traffic .. most of the time you'd be better off playing something else, tho, so I can't really say I find that a bad thing.