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THE PROBLEM WITH REVIEWS (AND A NEW SUGGESTION!)
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bahlete442456234996
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One more thing worth mentioning is that you never know what the player will see before downloading. Is he just going to check the average star rating? Or will he read the reviews? Will he take a look at the screenshots? All of them? Read the comments below them? Read the gameprofile comments? Read blog posts? You never know. So, you may add some "quick impression" section, but you wouldn't know if the player would take a look at that too. I think there is enough relevant information the way it is.
I don't think so. We've had new people come in fairly regularly and they'll ask something like "which games are the good games?"
...And we'll try to point them to things like the Featured Games list or the New to RMN article, and sorting of ratings for games. But that's not enough, because they can find that on their own, and yet they still ask "wheres dem good games at?"
So they aren't getting enough information, or the type of information they are looking for, or they don't completely trust the information we do provide. And if one person has the wherewithal to mention that they are having trouble finding "good games" (read: games they might want to play), then there are probably hundreds like him who have the same problem.
I'm not suggesting that Impressions are THE answer, or even AN answer, but I am not comfortable just resting on our laurels.
...And we'll try to point them to things like the Featured Games list or the New to RMN article, and sorting of ratings for games. But that's not enough, because they can find that on their own, and yet they still ask "wheres dem good games at?"
So they aren't getting enough information, or the type of information they are looking for, or they don't completely trust the information we do provide. And if one person has the wherewithal to mention that they are having trouble finding "good games" (read: games they might want to play), then there are probably hundreds like him who have the same problem.
I'm not suggesting that Impressions are THE answer, or even AN answer, but I am not comfortable just resting on our laurels.
I'm just saying some changes may be very risky. Anything that sorts "good games" from "bad games" tend to exclude games, bury them into oblivion. Review ratings already does that, in a way. If you search games sorting by rates, you'll pretty much exclude a lot of bad-rated games. If you have lists like "top 10 games", or "top subscribed games", or "top favorite games", "top best-impression games" or anything like that, you'll just make it so that more people play the games that are being played more, and less people play the game that are being played less.
When someone asks "what are the good games here?", there's actually something good about not being able to give a straight answer.
When someone asks "what are the good games here?", there's actually something good about not being able to give a straight answer.
ariedonus
41
post=156391
I'm just saying some changes may be very risky.
I'm not really seeing how adding more rating systems is at all risky. If anything, it's lowering any sort of risk there could be out there and will result to more games being played.
post=156391
Anything that sorts "good games" from "bad games" tend to exclude games, bury them into oblivion. Review ratings already does that, in a way. If you search games sorting by rates, you'll pretty much exclude a lot of bad-rated games. If you have lists like "top 10 games", or "top subscribed games", or "top favorite games", "top best-impression games" or anything like that, you'll just make it so that more people play the games that are being played more, and less people play the game that are being played less.
This is one of the problems the multiple ratings/Impressions would fix. A lot of games are being "buried into oblivion" right now, seeing as games are not getting enough reviews to really show how good or bad it is. Because of the ease of input that is available with quicker ratings options and options available to those who are not really capable of writing a top-caliber review, the input is more frequent and more varied. If anything, more ratings/feedback will pull games out of oblivion, not push them further down.
The point is not to make it so that every game on RMN is going to be played an equal amount, the point is to get more feedback, which is pretty sure fire when you make giving feedback easier. Yeah, the shitty games are not going to get played as much as the good ones; that's how it's supposed to be. What motivation would there be to make a good game if the shitty ones got played just as much? None, except for some sort of self-fulfillment.
post=156391
When someone asks "what are the good games here?", there's actually something good about not being able to give a straight answer.
It isn't hard to give them a straight answer though. That's why it is such a problem. Anyone here can recommend several games off the top of their head that are good, but you often have to ignore what they're currently rated because the scores don't have any accuracy to them.
The reason it matters is because the majority of traffic coming to this site want to play good games, not beta test bad ones. If they download a high rated game from here and it's actually completely terrible, they're going to assume every other highly rated game is just as bad and go somewhere else. Obviously, it isn't in RMN's best interest to leak traffic like that.
I'm strongly opposed to the impressions idea. It's already a problem where malicious users can drag down a game's review score, but having impressions would make it even easier. For example, a ne'er-do-well could click "played the entire game" and then write a generic justification ("story is boring"/"gameplay is unbalanced"/"buggy and bad mapping") and easily wreck a game's score, taking far less effort than writing an actual review.
ariedonus
41
post=202121
I'm strongly opposed to the impressions idea. It's already a problem where malicious users can drag down a game's review score, but having impressions would make it even easier. For example, a ne'er-do-well could click "played the entire game" and then write a generic justification ("story is boring"/"gameplay is unbalanced"/"buggy and bad mapping") and easily wreck a game's score, taking far less effort than writing an actual review.
It surprises me a little that nearly everyone can only look at only ONE end of the spectrum here, instead of the whole thing.
I honestly feel like the negative outlooks in regard to these types of systems is ingrained under false pretenses. Other sites that use this sort of format, and that do it in the right way, really benefit from having it there. Good games get good scores, even with the extremists from both sides pitching in, because the "ok" people are talking too. Sometimes the player scores differ from the review scores, but that's not a bad thing, it just gives potential players more perspectives to base their playing decisions off of.
Yeah, jerks will still be able to be jerks, but nice guys will also be able to be nice guys. Oh! And the "meh" guys will be there too. This leads to a score more representative of the game's actual quality, because it's from everyone's point of view.
post=202441post=202121It surprises me a little that nearly everyone can only look at only ONE end of the spectrum here, instead of the whole thing.
I'm strongly opposed to the impressions idea. It's already a problem where malicious users can drag down a game's review score, but having impressions would make it even easier. For example, a ne'er-do-well could click "played the entire game" and then write a generic justification ("story is boring"/"gameplay is unbalanced"/"buggy and bad mapping") and easily wreck a game's score, taking far less effort than writing an actual review.
I honestly feel like the negative outlooks in regard to these types of systems is ingrained under false pretenses. Other sites that use this sort of format, and that do it in the right way, really benefit from having it there. Good games get good scores, even with the extremists from both sides pitching in, because the "ok" people are talking too. Sometimes the player scores differ from the review scores, but that's not a bad thing, it just gives potential players more perspectives to base their playing decisions off of.
Yeah, jerks will still be able to be jerks, but nice guys will also be able to be nice guys. Oh! And the "meh" guys will be there too. This leads to a score more representative of the game's actual quality, because it's from everyone's point of view.
RRR has a system exactly like this and there is not a single game with a higher average than 3/5. And there are only a few with an average that high.
Well, to mitigate those kinds of issues, I suggested that the Impression score not affect "main" review score of a game.
So if you don't have any faith in that kind of scoring system, just ignore it and use the review score. I am a strong advocate of more information the better.
So if you don't have any faith in that kind of scoring system, just ignore it and use the review score. I am a strong advocate of more information the better.
To be honest, if you think people aren't doing exactly that, you are being silly.
Incidentally, I am also downloading Space Funeral because of Cal's review. But since it is on Mediafire (urg) I had to go to GameJolt to download it.
Incidentally, I am also downloading Space Funeral because of Cal's review. But since it is on Mediafire (urg) I had to go to GameJolt to download it.
MKID232
435
post=202997What's wrong with Mediafire? Isn't it just a normal downloading site?
To be honest, if you think people aren't doing exactly that, you are being silly.
Incidentally, I am also downloading Space Funeral because of Cal's review. But since it is on Mediafire (urg) I had to go to GameJolt to download it.
