New rating system idea...

[hanselthecaretaker]

So my fellow gamers, i was thinking about how when I was single I used to play games I didn?t even enjoy all that much, just to finish them because I generally had the time. It skewed my perception of the games, and made it difficult to accurately critique them.

Now? I only have so much time to play even one game, so my parameters for judgment and continuing to play a title have shifted into terms of how much I enjoy playing the game.

An example of this proposed rating system, which naturally encompasses all technical, artistic, design, mechanics, etc. you think is vital to enjoying a game would be:

100% is a game you enjoyed playing literally 100% of the time. This is the holy grail of scoring, and of course an extreme rarity. A benchmark game, if you will.

0% of course would be a game you enjoyed playing 0% of the time.

Then there is everything in between. It?s a simple system that distilled games down to their essence: interactive entertainment that is meant to be enjoyed.


What do you think?

 

[Pyrian]

There's no room in it for enjoying a game more at a given moment.

 

[CaitSeith]

*raises a hand*

Sorry, what was the "new" part again?

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I think personal ratings and judgements about games are secondary and only really useful if one knows that persons tastes better (and happen to agree with them 100% about game tastes).

Much better would be to describe the game as objectively as one can.
Not as much the story or happenings (unless relevant), but the mechanics, movement-style, camera, DRM, lootboxes, bugs, game engine tied to framerate, etc, and things that will Actually Help people decide if the game is to their liking and preferences.

There is a reason games are not movies, and should therefor not be rated as movies are.

If one is thinking that it would make for a boring read (really?) and samey across all rating sites (valid), then that is where the secondary, subjective writing comes in.

That is what I would want out of a (p)review anyway.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

A good reviewer can convey their personal tastes in an objective maner.

An objective review is too inacuarate in portraying enjoyment (or lack off).

The point of this thread still is about what @hanselthecaretaker wants (to rate enjoyment).

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I?m thinking of testing this on RAGE the original since it?s only $10 on Steam and apparently as many hours for the SP campaign. It?s a game I?ve always wanted to try but after hearing horror stories on how it runs I never bothered. But now I can run other Tech 5 games like Wolfenstein TNO no problem on my new rig, so just might check out RAGE soon for something different now that the sequel has renewed my interest.

I think if it rates 80% or higher I?ll play through it, even though I?m also really into God of War now. That?s pretty much a solid 95% for me currently.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I can't disagree because that's how I rate everything regardless of medium. Time is the most important resource and every element of a game should be in the game because it's crucial to the core game along with good execution obviously vs just in there to extend the experience or just in there because every other game is doing it. The Dishonored series is one of my favorite recent IPs because the games are sorta like a Bethesda game in the sense there's a lot freedom along with a lot of optional lore to read (from notes to books); however, the Dishonored games are so dense and have something interesting every 5 feet vs having to travel across a wasteland or forest to hopefully find something interesting. Same thing with any other medium, especially how TV has gotten so good recently and now most movies kinda feel like a waste of time (or at least a poor allocation of time) because I usually feel like I could've used those 2 hours to watch a few episodes of a good TV show with continuing characters and plot that I'm more invested into and gotten more enjoyment out of that time spent. I haven't watched the Hobbit movies because they just don't seem like they are worth the 9 hours of time from the feedback I've gotten from friends and whatnot.

 

[Aerosteam]

Sure, dunno if it will replace the current arbitrary system game reviewers use but it would be good to include in reviews.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I can't disagree because that's how I rate everything regardless of medium. Time is the most important resource and every element of a game should be in the game because it's crucial to the core game along with good execution obviously vs just in there to extend the experience or just in there because every other game is doing it. The Dishonored series is one of my favorite recent IPs because the games are sorta like a Bethesda game in the sense there's a lot freedom along with a lot of optional lore to read (from notes to books); however, the Dishonored games are so dense and have something interesting every 5 feet vs having to travel across a wasteland or forest to hopefully find something interesting. Same thing with any other medium, especially how TV has gotten so good recently and now most movies kinda feel like a waste of time (or at least a poor allocation of time) because I usually feel like I could've used those 2 hours to watch a few episodes of a good TV show with continuing characters and plot that I'm more invested into and gotten more enjoyment out of that time spent. I haven't watched the Hobbit movies because they just don't seem like they are worth the 9 hours of time from the feedback I've gotten from friends and whatnot.

Yeah, that's another one that I've kinda wondered about. I've heard a lot of good things, and I definitely like open-ended, creative gameplay. There was always something else I was playing though. I might give that a go instead of RAGE.

 

[Signa]

I'm always open to hear about new ways to gauge an experience. The problem is that the current system, for all its flaws, actually works. It may be subjective how a reviewer arrives at a score, but it's practically an objective fact that if a game's score falls below 70, hardly anyone will find it playable, if not a complete waste of time. Somehow, without actually being able to articulate it, we all agree that some games just are better than others, objectively. And those games, while being subjectively assigned a score by a reviewer, are games we all agree are good or bad. There's always going to be outliers, but most of you would be hard-pressed to go through a list of your favorite games and find their assigned scores to be low or considered to be of poor quality to the rest of the gaming public.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I can't disagree because that's how I rate everything regardless of medium. Time is the most important resource and every element of a game should be in the game because it's crucial to the core game along with good execution obviously vs just in there to extend the experience or just in there because every other game is doing it. The Dishonored series is one of my favorite recent IPs because the games are sorta like a Bethesda game in the sense there's a lot freedom along with a lot of optional lore to read (from notes to books); however, the Dishonored games are so dense and have something interesting every 5 feet vs having to travel across a wasteland or forest to hopefully find something interesting. Same thing with any other medium, especially how TV has gotten so good recently and now most movies kinda feel like a waste of time (or at least a poor allocation of time) because I usually feel like I could've used those 2 hours to watch a few episodes of a good TV show with continuing characters and plot that I'm more invested into and gotten more enjoyment out of that time spent. I haven't watched the Hobbit movies because they just don't seem like they are worth the 9 hours of time from the feedback I've gotten from friends and whatnot.

Yeah, that's another one that I've kinda wondered about. I've heard a lot of good things, and I definitely like open-ended, creative gameplay. There was always something else I was playing though. I might give that a go instead of RAGE.

The 1st Dishonored is probably the most open-ended because every target has an alternate and elaborate way of "eliminating" them. If you've ever seen a StealthGamerBR Dishonored video, you can tell the options for taking out enemies and getting through the levels is basically limitless. To me the games should be played totally with creativity in mind vs just playing them as a run-of-a-mill stealth game because you'll probably be disappointed with that approach.

I'm always open to hear about new ways to gauge an experience. The problem is that the current system, for all its flaws, actually works. It may be subjective how a reviewer arrives at a score, but it's practically an objective fact that if a game's score falls below 70, hardly anyone will find it playable, if not a complete waste of time. Somehow, without actually being able to articulate it, we all agree that some games just are better than others, objectively. And those games, while being subjectively assigned a score by a reviewer, are games we all agree are good or bad. There's always going to be outliers, but most of you would be hard-pressed to go through a list of your favorite games and find their assigned scores to be low or considered to be of poor quality to the rest of the gaming public.

I honestly don't find it a new way to rate something because that's how critics in other mediums rate stuff and it's worked just fine all these years. Sure, most game rated below a 70 aren't usually very good, but if you're just going by that as games to eliminate as not being good, you still have at least 90% of games left because it's quite an accomplished for a game to be rated below 80. That's the inverse of Sturgeon's law that 90% of everything being crap. Do you actually think video games are basically batting 0.900 with regard to good games to bad games while much older mediums are only batting 0.100? I certainly don't and there was a 3-year span where I didn't give a game an 8/10 or higher that I played until Dishonored 2 actually broke that string (in November 2016). I don't find the current system working at all when reviews are basically advertisements for games instead of professional criticism.

 

[Signa]

I honestly don't find it a new way to rate something because that's how critics in other mediums rate stuff and it's worked just fine all these years. Sure, most game rated below a 70 aren't usually very good, but if you're just going by that as games to eliminate as not being good, you still have at least 90% of games left because it's quite an accomplished for a game to be rated below 80. That's the inverse of Sturgeon's law that 90% of everything being crap. Do you actually think video games are basically batting 0.900 with regard to good games to bad games while much older mediums are only batting 0.100? I certainly don't and there was a 3-year span where I didn't give a game an 8/10 or higher that I played until Dishonored 2 actually broke that string (in November 2016). I don't find the current system working at all when reviews are basically advertisements for games instead of professional criticism.

As a sliding scale, yes, games are kinda fucked up where there's only a 3 point margin between awesome and garbage. The thing the scale doesn't predict is how unique or memorable the games are, but thats extremely subjective. Half-life 2 set a lot of standards when it came out, yet playing it now feels so basic and bland. The medium is extremely volatile right now because new games are working out kinks and making great games of the past retroactively bad. You can't wrap that into a score at all. For me, 8/10 means it met basic competency in being a game, and if it's the only game you've ever played, you're guaranteed to have a good deal of fun with it (hence, meeting basic competency) because you don't know what to compare it to, or what will come out in the future to steal everything it did and improve it.

Do you remember Crazy Taxi? There was practically no point in playing that game after GTA3 came out, because it had a game mode that did the exact same thing. There may have been some more charm that Crazy Taxi had over GTA3, but for the audience that wanted to drive people around in taxis, GTA3 did that and so much more.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I honestly don't find it a new way to rate something because that's how critics in other mediums rate stuff and it's worked just fine all these years. Sure, most game rated below a 70 aren't usually very good, but if you're just going by that as games to eliminate as not being good, you still have at least 90% of games left because it's quite an accomplished for a game to be rated below 80. That's the inverse of Sturgeon's law that 90% of everything being crap. Do you actually think video games are basically batting 0.900 with regard to good games to bad games while much older mediums are only batting 0.100? I certainly don't and there was a 3-year span where I didn't give a game an 8/10 or higher that I played until Dishonored 2 actually broke that string (in November 2016). I don't find the current system working at all when reviews are basically advertisements for games instead of professional criticism.

As a sliding scale, yes, games are kinda fucked up where there's only a 3 point margin between awesome and garbage. The thing the scale doesn't predict is how unique or memorable the games are, but thats extremely subjective. Half-life 2 set a lot of standards when it came out, yet playing it now feels so basic and bland. The medium is extremely volatile right now because new games are working out kinks and making great games of the past retroactively bad. You can't wrap that into a score at all. For me, 8/10 means it met basic competency in being a game, and if it's the only game you've ever played, you're guaranteed to have a good deal of fun with it (hence, meeting basic competency) because you don't know what to compare it to, or what will come out in the future to steal everything it did and improve it.

Do you remember Crazy Taxi? There was practically no point in playing that game after GTA3 came out, because it had a game mode that did the exact same thing. There may have been some more charm that Crazy Taxi had over GTA3, but for the audience that wanted to drive people around in taxis, GTA3 did that and so much more.

To me, games are extremely subjective and having the vast majority of reviews fall within a couple points of each other just doesn't make sense. I legitimately find Witcher 3 to be a below average game but where's any professional criticism reflecting that? On the other end, I loved MGS4 and it sitting at an AVERAGE score of 94 is even more than I would rate it. Are you seriously going to tell me every reviewer digs Kojima's brand of camp and cheese so much to score that game even higher than hardcore Metal Gear fans? Kojima is a rather love it/hate it game director especially when his games lean heavily on his writing like MGS2/4. Why isn't there any reviews below a 5/10 where certain reviewers couldn't stand the writing even if they found the gameplay good because the cutscenes far outweigh the gameplay?

How is a game just being competent an 8/10? And why should games be rated on how good they are for a first-time player? Kids or older first-time gamers are going to start playing games made for kids or the are rather low-weight to the mechanics. It's like no one that's new to board games is going to start with Through the Ages or Twilight Imperium so why would either game be rated with regards to a first-time player? There's several video games a first-time player would have a horrible time playing even when they are great games. Most people playing games have played many games like many moviegoers have seen many movies. All mediums have room to grow, video games more so than most but there's always a new movie or book or whatever setting new bars. A lot of times you can tell a game (even if setting the bar at its time) could get better. For example, I knew 3rd-person shooters could get much better when I played Syphon Filter and Winback (the 1st cover shooter) back in the day.

GTA has always been a game where it does all of this stuff just OK but if you really like a certain thing, you partake in the game that focuses on that thing because it will do it better than GTA. Crazy Taxi is a better taxi game than GTA. Or a racing game is almost certainly a better racing game than GTA. A dedicate 3rd-person shooter is probably a better shooter than GTA. And so on and so on.