Videogame Reviews – when did 70% become average? by Brash Games

Ever notice all the 4 star reviews plastered over movie posters? In the world of movies, music and pretty much any other form of entertainment open to critique, a 4 star review is something to be very proud of - something worth showing off. Oh, unless that form of entertainment happens to be videogaming.

To put things into perspective, a 4 star rating equates to an 80% review score. Can you imagine Infinity Ward or Ubisoft celebrating the latest 80% review score to drop on Matacritic?

[B1663r]

Uh, iirc way back in school, (St Johns, Toledo Oh) a 70% was solid D. IIrc 69%-76% D, 76-84% C, 84-96% B, 96-100 A.

The Jesuits were hard teachers. I learned more at that Catholic high school than I did in State College. Bio-Chem was a breeze though.

[Valk]

Life isnt school and its time to stop expecting it to be.

[bobrea]

You asked the question and he answered it.

[anh_duong]

life is like a box of chocolates

[blackmagic]

Breaking news: when movies brag about a four star rating it's because the reviewer is rating on a four star scale like Ebert, Sun, Daily, etc etc. A four star movie = 100% not 80%

[Troll-without-Bridge]

Well thats just the US system. Thats not how it works for most countries.

Also average by definition is the middle point after summing all of its parts and divided by the number of samples.

So in a scaled of 0 to 10, 5 is average.

[FamilyGuy]

4 years ago, moving on...

[HolyOrangeCows]

I remember last gen when games used to brag on the cover about getting EIGHTs.
Only the pinnacle of great gaming would see a large amount of 9s/10s.
Reviews have definitely shifted in what's considered average, and a 7 these days is definitely average by 90% of reviewers' standards.

[morganfell]

When did 5/10 cease to be halfway. Halfway as in medium...mediocre...average?

[iDotDotDot]

As I recall videogame reviews have always been on the lax side.

Most games reviewed by IGN get an average of about a 7~8.A FEW games get low scores like 5s and 2s but thats mainly for XBLA or PSN games.

What happened to the good ole days when people just told it like it was.

[Corrwin]

When publishers started demanding 80%+ scores before developers get more money.

It's funny to see somebody describe a game as average, then give it a 70% without a hint of irony.

Why do these idiot's need 1-7/10 to tell them how bad a game is, but only only 8-10/10 to tell them how good it is?

[xXxSeTTriPxXx]

64 dollars a f'ing disc says 7/10 is average.

[BlackSpartan187]

When I read the article , that was exactly the point I was going to make. When video games are $60.00 a piece. Of course, I want the best of the best. Movies and Music are around $10.00 , so yeah an 80 score is fine. Plus, there is so much stuff that is put into video games. Gameplay, sound , graphics, presentation,design, and story. And it is an interactive entertainment that takes hours of my life away. So I do not have time playing 70 rated games, when there are 90 rated games that are way better. Movies and Music are around 1 to 2 hours, so I do not mind as much if the movie or music is not oscar or grammy worthy. And if turns out bad , I did not waste to much of my time and I would not be out of a lot of money.

[Blaine]

Probably because we pay 60+$ for a game rather than 10$ to watch a movie or buy a CD.

I agree that people are way too obsessed over scores nowadays, but I'm not about to go and spend 60+$ on a game that isn't very good.

That being said, I'm always the first one to say scores don't mean shit. Also, reviews are borderline useful to begin with.

[gillri]

hence why I love edge reviews

[KingPin]

it started when the original halo got a perfect 10! coz after that, for a game to be considered any good, it had to get something remotely close to a perfect 10. reviewers shot themselves in the foot with this one. hell, unreal tournament 99 to me and everyone else is a perfect 10 but the most that scored was like 96 or so. the original deus-Ex was also bout 97. if games like those never get perfect scores, you know back then reviewers were fair. nowdays its all garbage. the whole scale is off!! journalist are fanboys/girls. reviews are biased and try to make one system superior over the other. for them to go back to how it was is gonna be incredibly hard if not impossible, purely coz gamers now are used to associating good games with scores no lower than 90% for them to see a score of 80 on a game like killzone3/C.O.D/homefront would burn their eyeballs.

[Valk]

Speaking of movies. They spend 200 million making a movie and turn a profit letting people watch it for 10.00. Maybe more people would be buying games if they were in the 30-40 price range?

[iDotDotDot]

Good point, but movies have a larger ,market. Don't forget about DVD and Bluray sales.

If games were set at that price it would probably be multiplatform games, while exclusives will probably stay at 60

[Valk]

Yes but gaames may reach that larger market if they actually were priced right.

[shades72]

It's not as black and white as 5/10 = average. There's also things to consider like target audience. LEGO games for example might not appeal to jonny COD player, but for little Timmy might be the pinnacle of gaming. It's kinda not fair if a reviewer uses the same critera reviewing a kids game as they do a game aimed at their demographic.

[smithdown]

There are two scales here: 5/10 is the median, in that it is the middle score on a scale of 10. It is the average value of an individual game's quality on a scale of 10, the allocation of which will likely take in to account the reviewer's experience with similar titles or even all videogames.

However, 7/10 CAN become the average score when it is the MODE, i.e. the most frequently used score. If out of 1000 games 600 of them are scored 7/10, then 7 becomes the average score, or mode.

The fact is that games have gotten better over time and as a result the average score per game has increased, so 7 has become the MODE score. At the same time our expectations of games have increased and changed, to the point where a game being score a 7 (above average quality) becomes the norm, i.e. the average. As a result we tend to look at games getting below 7 as being below average quality. As games are expensive, we are less likely to spend money on titles that are of lower quality than other available titles, even if they are of above average quality if not directly compared to others.

The only way to get back to 5 being perceived as the average score is to erase or discount all knowledge and experience of games from the minds of reviewers, and possibly gamers. Which isn't very practical, obviously.

[Blaine]

Well said. I think with each new gen the review system has a chance to re-calibrate itself. When the PS3 was just released, review scores for most of its games were harshly low. Some of it was pure fanboyism and hate on the part of the reviewers, but some of it was also that there was much room for improvement.

As you say, games are getting better--not only overall, but within hardware generations as well. So now that games are so much better than they were at launch (in general--there were, of course, some definitely great games to come out near launch) it makes sense that they'd been judged harshly back then.

[Pillville]

I agree with the article. They should stick the the 5 scale.

If you hear 3 out of 5, you think "could be good".

If you hear 60%, you think "what a piece of sh1t".

[coryok]

in the US 70% has been average since schools had a grading system

[Pillville]

Reminds me of this:

http://picayune.uclick.com/...