A Core Principle

Rocket Slime helped break up the misery of work. The worst thing about working electronics retail is the knowledge that I have a college degree that turned out to be pretty useless.

Over the past year and a half since Carlos and I started Gamers Unanimous, we posted a bunch of reviews on the blogspot and site. Most of them are pretty short, more fitting for a magazine. One ideal that’s always been gospel to us is that reviews should never be tagged with an arbitrary number reflecting the writer’s judgment of it. We believe this for a few reasons.

The 1-10 grading scale for games has been around for a long time, and as time has gone on, the standard for an “average” game has been lost (if it had ever been known at all). The middle ground of the “OK” game gets smaller and smaller as games get bigger in scope. On a 1-10 scale, a 5 should be an average game – and a majority of games should be average (because that’s the definition of average). However, if a game slips below a 7, many gamers consider the writer’s opinion on it to be low and therefore not worth buying.

The 1-10 scale lacks congruity between games, which is to say, one game can be given a lower score but be a better game. This phenomenon occurs most often with sequels – the later is better (and that is written in the review) but receives a lower score. The 1-10 scale limits comparison among a library of games.

Furthermore, some negative (in the eyes of the writer) elements of a game may subtract from the total score, but those elements may not bother all gamers. The subjective nature of passing judgment could repel a potential audience. For example, the writer may not like random battles and doc the game’s total score for an abundance of them. Some readers may not mind or even like random battles but not buy the game due to a lower total score.

A game receiving a lower score than expected can cause disappointment or even outrage among the gaming community. The preconceived notions that gamers have about the quality of a game or a franchise sometimes rise too high for the game to live up to. But sometimes gamers can overlook the shortcomings and give a game a chance. It’s more difficult for gamers to overlook a disappointing score.

The worst result of a 1-10 scale (or a facsimile thereof) is that it bottom-lines a team’s months or years of work. I’d like to think more of a community that I consider myself a part of, but the truth is that many of us just look a the final score and the breakdown for each category. Taking time to read the reviews gives greater insight into reasoning behind the score. Since the 1-10 scale, or whatever system for rating games, is not going away any time soon, we should all take some time to read more often.

Of course, if you took time to read my obscure blog, I’m probably preaching to the choir. But I would like to pose this question - Which is more broken: the scoring system or they way we (gamers) interpret the scores? The answer is probably both. I choose to lay the blame on someone other than myself.

Now for some savage hypocrisy.

Top 5 Reasons 1-10 Scales Suck

1.“Average” no longer exists
2.Little congruity between games on the same rating scale
3.Subjective elements detract from total score
4.preconceived notions causes disappointment in lower scores
5.Years of hard work is erased by a 6.5