There seems to be an overwhelming trend amongst the video game industry with a usage of numbered rating systems to judge a game. This isn't anything new, many a reviewer throughout the decades for movies, books and games has used a similar number system. The general idea is to give the reader of the review a quick and snappy judgement of a product or piece of entertainments quality and how "good" it is. However I personally do not like these types of ratings for games in particular.
While the idea of being able to look at a game with 6/10 and another with 8/10 it's easy for that to translate to the consumer that the one with the higher number is better. Problem with that is it's very easy for individuals to misinterpret what the reason for a higher rating on a game is. Does a game have an 8/10 because it is the more fun? Does it have an 8/10 just because it functions better with less bugs? Does it have an 8/10 because it's more unique?
Way too many factors come into play to make a number rating consistent and valid. Some people may rate one game higher than another purely based on the theme or content of the game. If for example someone is a huge fan of superhero games then they may naturally give a higher rating towards a good game if it also happens to satisfy their enjoyment of superhero characters. Similarly if a game is of a certain style. Some players may give a higher rating towards a Platformer game if that is a style of game they prefer while another may hive a higher rating to turn based strategy games. As a result they may give lower ratings to other styles of game like racing games, not because the racing game is worse but simply because the reviewer prefers another style more.
Another issue is functionality. A huge factor in a persons enjoyment of a game is to have it actually work. There's nothing worse than spending momey on the latest installment of a persons favourite series, booting up the game, starting up a new file and being met with more bugs than bait shop. If a game has a lot of issues with loading, keeping a consistent frame rate or crashes regularly then that would reflect in someones desire to mke a review score for it. If a game has a lower rating it can indicate it is of poorer quality, however at the same time this can cause further confision. All of a sudden that 8/10 game may have the rating it does not because it is incredibly entertaining but just because it isn't buggy. It could be the most uninteresting or least unique experience ever but hey, at least it works. Does that mean it deserves a higher rating over another game that may have more bugs but is way more entertaining? I don't think sl at least.
It doesn't help that number ratings are also being pushed as a marketting tactic. No big money developer is ever going to advertise their game with "6/10 from WeeReviewer!" on the front of their box, it needs to be an 8 or above. Bare in mind that by most peoples recconning, a 6/10 is not bad at all, it's above average or at least it should be. Nowadays overuse of the number rating system connecting with promoting games means many reviewers will push to give practically any half decent game or half decently functioning game 8/10's or higher. This then means that "on average" any "good" game is a 8/10 and anything lower than that must be bad. It sort of makes the number rating meaningless if even video game masterpieces like Shadow of the Colossus or Okami can wind up having 10/10 ratings to indicate they are near perfect examplea of game design...meanwhile your bog standard First Person shooter than gets churned out every year also gets a 10/10 despite being an "okay" game. It either massivly over rates an average game or vastly under mines the rating of a far better game.
Some reviewers try to fix this by splitting the game into different categories to give each category a rating. Say for example it was split into Graphics, Story and Gameplay. While this is a bit of a better approach as it allows you to see in a little more detail which aspects get what rating, this is flawed as not every game can equally share a set category. Some games for example may not have any form of story so to speak because it's jot a focus of the game, but does that mean it should be marked down for not having one on the same way a story based game gets marked down for just having a rubbish story? Or perhaps a game has rather minimal graphics in favour of having a stylised artstyle, does this mean it should be marked down for this just because it doesn't have extreme hyper realistic texture details on the game worlds random rocks?
I personally try to avoid going off of a number rating when judging a game due to the reasons mentioned above. Way too many games are different and can't be rated in a simple consistent manner to all other games if they don't have a lot in common or aren't for everyone. I prefer reading written reviews or watching video reviews online of different players experiences with the game and their own personal comments and criticism that aren't trying to quantify their opinions with abritary numbers. If I ever plan on doing reviews myself that's exactly what I'll do...in fact that's not a bad idea. Where's my DS?
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