Here at Frameloss, we’ve tried out many different review formats to find one that serves you, our fans, the best. We’ve tried flat scores, we’ve tried pros and cons, we’ve tried Buy/Rent/Pass, and may finally have settled on one with our new Triple Threat Non-Denominational Review System, or TTNDRS for short.
In the development of this system though, I kept arriving at the same question: why?
Obviously, the logical reason is that we want to provide you guys with as much information as possible in the limited space we have. An hour a week doesn’t give us much time to bust out a 30 minute review of The Witcher 3 and still cover all the news that’s fit to print. But there is this deep-seeded aversion to scores in the video game industry that is starting to come through, and to me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Many critics will cry “Games are subjective! You can’t score art! What I experience isn’t what you experience!” The fact of the matter, however, is that you CAN score art, and we as a society have been scoring art for a period of time long enough that I’m not sure if “hundreds of years” is even accurate. I have no proof, but I also have no reason to believe ancient Romans didn’t criticize and laud praise on art the same way we do today.
Paintings and sculptures will go in a museum if people like them and they are considered good. Isn’t this a form of rating something? What about movies, books, tv shows, theatre, or any other form of entertainment. Every one of those items gets rated, and often in a similar way. Scales of 0-10 are the traditional medium (thought sometimes you’ll see scales of 0-5, scored in .5 increments, which are really just scales on 0-10), but other do exist as well, such as letter grades or thumbs up/thumbs down.
These scales work exceptionally well for all those mediums, but for some reason there is a large outcry when it comes to giving games scores. In my opinion, the problem boils down to basic semantics: people don’t like being told they’re wrong. If I like something and a review says it sucks, then I’m being told that I’m wrong.
“How can opinions be wrong, CJ?” I hear the question being asked from keyboards across the world. They can’t be, of course. That’s the beauty of a review though: it’s just someone’s opinion. Someone who sat down and experienced this game is passing on their thoughts and opinions to me, another consumer, in an effort to raise awareness before the time comes to make a purchase. The same way your opinion can’t be wrong applies to reviewers opinions as well.
“Games are subjective!” The opposition rages. So is every form of entertainment. I don’t like 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight, so those are books and movies that I would rate poorly. My rating is not the end-all-be-all of it though, as those are both NY Times Best Sellers and extremely successful movies. That doesn’t invalidate my opinion, however, and anyone looking for MY review on those things should be informed enough by the accompanying text that I don’t like it for X reasons, and they should feel free to form their own opinions as well.
“Real reviews are written by credible authors!” Detractors shout. Who determines credibility? Do I need to work for a critically lauded company to be credible? Do I need to have played over 10,000 hours of video games? Are my criticisms only valid if I can “do better” myself? Of course not. Credibility boils down to a few factors: backing up statements of fact with evidence, consistence in opinions, and demonstrating knowledge in the area you’re speaking on.
Credibility actually brings me to my final point: If you are so against the idea of giving something a score and saying that X is better or worse than Y when it comes to video games, you should be against it for every form of media. Things I find funny in a movie are not things you may find funny. Music I enjoy may be very unpleasant for you. All entertainment, and in fact most things in life, are subjective to individual tastes, and as such should fall under the blanket of “Subjective entertainment can’t be scored!”
Personally, I like review scores. They give me a clear idea of stellar games to learn more about, games to learn more about because the concept is interesting, and games to avoid because I find out that I agree with the points made. I don’t think that reviews are made to be aggregated and averaged the way sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes do it, but I do think reviews are a completely valid way to spread information, and that they are exponentially more helpful with a clear metric to measure against.
Comment section is below, please feel free to continue the discussion there. I would love to hear contrasting opinions or even hear that you are coming from the same place. Or just call me names, whatever.