“AMAZING. 5/5” – GamerPoop
“ABSOLUTELY MIND-BLOWING. 9.5/10” – PPGames
“A MUST-BUY. 98/100” – DrippyButtNetwork
Your heart starts to race. Your palms are sweaty. Your
pupils dilate to the size of golf balls – and at this point you think to
yourself;
“Goddamn, I NEED
DIS!”
It’s your embedded desire to consume a product that, well,
consumes you. You rush over to your local games store and snag the first copy
you see, wide-eyed and eager to play. On the way home you can’t stop thinking
about how awesome the experience is going to be.
…Then, you finally open your front door, run to your beloved
gaming system, pop the disc in, and lo-and-behold…turns out YOU CAN’T
STAND THE FUCKING THING!
“What is this!? I don’t like this at all! NINE-POINT-FIVE
out of TEN!? This has to be
a joke! How dare these gaming media
outlets lie to me! ” – Your Brain
Though fear not, it isn’t your fault; you simply fell for a
tactic that gets so many of us to buy things we don’t want, need, or even
particularly like - and I’d be lying to you if I said I haven’t been suckered by
advertising either. So if you’re like me and have experienced this situation
multiple times, let me explain to you why scores don’t mean a goddamn thing
when it comes to the most significant factor contributing to fanboy wars;
opinions.
I have to be honest here, scores aren’t completely bunk, they’re just terribly misleading and cause people
to believe in certain principles that just aren’t true. Due to the various
types of rating systems out there, there’s a widely perceived and upheld notion
that is represented by the following scientific graph:
As you can probably tell, this graph makes no sense and
rightfully so; this depicts the type of thinking that you’ll find everywhere on
the internet – YouTube, game forums, critic sites with user communities – you
name it. I’m sure if you’re an avid gamer you own/have played games you’ve
genuinely enjoyed with a rating of a 7 or an 8, but according to the graph
above, 8 and below is a turd that isn’t worth your time (and you’re also dumb
for playing it). I’m sure you’d disagree, not only with the sentiment attached
to the rating but as well as the blatant insulting of your intelligence.
If anything, scores are an indicator of which games are much
more likely to appeal to you as
opposed to being an objective, universal judgment of a title’s quality (hence
why they always vary between outlets). Though it’s also important to know that a score is also affected by the context of the genre. This is why there’s almost always a review attached to any score
published by an outlet; they’re essentially glorified disclaimers.
Here’s another scientific graph, this time showing what a
score system really implies:
Amazing difference, right? Though just like in real science,
fake science also has its anomalies; there are popular games out there that
many think are lackluster or flat-out bad
(Dynasty Warriors), good games that never reach commercial success (indie
titles that neither you or I have ever heard of, or ever will), cult
classics (Lost Planet), and titles that drove sales purely off of hype (E.T.). There’s an entire spectrum of variables that renders
that number out of ten completely void, so critical (though subjective) reviews
really are the only things that can give you some sort of idea as to whether or not you’ll enjoy a certain game.
Though at the heart of it, the real issue is this; opinions
are complex constructions of the human psyche and differ greatly between each
person. An opinion on a game (or anything) can present conflicting ideas, a
slew of mechanics mixed with an interpretation of a story, and other factors
like fandom, preferences of button layouts, music, character qualities
and many others also become attributes in forming said opinion. Hoping to fully
represent that with a number is completely foolish in it’s own right and should
never be a concept to exist in the first place – but we do need it to get things to sell, that’s for certain.
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