[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

I never felt IGN was unfairly harsh towards adventures - and in the last year or so they seem to start being (at times) overenthusiastic if anything. See the reviews and scores of CSI 3 or Barrow Hill.

Ok Apology for going Waaay off topic here, but over at JA we were having a discussion on mainstream reviews of adventure game.

I analysed the review scores on 3 AG sites and 3 Mainstream sites of games over the last 3 years or so. (*geek hat*)

Anyway IGN came out pretty well.

Site Average Score for Adventures

Adventure Gamers 69%
Just Adventure 76%
Quandary 75%
IGN 73%
Gamespot 63%
PC Gamer 59%



Ok back to the normal topic

[Melanie68]

That's cool. Great spreadsheet.

[Fop]

How did you convert the Adventure Gamers stars into percentages, Lucien21?

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by Fop

How did you convert the Adventure Gamers stars into percentages, Lucien21?

Multiply by 20 (100/5)

[Fop]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Multiply by 20 (100/5)

That's just not accurate. Three stars is considered a good, above average game. Two stars is considered disappointing and one star abysmal. The corresponding scores according to your system would be 20, 40 and 60. Out of those, 20 and 40 are so low they aren't even used, while 60 is considered very bad and not worth your money.

Perhaps a more accurate system would be 50 + 10x, where x is the number of stars.

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by Fop

That's just not accurate. Three stars is considered a good, above average game. Two stars is considered disappointing and one star abysmal. The corresponding scores according to your system would be 20, 40 and 60. Out of those, 20 and 40 are so low they aren't even used, while 60 is considered very bad and not worth your money.

Perhaps a more accurate system would be 50 + 10x, where x is the number of stars.

50% is average. What you are suggesting is that all games reviewed are 50% or more.

1 star = 20% (20% is pretty abysmal)
2 star = 40% (Just under average or Disappointing)
3 star = 60% (above average)

etc

Seems a fair system.

[Legolas813]

The problem is that nobody considers 50% to be average. Personally, I consider it to be 7-8/10.

[Scoville]

Originally Posted by Legolas813

The problem is that nobody considers 50% to be average. Personally, I consider it to be 7-8/10.

But that's only because game magazines and websites have artificially inflated scores over the years. Ideally, 50% would be average, as it is exactly in the middle.

[RLacey]

It's also untrue that nobody considers 50% to be average, since there are some magazines that are deliberately trying to return to the idea.

[tabacco]

It's not just game Magazines, I should point out. Look at academic grades. F = <60%

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by Legolas813

The problem is that nobody considers 50% to be average. Personally, I consider it to be 7-8/10.

No wonder that people always start to get angry once they see average games getting average scores. Hm, to be honest, I don't think scores did get that inflated to justify a view as extreme as yours. Depends on the site/the mag, though.

That said, scores are overrated anyway.


Hey, Telltalers, what about Sybil puppets? I haven't even played the game, but I'm crushed. So crushed... sniff.

[Jackal]

The real problem is that nobody can speak for "nobody". There's no common grading scheme (or application of grading schemes, at least), so it all depends on individual criteria. It's not quite the same, but this is sort of like arguing whether 32 degrees is hot or cold. It could be either, so you have to know the context to understand it.

The lower end of the AG star scale doesn't convert exactly to percentages, but the higher the number, the closer the correlation. The other thing to keep in mind, though, is that it represents a range. Not every game that gets 4 stars equates with an 80% on the nose. Some might deserve a 76, while another an 84, but a star can't reflect that.

[Legolas813]

Originally Posted by tabacco

It's not just game Magazines, I should point out. Look at academic grades. F = <60%

Exactly. C is considered average. A grade of C is 70-80, which corresponds exactly with my idea of an average game score.

[Lucien21]

That's screwed up.

No way 70-80 is "Average". What kind of grading system is that. Besides tha bad maths.

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Legolas813

Exactly. C is considered average. A grade of C is 70-80, which corresponds exactly with my idea of an average game score.

You haven't seen the entirely pointless GCSE grades, have you?

[Melanie68]

I think that traditional school grades in America of A(90-100), B(80-89), C(70-79), D(60-69), F(<60) is based on a normal distribution of scores typically seen in classrooms where most students score around 70% thus making it 'average.; But that distribution often gets skewed depending on the material tested on and instructors will thus 'curve' the grading scale and shift that normal distribution.

I think it might be erroneous to compare game scores to school grades as you would need to figure out the normal distribution for the game scores themselves and figure out what is average for games.

I hope I'm making sense.

[Legolas813]

Well a C grade USED to be average in U.S. schools, but nowadays grades are inflated and really 80-90% (B) is average in a lot of cases.

BTW, grades used to be even harder 7-10 years ago. A was 94-100, B was 85-93, C was 77-85, etc.

[Jackal]

Grading on a bell curve was obviously thought up by someone on the back end of the bell. Nothing like having a roving frame of reference to make sure no one EVER knows what a grade means.

[Fop]

Well, if you really want 50% to be average, you need to adjust virtually every sites score down quite a bit.

I personally can't remember any site that has 50% as 'average'. Generally, any score below 60% means the game is completely worthless. Scores below 80% do not encourage a purchase.

[Spiwak]

The bell curve isn't a bad system because it doesn't allow for general trends in stupidity or bad education to affect you as a person's score because you'll be graded with the same stupid or badly educated people. At the same time, it allows for general trends in stupidity or bad education to occur in the first place.