There doesn't seem to be any word from Eli or anything so... Kinda weird but anyway, assuming it's on purpose, this is interesting in seeing how people react. Some people are ok with it, and like having to think about what the author says rather then 1-5 stars out of 1-5 stars. Others say they don't have the time (which I think is bull crap. It'll take maybe a minute to skim it. You don't have a minute? Really?). What do you guys think of it so far?
People will be forced to compose a somewhat critical thought for once. As opposed to skimming through an article, biased due to the amount of stars present
Unfortunately, without really ####ing up the site, we can't remove ratings. All I can do is spend more time regretting not pushing back harder when this was all first being discussed, knowing the terrible dystopian ratings arguments stuffed future we'd be living in.
Got pretty excited earlier seeing Shaun's reviews without the star ratings, but yeah...didn't expect to see them gone for long. Hey, at least Carter "3.5" Dotson has been resurrected.
As a temporary measure maybe all future game reviews could get a default number of stars. You could modify the verbiage to say that the stars are not a reflection of the reviews. Not sure if this would look cloogy or not.
If no stars, stock markets will crash, sun won't rise, crops will die, animals can't survive from the plant death.... Verdict: Zombie Apocolypse... If you need me I'll be digging a bunker and stocking up on ammo and MREs
I was quite impressed with the new rating method on Eurogamer where only only the best and the worst games get a rating of sorts. They assign a badge of "Essential", "Recommended" or "Avoid". Games that don't fit into these categories still get a review, but without the badge. It seems to work well in that the games without a badge may still be good but might not be the reviewers kind of game, so if you were previously interested in the game you'll still read about it. More info below... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-10-eurogamer-has-dropped-review-scores I understand that changing the review score structure would break the site as it is right now, but just wanted to contribute to the discussion. But when it comes down to it, just buy the games you think you'll like!
I think the problem with using badges and that kind of thing is that you're still using a scoring system. Eurogamer cut themselves down to a four-point scale, but it's still there. Now, my preference is that if scores are being used, you use as small a scale as possible. When I was at IGN we were using a 100 point scale and I personally felt that was absolutely ridiculous. TouchArcade's effective 8-point scale is a lot better, but I think it still gets kind of muddy and useless in places. I see pros and cons for scores, and although personally I like to have no scores, I can see why many value them. But if you are going to go no-scores, you really have to go NO scores, or else you might as well not even bother.
