Why 5 stars? (Also, RPGs)

Discussion in 'Site Feedback and News' started by Soarel, Nov 10, 2012.

  1. Soarel

    Soarel Well-Known Member

    Sep 13, 2012
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    The confusion here is the fact that the rating system here is really a 10-point rating system. Why do we use 5 stars if we have half stars? We should either use 10 stars or, as I would prefer, switch to a 4-star system.

    4- this game is awesome

    3-this game is good

    2-this game is ok

    1-this game sucks

    I would really prefer that to what we have now.

    Also, I've noticed that TA tends to avoid reviewing RPGs recently, probably becaus you have to play the whole thing before you get a feel for it. Games like wild frontier and EpicHearts go unnoticed by TA staff but have readers all over them. Why, TA why?
     
  2. crex

    crex Doctor of Game of the Week-ology

    Oct 18, 2010
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    Everywhere and Nowhere
    There current system follows a traditional rating system that a lot of other websites and companies use. The half stars allow them to help separate the perfect-scorers from the almost-therers (No, that's not a word, and yes, I am using it).

    As for the games, they can't get to them all. TA only has a couple full time reviewers with a few being forum members. It either hasn't been noticed or they DID notice it but did not consider it worthy of a front page review.
     
  3. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    Houston, TX
    Respectfully I agree Touch Arcade would benefit from increasing their review scope; the site is implied to be a general game site but it seems like some heavy hitters fly under the radar.
     
  4. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Here's a recent response to an email that we got recently that was very similar (and might have even been the O.P.)-

    As far as why we don't review more RPGs, I think we do a pretty good job of hitting all the major ones. The problem with RPGs is they require a significant time investment to review. I encourage our writers to either finish a game completely or at least play more than enough to have a good handle on the game. For most simple iOS titles, this means maybe playing for a few hours. For even a simple RPG this means potentially playing for days.

    Since, as mentioned above, we only try to cover "good" games, it sucks when a writer comes to me and is like "I'm eight hours into this RPG and it's really just not getting any better," and we scrap the review. In that same amount of time, that same person could've written multiple reviews for other games.

    It's a balancing act, sure, and we've talked about ways to provide more coverage for games that people are talking about in the forums which is something you'll hopefully begin seeing either this week or next.
     

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