Game debates voting: numerical vs literal?

[GPX | 1,439]

Here is the current VGS game debate voting system (shortened version from 5/10-10/10):

• 10/10 - One of your very favorite games of all time.
• 9/10 - Killer f'ing game. Everyone should play it.
• 8/10 - Great game. You like to recommend it.
• 7/10 - Very good game, but not quite great.
• 6/10 - Pretty good. You might enjoy occasionally playing it.
• 5/10 - It's okay, but maybe not something you'll go out of your way to play.

 

There’s actually 2 ways you can vote for the game from the above:

1. Purely rating it by the numbers and ignoring the description of the scoring system. In other words, the numbers are representing your level of affection for the game.

 

2. Purely rating it by the description and then you pick the number relating to the description.

 

So what then if the score you REALLY want to give, but it doesn’t quite match the description in the above scoring system? For instance, what if you really think the game is freakin awesome, you feel it deserved a 9/10..but..you don’t think “everyone should play it” so do you  go a rung below and score it an 8? Or stick to the initial gut feel of a 9?

 

TLDR - how do you normally vote, by the numbers or by the literal description? “It depends”?

[Sumez | 3,214]

I think the text matches the numbers quite well. But I guess there typically more factors that play a role than what you can sum up in such a single statement, so I veer more towards numbers if I *had* to choose 

[Brickman | 4,308]

I vote off the description Reed gives but they don’t always match my thoughts or how I rate my games.

A 10 to me doesn’t have to be one of my favourite games of all time and a 5 I do think is worth people playing even if it isn’t perfect. I think the 7-9 fits well though.

I also do let historical and nostalgia rate into my own personal ratings on the backlog challenge, but will try to mention that when reviewing it.

Scoring is never a perfect science but I think Reed’s system works well enough for these debates.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,875]

I generally vote based off of my own personal rating system, which would mean I vote based on the numbers, but the descriptions of the numbers match pretty well with my own rating system so it doesn't make too big a difference for me. The only real difference with my rating system is I score both games and movies/shows in .5 increments, so essentially I personally rate things out of 20 rather than out of 10. If I vote on something that I personally gave a _.5 score to, I decide if I want to round it up or down in the poll.

[GPX | 1,439]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:34 PM, Brickman said:

I vote off the description Reed gives but they don’t always match my thoughts or how I rate my games.

A 10 to me doesn’t have to be one of my favourite games of all time and a 5 I do think is worth people playing even if it isn’t perfect. I think the 7-9 fits well though.

I also do let historical and nostalgia rate into my own personal ratings on the backlog challenge, but will try to mention that when reviewing it.

Scoring is never a perfect science but I think Reed’s system works well enough for these debates.

I think once you play a game during an era of nostalgia, it’s hard to rate a game without some kind of nostalgic influence. I also agree with your views on the 10s and 5s, with the 10s not needing to be perfect, and the 5s may still be a recommendation due to some unique aspect even though it may be mediocre as a whole.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,875]

3 hours ago, GPX said:

I think once you play a game during an era of nostalgia, it’s hard to rate a game without some kind of nostalgic influence. I also agree with your views on the 10s and 5s, with the 10s not needing to be perfect, and the 5s may still be a recommendation due to some unique aspect even though it may be mediocre as a whole.

I think it's also perfectly valid for someone to give a game a 5 (or less) just due to it not personally being their cup of tea, even if objectively it's a very good game.

[Hammerfestus | 4,201]

I’m just going by numbers though if it’s on the fence I’ll take some influence from the description.

[OptOut | 9,261]

15 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I think it's also perfectly valid for someone to give a game a 5 (or less) just due to it not personally being their cup of tea, even if objectively it's a very good game.

4/10

[ZeldaFreak | 3,875]

2 minutes ago, OptOut said:

4/10

...Having said that, I've always disagreed with the notion of there being no such thing as a wrong opinion

[Reed Rothchild | 10,065]

6 minutes ago, OptOut said:

4/10

 

This is like a 6 on the literal number scale, and like a 6.84 on the words scale.  I think that comes out to a 13.84 if you use both.

[OptOut | 9,261]

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

 

This is like a 6 on the literal number scale, and like a 6.84 on the words scale.  I think that comes out to a 13.84 if you use both.

I'm planning on finishing Superman this weekend dude... Scoring imminent, and I'm feeling favourable and forgiving... 

[DefaultGen | 5,957]

1-10 scales are too granular. Everything ends up between 7-10 because games in general are entertainment, so how can you rate even a sub-par game a 3/10? It was still kinda fun after all. This will be evidenced when Superman gets a 7/10 from OptOut.

I think either the numbers or descriptions are fine and no one takes them too seriously Opinions are like SMB/DH, everyone has one.

[Reed Rothchild | 10,065]

@OptOut is amateur hour compared to @DarkTone.  That guy is playing debate chess in like infinite dimensions

[TDIRunner | 2,998]

I try to pick the description that matches my opinion of the game/movie/song/band and pick the number accordingly.  I try to be really picky about selecting a 10 and reserve that for my true all time favorites.  Although that last part is a relatively recent decision.  If you go back far enough, you will find I was more willing to hand out 10s.  

[TDIRunner | 2,998]

1 minute ago, TDIRunner said:

 

Double post.  

Edited February 2, 2024 by TDIRunner

[RH | 5,413]

I think the numeric scale is more logarithmic than linear.  This is why anything less than a 6 is near-trash to trash.  7 is meh, 8 good, 9 great and 10 is an all time favorite I can pick-up-and-play near ad naseum.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,093]

14 minutes ago, RH said:

I think the numeric scale is more logarithmic than linear.  This is why anything less than a 6 is near-trash to trash.  7 is meh, 8 good, 9 great and 10 is an all time favorite I can pick-up-and-play near ad naseum.

Linear for me. 5 is an average game. 

[Kguillemette | 1,673]

20 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Linear for me. 5 is an average game. 

Ditto. It's not graded like school work.

[Brickman | 4,308]

31 minutes ago, RH said:

I think the numeric scale is more logarithmic than linear.  This is why anything less than a 6 is near-trash to trash.  7 is meh, 8 good, 9 great and 10 is an all time favorite I can pick-up-and-play near ad naseum.

Defaultgen has said this in another thread and I agree. People really need to overcome this and start being ok with a 5 being the average game. It’s middle of the road. I’ve found some decent stuff, especially movies, rated a 5. 

[Reed Rothchild | 10,065]

44 minutes ago, RH said:

I think the numeric scale is more logarithmic than linear.  This is why anything less than a 6 is near-trash to trash.  7 is meh, 8 good, 9 great and 10 is an all time favorite I can pick-up-and-play near ad naseum.

Which is specifically why the descriptions don't match that line of thinking.

A numeric scale where most of the numbers all translate to "trash" is worthless.

"Oh, Nintendolife gave everything this week a 7/10 or 8/10 again.  Coolness."

[Rhuno | 189]

I very much appreciate the descriptions that go along with the numbers. This makes it much simpler to choose appropriately.

[Splain | 2,876]

I don't always vote in these but I guess I do try to match the description. I hadn't really thought about it actually!

I do like that they encourage people not to give 10s to everything they like, and 0s to well-liked stuff that they hate. It should be a big deal for a song to get even one 10 or 0.

[rdrunner | 461]

Worth noting is that we don't tend to waste our time voting on games that are actually bad.  It seems reasonable to me that we had scores of 5-10 for the games we have gone through.

If we had a bunch more Superman 64's, we could easily see some lower scores.  The question then is whether we care enough to do that?

Edited February 2, 2024 by rdrunner

[LHCGreg | 166]

I map my S to F tiers onto the scale using the descriptions as a guide but not always literally. Like I don't think there's a meaningful difference between me describing a game as "very good" and describing a game as "great".

S->10
A->8-9
B->6-7
C->4-5
D->2-3
F->0-1

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,133]

My biggest struggle is having to choose between the two "never played it" options.