There’s a big problem in game reviews, and no one knows how to fix it.
Many gamers, gaming journalists, publishers and developers believe (as I do) that video games deserve to be classified as an art form like movies or music. But there is one key difference between video games and other art forms — the review scores.
No matter what the medium, writers, bloggers and fans choose the best art through critique. But video game reviews are not treated the same as other media.
For evidence, I point to Metacritic.com, which collects reviews from various print and online publication to come up with one “metascore,” which supposedly represents all of the reviews of a game, movie, album or TV show.
Despite my qualms with Metacritic — it removes any analysis of reviews on the part of the reader and even adds scores to reviews that don’t have any — it is the best example of a flaw in the video game reviewing system.
For movies, television and music, positive reviews are scored 61 out of 100 or higher, mixed reviews are between 40 and 60 and negative reviews are 39 or lower.
Video games, however, are graded on a different scale. Positive reviews start at 75 out of 100, and mixed reviews start at 50. Why the discrepancy?
Metacritic’s help center attempts to explain, but instead just blatantly points out the problem.
“The reason for this special treatment for games has to do with the games’ publications themselves,” it says. It adds that in game reviews, a title has to be in the upper 70s or better to be considered “unequivocally good.”
The help center also says that if a movie, TV show or album gets three stars out of five (or 60 out of 100 on Metacritic, for those doing the math), it is still good enough to see or listen to. So games get — and I quote again — “special treatment.”
But if games are going to be treated as art like television, movies and music, “special treatment” is the last thing the industry needs.
The changes in the Metacritic system show some interesting facts. The top positive game reviews, if you go by the metascores I hate so much, are all in the high 80s or better. For movies? Some of the top positive reviews are in the 60s.
This may mean that game reviewers generally give higher scores to good games than movie reviewers give to good movies. The fact that negative reviews start so much higher point toward the same conclusion.
Maybe the best way to fix this would be to get rid of numbers for every medium. The New York Times does not have numbers on any of its reviews — it lets readers take what they want from them.
Video game website Kotaku.com also got rid of numbers and changed to a more conversational tone in their reviews, ending with a “bottom line” but no numerical rating.
“I think we’ve always tried to avoid having the discussion about a game focus solely on a score,” Kotaku reviews editor Michael McWhertor said in an instant message. “They’re arbitrary numbers that often don’t accurately represent the individual qualities of a game.
“We were never really all that interested in being part of the Metacritic machine,” he added.
Unfortunately, most organizations will be sticking with scores, stars, grades and other ways to make video game publishers feel like they have GPAs. Why? Because many won’t read the reviews otherwise.
So what does the gaming community do?
There’s no clear-cut answer, but there are a few publications that are getting innovative. Kotaku got rid of review scores. Giant Bomb grades out of five stars but does not use half stars. UGO and 1UP.com both provide scores as letter grades rather than numbers.
McWhertor suggested that the key might be transparency. He said reviewers should “clearly state what it is they played while reviewing a title” to provide more clarity in the review.
But at the end of the day, there’s no industry standard for these kinds of things. So whether it is individual publications or Metacritic, the issue will persist.
Perhaps I’m wrong, and things shouldn’t change. Video games are a completely different medium than movies or music, so many may feel there is no problem. Others will point out — and rightfully so — that despite the differences in reviews, many game reviewers do provide tremendous amounts of insight into games and the industry.
I’m not saying I know how to fix this problem. I have no idea how to fix this, or if it can (or needs to) be fixed. But if we do want video games to be considered art just as much as any other medium, shouldn’t we consider critiquing them in a similar way?
afreedman@umdbk.com
