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Posts
Liberty
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CloseWe already ask that people giving quite low or quite high scores make an argument for those scores. If it's a middling score, then they don't need to make as much of one, but low or high? Tell me why you're scoring that much/little.
:shrug:
:shrug:
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=iddalaiHow is hating your game and giving it a low score bad behavior? It seems to me that if someone hates your game, then not giving it a low score would be bad behavior.author=alterego^This also rings true to me.
(...) No matter how much people insist the system is working as intended. When some rando can be given a pass hating on your game and giving it a low score, to give them more even more MS after that would seem like rewarding bad behavior. (...)
MadJak91
30
I think the term "professional" is just used everywhere these days usually talking about quality.
From talks with people elsewhere it is only about getting paid. People usually associate paid product with quality and free product with something of less value. I think it comes from that and lately it does not really matter as you can get cool and crappy stuff from every direction.
So if someone is getting paid for their reviews, it is professional. If not then it is amateur/hobbyist. That is the explanation I got but not about reviews.
You can obviously have crappy paid review.
Honestly, as soon as numbers and stats get involved, people abuse them. The system should work in theory to encourage people as they get rewards but a lot of people simply do it for the reward.
I can get through a field of games right now and write something basic for that sweet, sweet M-score!
Loc, I dislike your posts and you in general.
Oh, what is that? You have games! Let's see.
They suck. You call this a game? One star! Here, have another!
Wait. This game is popular but I do not like it or you. One star!
Obviously not true but you get the point. Something which is really hard to eliminate.
Giving a bad score out of subjective hate for the author or the game is what I would call bad behavior.
My opinion anyway :D
From talks with people elsewhere it is only about getting paid. People usually associate paid product with quality and free product with something of less value. I think it comes from that and lately it does not really matter as you can get cool and crappy stuff from every direction.
So if someone is getting paid for their reviews, it is professional. If not then it is amateur/hobbyist. That is the explanation I got but not about reviews.
You can obviously have crappy paid review.
Honestly, as soon as numbers and stats get involved, people abuse them. The system should work in theory to encourage people as they get rewards but a lot of people simply do it for the reward.
I can get through a field of games right now and write something basic for that sweet, sweet M-score!
author=Loc-Z
How is hating your game and giving it a low score bad behavior? It seems to me that if someone hates your game, then not giving it a low score would be bad behavior.
Loc, I dislike your posts and you in general.
Oh, what is that? You have games! Let's see.
They suck. You call this a game? One star! Here, have another!
Wait. This game is popular but I do not like it or you. One star!
Obviously not true but you get the point. Something which is really hard to eliminate.
Giving a bad score out of subjective hate for the author or the game is what I would call bad behavior.
My opinion anyway :D
Why not give developers the option to turn review ratings on/off for their games (not for certain reviews, of course)? I feel like it's the star/score thing that makes developers a bit uneasy when it comes to reviews and not the actual content of a review.
I don't claim that I know a lot about the market, since I've never done anything commercially, but I don't think that a negative review on RMN has that much impact on a commercial game as a whole. Most commercial games seem to thrive on other portals, like Steam, Humble Bundle, itch.io etc.
I don't claim that I know a lot about the market, since I've never done anything commercially, but I don't think that a negative review on RMN has that much impact on a commercial game as a whole. Most commercial games seem to thrive on other portals, like Steam, Humble Bundle, itch.io etc.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
...You think a game sucking isn't a valid reason for it to get a one-star review? WTF?
Hate for the author is something else but it's not what we were talking about. If you don't think how good the reviewer thinks the game is should be considered when giving it a review, what DO you think reviewers should base their scores on?
Hate for the author is something else but it's not what we were talking about. If you don't think how good the reviewer thinks the game is should be considered when giving it a review, what DO you think reviewers should base their scores on?
It's okay to "hate" on games if the reviewer explains why they hate them. "Ur game sucks -5/5" isn't really saying much on its own, mainly since there are people that will complain about JRPGs not having any FPS gameplay.
MadJak91
30
Nah-ah. Sorry if it sounded that way.
I meant giving a bad review just because you hate the game out of principle and think it sucks just because you want it to suck. Whatever reasons you have.
If it is objectively bad then sure but sometimes that is not the case.
I meant giving a bad review just because you hate the game out of principle and think it sucks just because you want it to suck. Whatever reasons you have.
If it is objectively bad then sure but sometimes that is not the case.
author=Luiishu535
Why not give developers the option to turn review ratings on/off for their games (not for certain reviews, of course)? I feel like it's the star/score thing that makes developers a bit uneasy when it comes to reviews and not the actual content of a review.
I don't claim that I know a lot about the market, since I've never done anything commercially, but I don't think that a negative review on RMN has that much impact on a commercial game as a whole. Most commercial games seem to thrive on other portals, like Steam, Humble Bundle, itch.io etc.
It'd be a great way to figure out if a game is worth playing or not! If someone has their star score turned off, ignore that game. Must be bad if the person isn't waving a 3+ star banner. Of course, then people would start avoiding no-star games altogether, which is sad considering that they're usually only demos that have no stars... or full games that don't have a review yet.
Honestly, our system is fine. It is. People complain but the majority find games easily and can tell whether a game is good or not at a glance. There's also a lot of reviewers who are happy to play and review games when asked.
The only thing that might improve it is tying scores to downloads - if there's a new download added, the older reviews are tied to the old downloads and when a new review is given, it's given preference above the others.
There's also a reason that reviews go through the submission queue - to check for quality and idiocy. And trust me, anything that slips through soon gets found by -someone- and reported. The dramacore practically demands it. >.>
author=MadJak91
Nah-ah. Sorry if it sounded that way.
I meant giving a bad review just because you hate the game out of principle and think it sucks just because you want it to suck. Whatever reasons you have.
If it is objectively bad then sure but sometimes that is not the case.
Again, low star scores need some basis for them - and will get called out if they're just bullshit and fluff. It's been tried before and it's been exposed and dealt with.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I find it pretty hard to imagine that hating a game and thinking it's a bad game would ever not be the same thing.
If you can't articulate why the game's bad then your review will be rejected anyway. Maybe I'm overestimating people's intelligence and I'd understand better if I saw all the rejected reviews. It doesn't seem to be an issue, at least, due to our already-existing review standards.
If you can't articulate why the game's bad then your review will be rejected anyway. Maybe I'm overestimating people's intelligence and I'd understand better if I saw all the rejected reviews. It doesn't seem to be an issue, at least, due to our already-existing review standards.
Honestly? From what I've seen, most rejected reviews are basically just comments (stuff like "This game was great, I really enjoyed it. I love x, they're sooooo cute~<3" ) or bad grammar/spelling. I don't do the review queue, of course, but I might peek at them before they're dealt with by Soli. XD
Hehe, I didn't think of it like that (man, that was a dumb idea xD)!
This sounds like a better idea, yes.
author=Libby
The only thing that might improve it is tying scores to downloads - if there's a new download added, the older reviews are tied to the old downloads and when a new review is given, it's given preference above the others.
This sounds like a better idea, yes.
The thing that people don't realise is that people still play bad games. They do! You'd think "nah, 2 stars? not touching" but a fair few people don't see two stars. They read the description of the gamepage and see the images and think "that looks fun/funny/silly" and play it.
Granted, they might not be leaving reviews, but if we take a look at one of the newer not-great games, we'd find that they still have downloads and people play despite having lower scores. Which is, actually, really neat.
Edit for stats:
Of the new games around this past month 5 have starred reviews. Of those reviews there's a:
-1 star (this is the newest game by a long margin, review wise and time-wise. The review is only 8 days old, the game itself is just over 2 weeks old) and has 21 downloads so far. That's not bad.
-3 star with over 200 downloads.
-5 star with over 200 downloads.
(These two were released within days of each other.)
-3 star (3 reviews - 4/2.5/2) that has over 1000 downloads. The 4 and 2 star reviews were released within days of each other. The 2.5 star released a few days after the 2 star. Even then, people are still downloading.
-3 star with over 200 downloads.
Even with discrepency between star total, there's a lot of downloads happening with these games, and this is barely over a month for the oldest one. I mean, granted, the one-star game does have a lot less, but it is still getting downloads, so...
Of the four games released from the last batch of queue submissions, there's only one with a download, and that one was released 2 days ago (well, more like 1.5) and has 4 downloads so far.
Granted, they might not be leaving reviews, but if we take a look at one of the newer not-great games, we'd find that they still have downloads and people play despite having lower scores. Which is, actually, really neat.
Edit for stats:
Of the new games around this past month 5 have starred reviews. Of those reviews there's a:
-1 star (this is the newest game by a long margin, review wise and time-wise. The review is only 8 days old, the game itself is just over 2 weeks old) and has 21 downloads so far. That's not bad.
-3 star with over 200 downloads.
-5 star with over 200 downloads.
(These two were released within days of each other.)
-3 star (3 reviews - 4/2.5/2) that has over 1000 downloads. The 4 and 2 star reviews were released within days of each other. The 2.5 star released a few days after the 2 star. Even then, people are still downloading.
-3 star with over 200 downloads.
Even with discrepency between star total, there's a lot of downloads happening with these games, and this is barely over a month for the oldest one. I mean, granted, the one-star game does have a lot less, but it is still getting downloads, so...
Of the four games released from the last batch of queue submissions, there's only one with a download, and that one was released 2 days ago (well, more like 1.5) and has 4 downloads so far.
MadJak91
30
author=LibPoint taken! Thanks.
Again, low star scores need some basis for them - and will get called out if they're just bullshit and fluff. It's been tried before and it's been exposed and dealt with.
If the reviews get checked then I guess that is fine. No system is perfect but if you are saying it helps eliminating such blatant trolling then something works!
author=Loc-ZSame thing! Sure!
I find it pretty hard to imagine that hating a game and thinking it's a bad game would ever not be the same thing.
However, I think reviews should avoid personal bias like joining the two.
Let's see...
A LOT of people say that FF7 is overrated trash. They hate it for that reason and it makes it a bad game to them. Yes.
But is it enough to give it a low score?
Low rating is allowed but then I prefer to see points. If presented with points justifying it then fine. I might not agree but if the points sound good enough and I can see why the person said that and rated it that way then we are fine. Disagreed but point of view accepted!
Not arguing with you! Maybe slight miscommunication on my part :D
EDIT: This goes BOTH ways, POSITIVE ratings included.
We do have a process to check for this sort of thing. Reviews that are overly spite-filled or venomous or seem to wildly misrepresent the game generally don't survive the approval process. Same for reviews that seem to exist only to inflate a game's rating. If I don't catch these rest assured that somebody will once its live.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=LibertyThis is unfortunately impossible to track due to externally hosted downloads. And even when downloads are hosted on RMN, a lot of games get updates for minor issues that don't really change the relevancy of reviews.
The only thing that might improve it is tying scores to downloads - if there's a new download added, the older reviews are tied to the old downloads and when a new review is given, it's given preference above the others.
You could give each game developer a button to flag individual reviews as outdated, though. It'd be potentially abusable, but no more abusable than any other system of game version tracking for reviews - developers can always release a new identical version of their game. I don't think reviews flagged this way should stop being counted, I just think they could get text under the link to the review saying "The game developer has indicated that this review is based on an out-of-date version of the game."
I was thinking more a "Until a new review comes along, this is the rating, but when it does, if it's tied to a new download, it gets precedence" thing.
'Weight', as it were.
(Honestly, I'm happy to just go with no star ratings for demos and let the completed games ask for redos when they fix stuff.)
As far as commercial projects go, treat 'em that same as non-commercial. On Steam and other sites it's a bit different because the commercial genre is the majority and it's expected that they're going to be judged against each other, but on RMN there's so many great and amazing free-to-play games that commercial games are going to get judged against because that is what the majority is.
If a commercial game isn't pulling in reviews, it should probably look at what it's doing wrong vs the games that are, and take some notes - because likely the problem is having issue selling itself and that's not something that a commercial game can afford to overlook. That's like the big thing about commercial projects - you have to sell the game and if you're not able to do it on a site like RMN, how in hells name are you going to do it against your peers in the commercial market?
'Weight', as it were.
(Honestly, I'm happy to just go with no star ratings for demos and let the completed games ask for redos when they fix stuff.)
As far as commercial projects go, treat 'em that same as non-commercial. On Steam and other sites it's a bit different because the commercial genre is the majority and it's expected that they're going to be judged against each other, but on RMN there's so many great and amazing free-to-play games that commercial games are going to get judged against because that is what the majority is.
If a commercial game isn't pulling in reviews, it should probably look at what it's doing wrong vs the games that are, and take some notes - because likely the problem is having issue selling itself and that's not something that a commercial game can afford to overlook. That's like the big thing about commercial projects - you have to sell the game and if you're not able to do it on a site like RMN, how in hells name are you going to do it against your peers in the commercial market?
author=LockeZ
How is hating your game and giving it a low score bad behavior? It seems to me that if someone hates your game, then not giving it a low score would be bad behavior.
No, giving a low score isn't bad behaviour.
People who hate on a game for the sake of hate and give bad scores on purpose to screw a game/creator as a main objective, that's bad behaviour.
author=MadJak91
Loc, I dislike your posts and you in general.
That's gonna ring so true in the future, you have no idea! :P :P :P
author=Liberty
Again, low star scores need some basis for them - and will get called out if they're just bullshit and fluff. It's been tried before and it's been exposed and dealt with.
author=Solitayre
We do have a process to check for this sort of thing. Reviews that are overly spite-filled or venomous or seem to wildly misrepresent the game generally don't survive the approval process. Same for reviews that seem to exist only to inflate a game's rating. If I don't catch these rest assured that somebody will once its live.
I would like to believe that but something is wrong, since just some days ago there was that accepted Pokémon review, which was clearly made with the purpose of drama and hate.
author=Solitayre
I'm definitely not in favor of policing what opinions people are allowed to have.
Cute... Ok, first of all, the whole "we ask people to justify their score" is kind of a cop-out. Because the reason it's always some contrived personal reason. "The game is too hard for me, too offensive, too something". Ok, I'm glad you feel this strongly about this particular issue, but what do you think about the graphics? What do you think about the music? Is it good or bad? And if you think this and this and this is good and only this one thing is bad, why the low score? Your conclusion is not supported by your thesis.
I don't want to "police what opinions people are allowed to have". I want them to build upon those opinions. The hope is that by encouraging people to the walk the extra mile it may be easier for them to step back from bias and rate games fairly... The only risk there is would be someone saying: "Why bother? I'd rather not submit a review at all" but who would be that petty?
author=Liberty
That big wall of text doesn't negate the fact that this is an opinion piece and not a review. You don't talk about the systems, the gameplay, the music, the graphics or anything else that makes up the game bar the writing parts you didn't like. You rate the game based solely on one aspect instead of the whole and that really grinds my gears most of all.
^ And the funny thing is that I think many of us can see that there's some sort of a problem there. So why the apologetics? Why not try to address it instead? ...For example, are low rated games still being played? Well of course. But low rated games are less visible than higher rated ones. And with less views, less potential downloads. Now, is the rating unfair? If it is, we can fix that. All I'm saying is let's be more diligent than we're being right now. It may be small potatoes, but the solution is very affordable as well.
But whatever.
