Let's talk rating systems

This is something I've been thinking about recently, I've been considering writing a little about board games, and I'm curious what folks think of different rating systems (binary, 4 star, 5 star, 10, 100).

I understand the rating (grade) is the least important part of the review, but when I started researching how people used them (Ebert, Meltzer, Mark Johnson of bgtg), I found it somewhat divisive.

Currently I'm feeling the Siskel/Ebert thumb system might be best. While I see the merit in a numbered scale, the out of 5 and out of 10 systems both have numbers (3 and 7 respectively) that tend to collect more ratings than the extremes, while being the least helpful.

I mention Mark Johnson's (5 star) system because he describes it as avoiding 7's and encouraging 10's. I like the concept of committing a game in that way, thus avoiding half stars, and having to decide if a game is a 6 or an 8.

there has been a lot of discussion on number systems in the world of video game reviews. Tom Chick, RPS and others have taken various stances on the issue.

out of 100 allows for the most precision, but also the most meaninglessness. I don't think you can really say that one game is 67 and another 69 in any meaningful way.

Out of 10, and this is true of out of 100 too, has the problem that the majority of people don't use 4 and 5 that much. The majority of games are ranked between 6 and 9 with 1,2 and 3 reserved as a for particular scorn on games. Essentially most people end up using it as a 5 point scale. The question arises, why not use the whole scale? The problem is, if you decide that 6 is actually a good score and everyone else thinks its bad you end up miss-communicating, especially in the real of metacritic.

out of 5 gives you broad classifications, and i think is probably the best. It gives you a number that allows you to say broadly whether something is good or bad. Some people will feel it doesn't give them enough scope to differentiate between two games that the like slightly differently. My point is that i don't care about slight differences in opinion/quality as my view is not likely to be the same anyway.

Binary is ok. I do like to know with a rating whether something is good or exceptionally good though.

Why do you feel you need a rating? I find the language used by a writer more meaningful than a generic number that is interpreted by people in different ways.

charlest wrote: Why do you feel you need a rating? I find the language used by a writer more meaningful than a generic number that is interpreted by people in different ways.

In short, I don't feel I need one. When I was researching criticism this was something I found interesting and wanted to talk about to flesh out my thoughts on.

I really like the idea of a 5-tier rating system. I might switch mine to that.

I confess, I sort of love rating games on BGG. It's one of the most useful components of BGG for me, the ratings and comments. I frequently gauge the GeekBuddy response to games I'm looking into, so I like to make sure my own ratings are useful to those who use the same tool.

Having said that, I've gotten really sloppy with rating stuff because of exactly what you say. Is this a 6 or a 7? What's the difference? Increasing that granularity between ratings would probably make them a little more useful for me and for everyone.

DukeofChutney wrote: out of 5 gives you broad classifications, and i think is probably the best. It gives you a number that allows you to say broadly whether something is good or bad. Some people will feel it doesn't give them enough scope to differentiate between two games that the like slightly differently. My point is that i don't care about slight differences in opinion/quality as my view is not likely to be the same anyway.

Binary is ok. I do like to know with a rating whether something is good or exceptionally good though.

On the topic of 5 star vs. binary, 3 star is the weird spot.

I liked the 5 star concept so I switched all my BGG ratings to that, across the board, I would give a thumbs down to 1 and 2 rated games, and thumbs up to 4 and 5 games. In 3 there are games I would give both to and I'm not sure what's more helpful, a problematic middle vote, or a thumbs up/down (which is a decisive endorsement).

The use of a rating system is for folks to quickly glance and see how the reviewer felt about the game. Siskel's thought on the thumbs was it would express decisively "go see the movie" or "don't see the movie". 1,2,4,5 all do this, what does a 3/5 tell anyone though? I guess it tells them to read the article, but with the games I've rated 3 is the most common number.

I'm fine with the 1 to 10 on BGG but I'll be honest -- I use it more as a ranking tool than anything else. I'll give a game a 7.5 and look and see: oh my, this game isn't as good as Ticket to Ride Europe and I gave that one a 7.5, so let's back this off to 7.2. The result is that I have a lot of weird numbers in my ratings.

S.

I really need to go through all my ratings and revise them. I've become grumpier and more brutal in my old age and less patient with games that serve no purpose except to sit on a shelf. There are things I've rated a 7 that need to be moved down to a 5 because they seemingly aim right for a decidedly average experience.

I am guilty of pretty much only using a 6 point scale. 1-2 is garbage. 3-4 isn't garbage, but I see no reason to play it. 5-6 is average, run of the mill, Oh Look Another Cubes On a Ship game. 7 means I don't mind playing it, and I'll even ask for it sometimes, but not a real attention getter. 8 is the weirdo grade. It's usually assigned to things I've played once and found interesting. They often either get turned into 9s if more plays show it as a good game or 7s if more plays don't bear out my interest. 9-10 are more or less identical, though I save 10 for my super extreme power favorites with nitro express.

I'd prefer a 4 point scale. Something's either:
1) terrible
2) bad side of mediocre
3) good side of mediocre
4) great

And yes, then you're writing fills in the details and nuances more than a decimal place would.