I actually like that BGG specifies their scale and try to adhere to it; if everyone on BGG adheres to their scale we should all be rating games on the same criteria and it should result into everyone being the same ballpark. 10 is not a technically perfect game, it's a perfect game FOR YOU. Where as IMDB doesn't have specified scale so I try to mark objectively and tend to be more harsh.
I like the descriptions too. It helps me rate games. And I have used it to decide if I am willing to sell or trade a game or not. It represents my current level of love of a game. Recently I gave a few games a 10 because these are games that I cannot see myself getting rid of.
I don't use those descriptions myself, but do use all the numbers. Well, I haven't given out a 1, but I would. I do use the descriptions for those games on my wishlist though. But I think those descriptions don't include numbers for the wish list.
I have always thought that the description of the "10" ranking on BGG.com should be something more along the lines of: " Outstanding game. Will always want to play if given the opportunity..." The way the description has been there for all these years seems to be saying that "I always want to play this game" - to the exclusion of everything else? Other games? Eating? Sleeping? Maybe Tom can use his vast influence to get Aldie to make the change :-)
Are the ratings comparable across types of games? For example: is a 7 star worker placement as fun as a 7 star cooperative game? Should each category get their own scale? Are we ever going to have an all powerfull score that is actually comparable across game types?
as far as im concerned the number isnt nearly as important as the justification. i see the dice tower guys as being way more experienced than me so when they give a rating and give their reasons, i can better understand why they gave that number and thats more helpful to me. An example... rahdo rated A study in emerald 1st ed. as being not very good for him, but he gave enough reasons why it didnt work as a game for him and his wife. my gaming criteria is different than his and i knew based on his reasons that i would really enjoy the game. turns out i love it! rahdos rating was very infornative because he gave me lots of good reasons why he gave it the score he did. its the reasoning thats important to me.
I don't rate on bgg before playing a game. But I have PERSONALLY rated&ranked a couple games before playing them. Dwellings of Eldervale, for example: I projected myself rating it a 10, and ranking it in my top 10 of all time. Both of those turned out to be accurate. But I mostly do that for my super-hyped games. Games that I watch multiple playthroughs of (and likely even watch a single playthrough multiple times.) So I would say that one can get a good opinion on a game without playing it. But I still don't think they should then go and rate those games on BGG.
Here is my fair method to rate games on BGG. 1. Roll a d20. 2. Divide by 2. (Round up if result lower than 10, Round down if result is higher than 10). For real, I rate games using my point of view on the game unless it is obviously a kid game then I rate it based on my kids appreciation of the game.
For light beginner reviewers, 1-5 star. There is no question what a middle of the road review is there and what a low and what a high score is. For reviewers that can act professional and understand perfectly their own standards, 1-10 stars. As they review a lot of games it will become clear what is good and bad and does add that flexibility. For a mass opinion though, thumbs up or thumbs down. There's a good reason why youtube did away with stars and it's exactly what you said, the group mentality is "This rating isn't what I think it deserves to be, I need to rate this max to tilt it towards what I think!" and I honestly don't think that is wrong of them to do if you're just a passerby-er. I just think rating systems have to be made for these people. It is so much easier and more accurate to say "1000 people like this game and 140 people dislike it!". Don't even have the middle option, middle option is not voting and then their lack of a vote tells you more than their vote would. If something has a LOT of thumbs up, it's probably good, if it has a LOT of thumbs down, it's probably bad, if it's even then it is a very polarizing game. If it has a decent amount of dislikes but a lot of likes, it's a "not everyones cup of tea" game. And don't take light reviewer as an insult. I prefer 5 star myself. I don't know where to draw the line so precisely but I still like giving an in depth review, so I like the simple "don't have to compare it so hard against every game in my collection" kinda review.
I hate attributing numbers/scores to reviews, but I understand why they're sometimes necessary. People don't watch/read full length reviews anymore, especially long ones. Most of the time they just skip to the end to get the final opinions and look for a score. When I'm reviewing something for my personal site I don't use any numerical scale, and I break up the "score" into a few different categories: Set Up/Clean Up Time, Difficulty, and Component Quality. The rest, like personal opinion, is in the review itself.
I consider rating games with the same structure as the Richter scale. You will NEVER have an earthquake that is 10.0 on the scale because it's assuming there CAN'T be a larger earthquake than one designated as 10.0. Once a 10.0 is designated to an earthquake, there can never be a more devastating earthquake. The argument is always "you can't give a game a 10 because there could be a game released better than your 10 rating." You are setting a precedent with a 10. I agree with other comments...you should break down a game into 3-4 categories and then determine your rating. As a group, each person can give a game a rating, then finalize the rating based upon the average score of the group. A 1-person rating system is more subjective to his/her personal taste in games.
Objectivity = Does the game have a rule book? Yes. Does the game have art work? Yes. Does the game have components? Yes. Subjectivity = Is the rule book written well? Is the art work nice? Are the components high grade? As you can see...you will never have a perfect system. Does having a perfect system really matter? No.
I don't look at ratings on BGG as having anything to do with the game. I use the ratings to see what kind of games the player likes to see if I want to contact them about playing that game.
A= Must have, great game, love to play B= Would like to have, good game, like to play C= Don't need to have, but will ask to play D= Don't want, but if you want to play it I will F= Want nothing to do with the game
I honestly think that numbers are defunct. A 9.3 in comparison to a 9.4? A 7 in comparison to 6? An 83% in comparison to a 79%? Of course they help convey preference, but the margins in some scales are ridiculous. One thing I loved about the Dice Tower was the thumbs up system on your Miami Dice segment - it's easy to understand. Really it boils down to: Yes, no, maybe. Three options is all you need to effectively communicate choices. It sounds massively simplistic but it's works. If you want to get more in depth, you add on caveats and explain HOW one game is in relation to another to justify your preference, but 3 options is actually sufficient.
This is why I really really really want a flickchart.com for board games!!! Instead of having to figure out the rating myself I can just let the algorithms do it for me!
I use the Dice Tower system. If a game is good it gets the Zee Garcia rating; if it's decent it gets a Tom Vasel rating; and if I don't care for it then it's off to the Sam Healey corner with it.
I think Sam made the point that defines my rating approach. I am fairly picky in the type of game that I like. I know this and will only play games that appeal to me. Since I am already predisposed to liking the games that I play, my ratings tend to skew higher. If I do not have interest in a game, I usually never play it, therefore am unable to rate it.
Personally I believe your ratings should look like a bell curve. Mostly 5's followed by 4's and 6's and the least 1's and 10's. I read too many reviews where people are like "This game wasn't good there are too many flaws. I don't think I'll ever play this game again" and then they give the game a 6.
Top ten list of games 1-10 or a top ten list of games "3" or less and a top ten list of games that rate a "7". Nice show guys keep up the good work. :)
I see that board game and PC game reviews differ in that higher scores are usually awarded to games that board game reviewer prefers. I guess this is why a top 10 review video takes an hour with you three and not 33 minutes (as if you'd got a 10 game crossover). Personalities are clearly on display with all the DT crew. PC game reviewers are a very different bunch.
I rate on BGG pretty much the same as Sam. I use the textual description of each number. But then if it doesn't quite fit with a 7 or a 6, it get's a 6.5.
I use any fraction, I use .25, .75, or whatever. So I have a very large scale up to 10. I won't use 3 digits (example: .274) but up to 2 digits (example: .75). I would play 5's, 6's, and possibly a 4. But I am not sure if they were discussing playing games that they personally rate low. In this instance I am discussing what others rate a game. Now I do have a "do not play" list, but it is not based on ratings, it's is based on if I hate it, or think it's offensive, true, I might rate these games low, but some I won't rate at all, cause I won't even try them (Cards Against Humanity). So technically I might play a 1 or 2. But at my meetup we usually have 2 or 3 games going on at a time, so there is most often a game that rates higher. I rate things for myself, not others. But we, or at least I, am discussing BGG ratings. I understand Sam uses his own ratings for a review, and understand he would rate a game objectively for others. I wouldn't do that on BGG, and I guess he doesn't either. As far as arguments and discussions about the abuse of BGG ratings, I don't get upset about it and wouldn't even engage in such a thread. Sure I think such abuse is wrong and silly, but I also don't think its even something to get in a big fuss about. I have rated 4 games as 10's, 15 between 9 and 10, 11 at 9. Interestingly, I have not given out any 1's. But I would. I have given 3 games a 2. And 3 games between 2 and 3. And 9 games between 3 to 4. Interestingly, I have given the most games an average of 8. That is 16 games I have rated between 7 to 8.
I figure that any game I buy, I buy after reading/watching reviews to make sure that it's not a cruddy game. And anyone who brings a game to an event, and I play it, has probably done something similar. So while there may be games like Oneupmanship, that are simply bad, or other games which are broken, self-published messes, I'm never going to play those. I can assume that I'm only ever going to play games that are above average. So I generally try to form a bell curve from 5-10.
I rate Time Stories and Pandemic: Legacy as a "1" on BGG, and I stand by those ratings. Any game that is designed to have finite plays out of the box deserves that.
I use the 10 point scale, but I rarely score something less than a 5. The reason is that if it is less than a 5, then I'm dropping it. For me, if I feel a game is below average, I'm dropping it. It is shit. Unless the game is part of a series I really love or if the game is really popular, then I rarely play a game long enough to rate it if it is below a 5.
On the subject of invalidating data, there have been accusations made of designers going onto their games' page and trying to pump up the ratings by giving it 10s, but then there is the flip side, where the people who are bothered by this will go on and rate it a 1, in an attempt to either punish the designers, or counterbalance the initially questionable rating.
I think the only fair way to "rate" a game is to do so according to one simple criteria: what type of player will like this game? Will a social player like it? Will a more details-focussed player like it? Does it involve lots of player interaction or is it a more analytical process where each player takes their turn and considers their next move silently? What mechanics does it incorporate that people may like / dislike? In other words, you're not really saying whether it was good for you. You're saying whether you think it would be good for different types of gamer. Speaking personally - I don't like Euro-style "cube-shufflers" - and I don't really care how well the game does that particular dynamic, it's not the kind of game I'd be interested in. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate that it might be a very good example of such a game that might appeal a lot more to people who DO like that particular type of game. It's not for me, but it might be for others.
If a rating scale doesn't put average quality games at 5, I can't find any use for it. When people give games they don't like and have problems a 6, you're just using a shorter scale. It's 1-to-10. There needs to be a 1 and a 10.
You are correct in that the person is just shorting the scale, but you cannot say their lowest value is simply a "1" on your scale. That is a correlation you are making, and is almost definitely wrong.
A scale that starts at *one* and ends at *ten* is a 19 point scale. However, no human has the subjective ability to accurately use such a scale. As stated in the video (and by science), just by considering a game, it is really likely to fall in a given range (like six to nine). Once you have enough data in your scale you begin to make comparisons (a top 100 list) and you naturally want to be more decisive. So the problem: everyone's scale is slightly different. Tom's might contain 12 values that he actually uses. My scale might contain 7 values. To make things worse, you cannot "tare" a personal scale to make it work in general scale. If my first value is 6 and Tom's first value is 3.5, that does *not* make them the same value simply because they are the first number of each respective scale.
A 1-10 scale with .5 increments between is actually a 19 point scale, not a 20 point scale. 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 ... I might need to go outside more often.
This whole "You can never use 1 or 10" thing is ridiculous to me, because it doesn't actually improve things at all. It just moves you from an eight point system, in which you presumably can't use 2 or 9 either now.
I disagree. If a 1 is a static position at the bottom of all games that exist, then the games that deserve a 1 are games that I would never play. By itself, that means that I should not be rating anything as a 1. I would be shocked if any game that my friends own and I could possibly end up playing would get less than a 4 from me.
The 5 star rating works but most people seem to like 1-10. If you look at the majority of the games they rate 6-8 on BGG. It's almost like the one through five is useless. One through five is just more levels of hate the game gets. Lol.
You should base your rating on your own opinion and preface that with what type of games you normally gravitate toward. For instance, I am typically a Eurogamer first, then an Ameritrash players, then a light card game sort. I typically don't like social deduction games. When rating One Night Ultimate Werewolf, I'd probably give it a 4 or 5. Does this make it a bad game? No. I have plenty of friends who will like that game because they like Social Deduction games. Another example would be Cards Against Humanity. Tom hates the game because it is crude humor. I like the game because I have a sometimes dark, and often juvenile sense of humor. Games are art and art is subjective.
"Objective" rating really is insanity! You put your subjective opinion aside to consider other subjective opinions (but not all of them). Mentioning what other people might think is a noble gesture, but the rating should be your own opinion.
Yep. Unless you have clear cut criteria, and goals to hit that make it a perfect 10(like diving contests in the Olympics), there's really nothing more to it than 1-hated it/want my time back, 10-loved it/lets play again, 5-normal game on a shelf.
8 лет назад+2
I sometimes buy games that I know are not going to be my favourite games but are going to make good gateway or family games. And when games bring joy to my friends then this also makes me happy and I can appreciate these games for that. Maybe, if all my friends and family were also rating games on Boardgamegeek, then I wouldn't take their opinions into account.
I like arbitrary ratings, because really, they're arbitrary. What someone rates highly might not get the same rating from me. I give this game 4 Chocolate Chips Cookies out of a Cup of Milk is just as informative as many numbers someone might hand out.
I really think ratings are kinda dumb, you can't say that well this game got a a ten and this game got a one so i must like the ten game better and but I don't know any thing about the game there useless. that having been said I think if reviewers I don't think a review is worse for having a rating.
Exploding Kittens and Cards Against Humanity get a 1. They are broken in the since they should never be played by any creature every. The cards are not fit for toilet paper.
I will never get tired of that intro. So awesome.
I am really enjoying BackTalk a lot. Thank you for bringing us this new show.
"Ratings Justice Warrior " should be your next shirt logo
"Actually, it is about ethics in board game reviews."
You an also try to rate a game by breaking up it up into categories; say 0-2 points for it's components, 0-2 for rules, 0-2 for enjoyment and so on.
I enjoyed this one. Thanks!
I actually like that BGG specifies their scale and try to adhere to it; if everyone on BGG adheres to their scale we should all be rating games on the same criteria and it should result into everyone being the same ballpark. 10 is not a technically perfect game, it's a perfect game FOR YOU.
Where as IMDB doesn't have specified scale so I try to mark objectively and tend to be more harsh.
I like the descriptions too. It helps me rate games. And I have used it to decide if I am willing to sell or trade a game or not. It represents my current level of love of a game.
Recently I gave a few games a 10 because these are games that I cannot see myself getting rid of.
I don't use those descriptions myself, but do use all the numbers. Well, I haven't given out a 1, but I would. I do use the descriptions for those games on my wishlist though. But I think those descriptions don't include numbers for the wish list.
What about the ratings influencing the two Dicetower awards: seal of approval and seal of excellence? Are these linked to specific ratings thresholds?
Yes, its in their FAQ (I believe its #2) here: www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/208190/dice-tower-faq
I have always thought that the description of the "10" ranking on BGG.com should be something more along the lines of: " Outstanding game. Will always want to play if given the opportunity..." The way the description has been there for all these years seems to be saying that "I always want to play this game" - to the exclusion of everything else? Other games? Eating? Sleeping?
Maybe Tom can use his vast influence to get Aldie to make the change :-)
Are the ratings comparable across types of games? For example: is a 7 star worker placement as fun as a 7 star cooperative game? Should each category get their own scale? Are we ever going to have an all powerfull score that is actually comparable across game types?
as far as im concerned the number isnt nearly as important as the justification. i see the dice tower guys as being way more experienced than me so when they give a rating and give their reasons, i can better understand why they gave that number and thats more helpful to me. An example... rahdo rated A study in emerald 1st ed. as being not very good for him, but he gave enough reasons why it didnt work as a game for him and his wife. my gaming criteria is different than his and i knew based on his reasons that i would really enjoy the game. turns out i love it! rahdos rating was very infornative because he gave me lots of good reasons why he gave it the score he did. its the reasoning thats important to me.
I don't rate on bgg before playing a game. But I have PERSONALLY rated&ranked a couple games before playing them. Dwellings of Eldervale, for example: I projected myself rating it a 10, and ranking it in my top 10 of all time. Both of those turned out to be accurate. But I mostly do that for my super-hyped games. Games that I watch multiple playthroughs of (and likely even watch a single playthrough multiple times.) So I would say that one can get a good opinion on a game without playing it. But I still don't think they should then go and rate those games on BGG.
Here is my fair method to rate games on BGG.
1. Roll a d20.
2. Divide by 2. (Round up if result lower than 10, Round down if result is higher than 10).
For real, I rate games using my point of view on the game unless it is obviously a kid game then I rate it based on my kids appreciation of the game.
so what color watch wristband are you gonna get, Sam? can't remember what your default player color is, though :P
2:06
Zee: But you don't use half steps?
Sam: I do, only if I "half" to.
Nice (unintended?) pun, Sam!
As per the discussion at the end, it sort of a debate between relative rating of a game vs absolute rating of the game.
For light beginner reviewers, 1-5 star. There is no question what a middle of the road review is there and what a low and what a high score is. For reviewers that can act professional and understand perfectly their own standards, 1-10 stars. As they review a lot of games it will become clear what is good and bad and does add that flexibility.
For a mass opinion though, thumbs up or thumbs down. There's a good reason why youtube did away with stars and it's exactly what you said, the group mentality is "This rating isn't what I think it deserves to be, I need to rate this max to tilt it towards what I think!" and I honestly don't think that is wrong of them to do if you're just a passerby-er. I just think rating systems have to be made for these people. It is so much easier and more accurate to say "1000 people like this game and 140 people dislike it!". Don't even have the middle option, middle option is not voting and then their lack of a vote tells you more than their vote would. If something has a LOT of thumbs up, it's probably good, if it has a LOT of thumbs down, it's probably bad, if it's even then it is a very polarizing game. If it has a decent amount of dislikes but a lot of likes, it's a "not everyones cup of tea" game.
And don't take light reviewer as an insult. I prefer 5 star myself. I don't know where to draw the line so precisely but I still like giving an in depth review, so I like the simple "don't have to compare it so hard against every game in my collection" kinda review.
I hate attributing numbers/scores to reviews, but I understand why they're sometimes necessary. People don't watch/read full length reviews anymore, especially long ones. Most of the time they just skip to the end to get the final opinions and look for a score. When I'm reviewing something for my personal site I don't use any numerical scale, and I break up the "score" into a few different categories: Set Up/Clean Up Time, Difficulty, and Component Quality. The rest, like personal opinion, is in the review itself.
I like numbers myself, and wish the Dice Tower would use them on all their reviews, but I also don't think it's vital, so it doesn't bother me much.
Audio is kinda weird and scratchy in my headset.
I consider rating games with the same structure as the Richter scale. You will NEVER have an earthquake that is 10.0 on the scale because it's assuming there CAN'T be a larger earthquake than one designated as 10.0. Once a 10.0 is designated to an earthquake, there can never be a more devastating earthquake. The argument is always "you can't give a game a 10 because there could be a game released better than your 10 rating." You are setting a precedent with a 10. I agree with other comments...you should break down a game into 3-4 categories and then determine your rating. As a group, each person can give a game a rating, then finalize the rating based upon the average score of the group. A 1-person rating system is more subjective to his/her personal taste in games.
Objectivity = Does the game have a rule book? Yes. Does the game have art work? Yes. Does the game have components? Yes.
Subjectivity = Is the rule book written well? Is the art work nice? Are the components high grade?
As you can see...you will never have a perfect system. Does having a perfect system really matter? No.
I don't look at ratings on BGG as having anything to do with the game. I use the ratings to see what kind of games the player likes to see if I want to contact them about playing that game.
A= Must have, great game, love to play
B= Would like to have, good game, like to play
C= Don't need to have, but will ask to play
D= Don't want, but if you want to play it I will
F= Want nothing to do with the game
I honestly think that numbers are defunct. A 9.3 in comparison to a 9.4? A 7 in comparison to 6? An 83% in comparison to a 79%? Of course they help convey preference, but the margins in some scales are ridiculous. One thing I loved about the Dice Tower was the thumbs up system on your Miami Dice segment - it's easy to understand. Really it boils down to: Yes, no, maybe. Three options is all you need to effectively communicate choices. It sounds massively simplistic but it's works. If you want to get more in depth, you add on caveats and explain HOW one game is in relation to another to justify your preference, but 3 options is actually sufficient.
This is why I really really really want a flickchart.com for board games!!!
Instead of having to figure out the rating myself I can just let the algorithms do it for me!
I use the Dice Tower system. If a game is good it gets the Zee Garcia rating; if it's decent it gets a Tom Vasel rating; and if I don't care for it then it's off to the Sam Healey corner with it.
I think Sam made the point that defines my rating approach. I am fairly picky in the type of game that I like. I know this and will only play games that appeal to me. Since I am already predisposed to liking the games that I play, my ratings tend to skew higher. If I do not have interest in a game, I usually never play it, therefore am unable to rate it.
Now I kinda want to try Boom-O
Personally I believe your ratings should look like a bell curve. Mostly 5's followed by 4's and 6's and the least 1's and 10's. I read too many reviews where people are like "This game wasn't good there are too many flaws. I don't think I'll ever play this game again" and then they give the game a 6.
So far this video has a perfect "rating".
Top ten list of games 1-10 or a top ten list of games "3" or less and a top ten list of games that rate a "7". Nice show guys keep up the good work. :)
I see that board game and PC game reviews differ in that higher scores are usually awarded to games that board game reviewer prefers.
I guess this is why a top 10 review video takes an hour with you three and not 33 minutes (as if you'd got a 10 game crossover).
Personalities are clearly on display with all the DT crew.
PC game reviewers are a very different bunch.
I rate on BGG pretty much the same as Sam.
I use the textual description of each number. But then if it doesn't quite fit with a 7 or a 6, it get's a 6.5.
I use any fraction, I use .25, .75, or whatever. So I have a very large scale up to 10. I won't use 3 digits (example: .274) but up to 2 digits (example: .75).
I would play 5's, 6's, and possibly a 4. But I am not sure if they were discussing playing games that they personally rate low. In this instance I am discussing what others rate a game. Now I do have a "do not play" list, but it is not based on ratings, it's is based on if I hate it, or think it's offensive, true, I might rate these games low, but some I won't rate at all, cause I won't even try them (Cards Against Humanity). So technically I might play a 1 or 2. But at my meetup we usually have 2 or 3 games going on at a time, so there is most often a game that rates higher.
I rate things for myself, not others. But we, or at least I, am discussing BGG ratings. I understand Sam uses his own ratings for a review, and understand he would rate a game objectively for others. I wouldn't do that on BGG, and I guess he doesn't either.
As far as arguments and discussions about the abuse of BGG ratings, I don't get upset about it and wouldn't even engage in such a thread. Sure I think such abuse is wrong and silly, but I also don't think its even something to get in a big fuss about.
I have rated 4 games as 10's, 15 between 9 and 10, 11 at 9. Interestingly, I have not given out any 1's. But I would. I have given 3 games a 2. And 3 games between 2 and 3. And 9 games between 3 to 4.
Interestingly, I have given the most games an average of 8. That is 16 games I have rated between 7 to 8.
I figure that any game I buy, I buy after reading/watching reviews to make sure that it's not a cruddy game. And anyone who brings a game to an event, and I play it, has probably done something similar. So while there may be games like Oneupmanship, that are simply bad, or other games which are broken, self-published messes, I'm never going to play those. I can assume that I'm only ever going to play games that are above average. So I generally try to form a bell curve from 5-10.
Great arguments!
I'm with Sam on this.
Audio not the best unfortunately.
New table?
I rate Time Stories and Pandemic: Legacy as a "1" on BGG, and I stand by those ratings. Any game that is designed to have finite plays out of the box deserves that.
You lack a soul. :-P lol
So you would rate the experience of your life, and the life of anyone else, a 1 then?
I use the 10 point scale, but I rarely score something less than a 5. The reason is that if it is less than a 5, then I'm dropping it. For me, if I feel a game is below average, I'm dropping it. It is shit. Unless the game is part of a series I really love or if the game is really popular, then I rarely play a game long enough to rate it if it is below a 5.
On the subject of invalidating data, there have been accusations made of designers going onto their games' page and trying to pump up the ratings by giving it 10s, but then there is the flip side, where the people who are bothered by this will go on and rate it a 1, in an attempt to either punish the designers, or counterbalance the initially questionable rating.
I think the only fair way to "rate" a game is to do so according to one simple criteria: what type of player will like this game? Will a social player like it? Will a more details-focussed player like it? Does it involve lots of player interaction or is it a more analytical process where each player takes their turn and considers their next move silently? What mechanics does it incorporate that people may like / dislike? In other words, you're not really saying whether it was good for you. You're saying whether you think it would be good for different types of gamer.
Speaking personally - I don't like Euro-style "cube-shufflers" - and I don't really care how well the game does that particular dynamic, it's not the kind of game I'd be interested in. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate that it might be a very good example of such a game that might appeal a lot more to people who DO like that particular type of game. It's not for me, but it might be for others.
Kickstarter backers that rate a game a 10 the day they back it...that's such a wonderful thing to do right chaps?
I've rated games 9.6 and 8.7 and such. Damn, I need serious help.
If a rating scale doesn't put average quality games at 5, I can't find any use for it. When people give games they don't like and have problems a 6, you're just using a shorter scale. It's 1-to-10. There needs to be a 1 and a 10.
You are correct in that the person is just shorting the scale, but you cannot say their lowest value is simply a "1" on your scale. That is a correlation you are making, and is almost definitely wrong.
OK, this is good but we really need a new top 10 soon.
A scale that starts at *one* and ends at *ten* is a 19 point scale. However, no human has the subjective ability to accurately use such a scale. As stated in the video (and by science), just by considering a game, it is really likely to fall in a given range (like six to nine). Once you have enough data in your scale you begin to make comparisons (a top 100 list) and you naturally want to be more decisive. So the problem: everyone's scale is slightly different. Tom's might contain 12 values that he actually uses. My scale might contain 7 values. To make things worse, you cannot "tare" a personal scale to make it work in general scale. If my first value is 6 and Tom's first value is 3.5, that does *not* make them the same value simply because they are the first number of each respective scale.
To state it more quickly, scales often become a fight between causation and correlation.
Too short guys! :D
The cake is a lie!!
Tom actually has over 20 different game (systems) rated a 10 on BGG!!!
A 1-10 scale with .5 increments between is actually a 19 point scale, not a 20 point scale.
1 1.5
2 2.5
3 3.5
4 4.5
5 5.5
6 6.5
7 7.5
8 8.5
9 9.5
10
... I might need to go outside more often.
And 0.
And 0.5... it's actually a 21-point scale.
+Jeremy Snyder nicely put
This whole "You can never use 1 or 10" thing is ridiculous to me, because it doesn't actually improve things at all. It just moves you from an eight point system, in which you presumably can't use 2 or 9 either now.
I disagree. If a 1 is a static position at the bottom of all games that exist, then the games that deserve a 1 are games that I would never play. By itself, that means that I should not be rating anything as a 1. I would be shocked if any game that my friends own and I could possibly end up playing would get less than a 4 from me.
The 5 star rating works but most people seem to like 1-10. If you look at the majority of the games they rate 6-8 on BGG. It's almost like the one through five is useless. One through five is just more levels of hate the game gets. Lol.
You should base your rating on your own opinion and preface that with what type of games you normally gravitate toward.
For instance, I am typically a Eurogamer first, then an Ameritrash players, then a light card game sort. I typically don't like social deduction games.
When rating One Night Ultimate Werewolf, I'd probably give it a 4 or 5. Does this make it a bad game? No. I have plenty of friends who will like that game because they like Social Deduction games.
Another example would be Cards Against Humanity. Tom hates the game because it is crude humor. I like the game because I have a sometimes dark, and often juvenile sense of humor.
Games are art and art is subjective.
"Objective" rating really is insanity! You put your subjective opinion aside to consider other subjective opinions (but not all of them).
Mentioning what other people might think is a noble gesture, but the rating should be your own opinion.
Yep. Unless you have clear cut criteria, and goals to hit that make it a perfect 10(like diving contests in the Olympics), there's really nothing more to it than 1-hated it/want my time back, 10-loved it/lets play again, 5-normal game on a shelf.
I sometimes buy games that I know are not going to be my favourite games but are going to make good gateway or family games. And when games bring joy to my friends then this also makes me happy and I can appreciate these games for that. Maybe, if all my friends and family were also rating games on Boardgamegeek, then I wouldn't take their opinions into account.
I like arbitrary ratings, because really, they're arbitrary. What someone rates highly might not get the same rating from me. I give this game 4 Chocolate Chips Cookies out of a Cup of Milk is just as informative as many numbers someone might hand out.
My rating system is a lot simpler. Love it. Like it. Meh. Don't like it.
I really think ratings are kinda dumb, you can't say that well this game got a a ten and this game got a one so i must like the ten game better and but I don't know any thing about the game there useless.
that having been said I think if reviewers I don't think a review is worse for having a rating.
Exploding Kittens and Cards Against Humanity get a 1. They are broken in the since they should never be played by any creature every. The cards are not fit for toilet paper.
easy, I don't rate my games