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News Eurogamer reviews are changing, moving from 4 badges to a 5 star rating system

mazi

mazi

picross pundit
www.eurogamer.net

Eurogamer reviews are changing

Hey again, Tom here. I'm really excited to announce today that Eurogamer reviews are changing. Here's a bit about how, …
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
Hey again, Tom here. I'm really excited to announce today that Eurogamer reviews are changing. Here's a bit about how, and the thinking behind why.

In short, Eurogamer is moving to a five-star review rating system, beginning this week.
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How will it work?

Eurogamer's reviews will rate games out of five stars, with no half stars and no zero stars. We'll continue to not put star ratings on hardware reviews, console reviews and the like, as these are reviews of products or services and serve a different purpose.
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see the article for their reasoning

edit:
PixelKnight said:
They haven’t had scores in 8 years. They used to have four badges of avoid/nothing/recommended/essential.
Meaning that almost everything slotted in ‘recommended’. This is just moving to a five star system rather than a four star one, that people understand a bit more as various other media is reviewed in a similar way.
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Staring with TotK is a choice, given how notoriously crazy a segment of the Zelda fan base gets about review scores. To be honest, I’m a little cynical of the intentions here - seems like this is less about actually improving reviews and more about generating clicks.
 
P1: "Hey boss, how's that TotK review coming along?"
EIC: "... We're changing back to scored reviews."
P1: "Ooookay .... i see. That good."
 
Jbone916 said:
seems like this is less about actually improving reviews and more about generating clicks.
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yep. but when everyone's doing scores, i don't really blame them. maybe at the time they thought there would be a big shift in the gaming media to unscored reviews but there's really just polygon and kotaku who do them at this point.
 
Jbone916 said:
Staring with TotK is a choice, given how notoriously crazy a segment of the Zelda fan base gets about review scores. To be honest, I’m a little cynical of the intentions here - seems like this is less about actually improving reviews and more about generating clicks.
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Are you familiar with Eurogamer at all? I feel like several posts are assuming they’ve moved from scores to out-of-5 stars.

They haven’t had scores in 8 years. They used to have four badges of avoid/nothing/recommended/essential.
Meaning that almost everything slotted in ‘recommended’. This is just moving to a five star system rather than a four star one, that people understand a bit more as various other media is reviewed in a similar way.

I’ve updated the title to add this as some are jumping to conclusions.
 
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The info box to list accessibility features is a great idea.

I understand that reviews are subjective and so have no problem with a scored one! And as @PixelKnight said, they basically were doing four star reviews previous to this. In that sense I get why they’d just move over to the way more familiar five stars
 
Very sad that they gave into industry pressure. I get that they gotta eat, but it's still really sad to see.

Jbone916 said:
Staring with TotK is a choice, given how notoriously crazy a segment of the Zelda fan base gets about review scores. To be honest, I’m a little cynical of the intentions here - seems like this is less about actually improving reviews and more about generating clicks.
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They literally said just as much...

But the reality is reviews without scores will be seen by and read by fewer people, and have less influence on the industry overall. That's more than just a cynical point about 'getting clicks'. Trust me when I say reviews genuinely aren't major traffic drivers for sites like Eurogamer - even the ones you disagree with! - but we believe in our reviews, and their relative visibility and weight matter.
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They aren't trying to hide the reasoning why, it's a matter of survival for Eurogamer as a company. That's how powerful the likes of Metacritic really are now. Ultimately Gamers don't want to actually read reviews, they just want scores and numbers to use as fanboy ammo. That's all that matters.
 
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mazi said:
yep. but when everyone's doing scores, i don't really blame them. maybe at the time they thought there would be a big shift in the gaming media to unscored reviews but there's really just polygon and kotaku who do them at this point.
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Hey Mazi, would you mind adding the para about the badges they used to use to the OP?
 
I somewhat get their reasoning but I'm not a fan of the change to what is essentially a numerical system with very little granularity. For one, I think this will have the adverse effect in that anything besides a 4 or 5 will register as "avoid" for most people (it definitely has that effect on me) which a change to the existing badge system could have fixed. On top of that, I have some concerns about how these scores might be factored on review aggregate sites like Metacritic or Opencritic.
 
Why not ditch scores altogether?

I have massive respect for websites which have done this, and I've seen this suggested by readers. We're extremely fortunate to have readers who care about good writing, who want to read critics who think deeply and seriously about games, who love the medium and who hold it to high standards as a result. And honestly, we're lucky to have readers who just want to read.

But the reality is reviews without scores will be seen by and read by fewer people, and have less influence on the industry overall. That's more than just a cynical point about 'getting clicks'. Trust me when I say reviews genuinely aren't major traffic drivers for sites like Eurogamer - even the ones you disagree with! - but we believe in our reviews, and their relative visibility and weight matter.

Removing scores altogether would feel like running from that problem rather than trying to engage with it - which doesn't feel particularly 'Eurogamer', or like the right thing to do, either. Score-aggregating sites, social media accounts, and internal publisher feedback reports and scored mock reviews will still exist. Developers will still see bonuses tied to metascores. Maybe most importantly, readers - not just Eurogamer's - will still, naturally, compare our reviews to others, because this is just how humans think about things. It's better to get involved.

As much as people focus on them, scores also add at-a-glance usefulness, and so if our reviews can be clear and useful, and entertaining and insightful to read, that's a good thing. My personal hope is also that by seeing our scores amongst the others, people will realise that just as in film criticism, food criticism, or reviews of books or plays or TV shows or just conversations amongst your own friends, people respond to things differently. It would be weird and frankly rubbish if they didn't. Ultimately, we have a better chance of impacting that for the better - and become much harder to ignore - if we get stuck in with scores of our own.
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Dcubed said:
Very sad that they gave into industry pressure. I get that they gotta eat, but it's still really sad to see.



They literally said just as much...



They aren't trying to hide the reasoning why, it's a matter of survival for Eurogamer as a company. That's how powerful the likes of Metacritic really are now. Ultimately Gamers don't want to actually read reviews, they just want scores and numbers to use as fanboy ammo. That's all that matters.
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I don't really like this reasoning at all.

Of course, it's very true for Sony and Nintendo's games. However, those releases account for less than 5% of all game releases. Exclusives are really tiny compared to the vast amount of games out there, and some of the biggest publishers. Studios like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, all tend to have multiplatform titles, and tend to be the biggest releases. In those cases, it's definitely not "Fanboyism" at all.

I really think that people just don't want to spend a lot of time reading or watching reviews. I really think that your average person would read 1 or 2 reviews on their prefered platform, then peruse metacritic for a consensus.

However, since metacritic has a little excerpt of the authors review, it's pretty great advertising if that piques a person interest to read the full work.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
I somewhat get their reasoning but I'm not a fan of the change to what is essentially a numerical system with very little granularity. For one, I think this will have the adverse effect in that anything besides a 4 or 5 will register as "avoid" for most people (it definitely has that effect on me) which a change to the existing badge system could have fixed. On top of that, I have some concerns about how these scores might be factored on review aggregate sites like Metacritic or Opencritic.
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It's not especially important to me, but a 3 star review from Eurogamer might be heavily weighted and effectively a 60% on Metacritic; that's going to nudge some games' aggregate score. There've been big blockbusters in recent years that EG weren't massively enamoured with; the Horizon games come to mind with neither game getting a badge. If that equated to two 3 star reviews for enormous 'prestige' blockbusters, I think you'll see a lot more anger flung EG's way than even those no-badge reviews.

But that's a much bigger problem with a small minded and very vocal minority, and not something EG can do anything about. Personally I kind of like stars; a 3 star movie is something I'll watch if I'm a fan of the genre, or some of the cast or director or whatever. It's a minor psychological thing, but it feels less iffy to me than wanting some that's a 5 on a 10 point scale (but again I'm probably influenced there by years of reviewers predominantly using 7 through 10 on that scale).
 
Lozjam said:
I don't really like this reasoning at all.

Of course, it's very true for Sony and Nintendo's games. However, those releases account for less than 5% of all game releases. Exclusives are really tiny compared to the vast amount of games out there, and some of the biggest publishers. Studios like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, all tend to have multiplatform titles, and tend to be the biggest releases. In those cases, it's definitely not "Fanboyism" at all.

I really think that people just don't want to spend a lot of time reading or watching reviews. I really think that your average person would read 1 or 2 reviews on their prefered platform, then peruse metacritic for a consensus.

However, since metacritic has a little excerpt of the authors review, it's pretty great advertising if that piques a person interest to read the full work.
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The thing is, reviews don't actually influence game sales much at all. Never have done.

Games history is full of critical darlings that flopped and blockbuster successes that were lambasted by the media. Only a very small subset of people (AKA "Gamers") actually read reviews, and most of them have already made their mind up about a game long before its release. You do get the occassional surprise indie critical darling that comes out of nowhere and then goes on to garner some attention, but that is vanishingly rare.

Reviews basically serve to confirm confirmation bias and that's basically it (it's also why you get so many angry people when a review disagrees with the opinion that they've already made up in their mind before they've even played the game). Nobody really uses them as a buying guide unless you're looking at something that has been out for many years prior, long after its release and marketing cycle has concluded.
 
Dcubed said:
The thing is, reviews don't actually influence game sales much at all. Never have done.

Games history is full of critical darlings that flopped and blockbuster successes that were lambasted by the media. Only a very small subset of people (AKA "gamers") actually read reviews, and most of them have already made their mind up about a game long before its release. You do get the occassional surprise indie critical darling that comes out of nowhere and then goes on to garner some attention, but that is vanishingly rare.

Reviews basically serve to confirm confirmation bias and that's basically it. Nobody really uses them as a buying guide unless you're looking at something that has been out for many years prior, long after its release and marketing cycle has concluded.
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it's definitely possible for them to. For example, Elden Ring would have sold well but not to the extent that it did if it didn't get the reviews it did
 
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PixelKnight said:
Are you familiar with Eurogamer at all? I feel like several posts are assuming they’ve moved from scores to out-of-5 stars.

They haven’t had scores in 8 years. They used to have four badges of avoid/nothing/recommended/essential.
Meaning that almost everything slotted in ‘recommended’. This is just moving to a five star system rather than a four star one, that people understand a bit more as various other media is reviewed in a similar way.

I’ve updated the title to add this as some are jumping to conclusions.
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I am very much familiar with Eurogamer, and I liked their current “scoring” approach which didn’t have any numbers, just recommend/non recommend and essential for standouts. I feel that this system is better at making readers actually read the review Instead of just looking for a number.

As noted above, this ultimately is about driving traffic - I’m just not happy about it but I understand it from a business perspective. Starting with TotK in particular feels calculated.
 
Dcubed said:
The thing is, reviews don't actually influence game sales much at all. Never have done.

Games history is full of critical darlings that flopped and blockbuster successes that were lambasted by the media. Only a very small subset of people (AKA "gamers") actually read reviews, and most of them have already made their mind up about a game long before its release. You do get the occassional surprise indie critical darling that comes out of nowhere and then goes on to garner some attention, but that is vanishingly rare.

Reviews basically serve to confirm confirmation bias and that's basically it. Nobody really uses them as a buying guide unless you're looking at something that has been out for many years prior, long after its release and marketing cycle has concluded.
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If that was the case, then publishers wouldn't give out review codes, or have accolade trailers.

If BotW was an 89 on Metacritic, I think it still would have been successful. But so much less so. The metacritic score was kind of foundational to Nintendo's marketing as the Switch kicked off it's launch.


Of course, there are games that jump from the norm. But there is a reason why metacritic has been deemed so important that it determines employee bonuses, and even can solely determine the future of the series. Despite selling really well, Days Gone did not get a sequel because Sony wasn't happy with the Metacritic Score.

I don't necessarily agree with these companies actions, but they occurred for a reason.
 
I like Eurogamer, and am not sure of this choice. I think it's easier to recommend a "bad" game for being interesting than to give the same game three to four stars out of five or whatever. Scores are a more rigid system, and one that people tend to give too much attention to.
 
juuso said:
I like Eurogamer, and am not sure of this choice. I think it's easier to recommend a "bad" game for being interesting than to give the same game three to four stars out of five or whatever. Scores are a more rigid system, and one that people tend to give too much attention to.
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I don't love it, but I absolutely understand the industry pressures driving them to make this decision. As long as it doesn't affect the fundamental goodness of their written reviews (best in the biz!), I can't get mad about it.
 
Love their reviews. All they're doing is entering the real world where scores matter. It's unfortunate, but people love scores. We have people on the thread saying they're disappointed but at the same time engaging in other threads regarding metacritic scores. So, clearly scores are important.
 
MeatheadSamus said:
Love their reviews. All they're doing is entering the real world where scores matter. It's unfortunate, but people love scores. We have people on the thread saying they're disappointed but at the same time engaging in other threads regarding metacritic scores. So, clearly scores are important.
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Yup. The current most popular thread on the site is about TOTK Metacritic score predictions...

Kettle, meet Pot.
 
MeatheadSamus said:
Love their reviews. All they're doing is entering the real world where scores matter. It's unfortunate, but people love scores. We have people on the thread saying they're disappointed but at the same time engaging in other threads regarding metacritic scores. So, clearly scores are important.
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I generally go to Eurogamer for more thoughtful reviews and find that adding a numerical value at the end devalues that experience. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the importance of aggregate scores in this industry, as much as I dislike it. In any case, Eurogamer's new scoring system is incompatible with Metacritic so this feels like a particularly weird comparison.
 
I think scores only really make sense once you have a sense for who a particular writer is and what their tastes are. Then a score can be pretty useful!
 
I know the move in recent years has been away from arbitrary numbers, but I do think they have a place. I barely have time to read some of these reviews as is, and it is nice to be able to get a feel for a game's quality at a macro level without having to read a three page essay about a game.

Obviously you shouldn't let a single number define a game's existence. It is handy to have a quantitative measurement alongside the qualitative, though.
 
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Eurogamer gonna have their first 5 star review in the same week they changed to a 5 star rating system.
 
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Dardan Sandiego said:
In any case, Eurogamer's new scoring system is incompatible with Metacritic so this feels like a particularly weird comparison.
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This is my thought too. I kinda doubt the theory that they're doing this to appease those who demand a number at the end of the review. If anything, this change could make those people angrier, because on a (true) 5-star scoring system the typical value for a good-but-not-amazing game would be 3 stars. That's going to make them regular outliers on Metacritic, where the "good-but-not-amazing" mark is usually late 70s to early 80s.
 
Jbone916 said:
Staring with TotK is a choice, given how notoriously crazy a segment of the Zelda fan base gets about review scores. To be honest, I’m a little cynical of the intentions here - seems like this is less about actually improving reviews and more about generating clicks.
Click to expand...

This applies to literally every review outlet ever.
 
good, i like scores.

i ignore sites that don't have scores, sorry i'm not reading most reviews, just how its going to be.
 
0
as long as the review score is something tacked on at the end and doesn't influence the written piece much, that's fine. a 5 point scale sounds like the best option for them
 
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big lantern ghost said:
I think scores only really make sense once you have a sense for who a particular writer is and what their tastes are. Then a score can be pretty useful!
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I think it really helps SEO and therefor traffic to a site too. At least, it used to be that way. Google picks up on scoring and can highlight the score of content they show users. You do however have to use a 5-point or 10 point scoring system for it to work properly.
 
I’ve always paid more attention to the content of reviews, and to that end, this doesn’t affect me much either way.

Eurogamer is one of the few outlets whose reviews I actually read, and even then, I’m boring. I already know which games I’m going to buy, and I only check reviews to make sure there isn’t some weird swerve I wasn’t expecting.
 
I'm gonna be honest I think the 5 star system is kinda bad. And really it's because of 3/5. 3/5 is not the same as 6/10 but it definitely feels that way. Personally, I think it hurts decent but not so great games. Games that'd typically get a 7 on a 10 point scale. If I see a 3/5 I'm not going to be interested in the game barring a few special exceptions. But a 7/10 will still catch my interest.

If you're going to have a number value for your review I really think a 10 point scale is better. Just more flexibility. Outside of the point system....gamexplain has the perfect review system imo. Something like what they do really relays how they feel about a game without the noise of a number score.

idk if this made sense. It's way too late for me lol.
 
Hocot8 said:
I'm gonna be honest I think the 5 star system is kinda bad. And really it's because of 3/5. 3/5 is not the same as 6/10 but it definitely feels that way.

(...)

idk if this made sense. It's way too late for me lol.
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No, it doesn't.
 
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Honestly, I think pretty much every game should get a “recommended” verdict from game reviewers, because virtually every game has its own merits that will appeal to some people, no matter how wide or niche that potential audience is.

So, rather than using a score—or tiered categories like avoid/recommended/essential that essentially still translate to a score—I’ve always thought that reviewers should just list the specific audiences to whom they would recommend (and/or not recommend, but I’d argue that’s not as necessary and I’d prefer the positive aspects of games to be emphasized over the negative) the game instead.

Basically, it’d be something like “recommended to people who like x gameplay, people looking for a y experience that prioritizes a over b, and gamers who enjoy the z series,” etc. After all, the main purpose of a review is to inform consumers about a product to help them decide if they should buy it or not, so instead of attempting to give a game a one-size-fits-all score (or similar rating), why not be more specific with the recommended audience and use that in place of a score? Seems like a much better system all around to me.
 
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Tye said:
why not be more specific with the recommended audience and use that in place of a score?
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Thank you! Exactly! But unfortunately it seems that consumers at large don't want to do much thinking and would much rather go "oooh high numbers".
 
While I agree Eurogamer probably needed to a slight tweak to their review system, this ain't it chief.
 
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anderson64 said:
Four stars for TOTK incoming
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This aged well. Bravo! 👏

Dardan Sandiego said:
I somewhat get their reasoning but I'm not a fan of the change to what is essentially a numerical system with very little granularity. For one, I think this will have the adverse effect in that anything besides a 4 or 5 will register as "avoid" for most people (it definitely has that effect on me) which a change to the existing badge system could have fixed. On top of that, I have some concerns about how these scores might be factored on review aggregate sites like Metacritic or Opencritic.
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This is where I pretty much landed too. People considering anything unbadged as "sub-par" isn't a problem with the reviews system, that's on the readers and arguably the site for not doing a better job of communicating and educating how to parse the badges. I don't think I ever parsed unbadged games as something avoid, but there was definitely a sense of "Eurogamer Seal of Quality" around the Recommended and especially the Essential badges. Those were unequivocally "must buy" titles in my book.
 
Reedpop are financially screwed because of E3's disappearance so need those Metacritic bucks.
Add a click-bait score for Zelda and job done.
 
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I think this definitely an attempt to drive more traffic and discussion to the site (not referring to their Zelda review specifically). While Eurogamer does often get posted in review threads and people do get excited when they see the words "essential", it doesn't drive as much discussion as seeing a big giant number out of another big giant number. People care about numbers and if your site doesn't have scores, you're not part of that online debate and which means less people are actually checking out the review.

It reminds me many years back when Computer Gaming World magazine (GFW magazine later) removed scores from their reviews entirely. People complained and they ultimately went back to giving scores to the disappointment of the actual reviewers. It's just the way the audience is hard wired to care about a specific number above the actual substance of a review.
 
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