GameSpot revamping reviews June 25

I liked the tenth of a point system much better. Big difference between a 7.1-7.7 or others in that range. Change it back!

This was one of the worst things that ever happened to GS.

*been

this is perfect for me!it's so hard to rate a game with 8.7 or 8.2 for example instead of 8.0,8.5...i've would have been lost if the rating system would'nt have like it's now!

WHAT THEY WERE THINKING??????

The new review system is really bad. I used to like checking up on reviews like everyday. Now im here like once every two weeks. Too bad GS. You were once king.

on the other hand the increasing stupidity among people would make sense for such a change.so I guess gamespot needs to make the correct adjustments. why could'nt you simply add this to your old system and change it as an enhancement only.Why remove the old system that was so helpful?

Bloody Hell Gamespot are you that f@#*ing lazy!!! The old system was perfect and while reviews are your opinons, their justification could be followed by others but now it makes no sense.and having 60 badges is terrible!! and needlesly complex!!

This sucks. GS sucks now. Their forums were good, now they suck, and the only good thing that was left, the reviews, suck now aswell. Farewell GS, I'll no longer read your reviews.

WTF!!! What now, gamespot has to dumb down the review system so retards can understand that barney's adventure has a 5.1 score? So what about games with good graphics but **** story line, bad replayability but good fun for the first time, etc....

Its also not clear whether they 'Scale up' thier ratings e.g. 8.1 in the old system is not rounded down, but up to 8.5 just to please publishers and developers so they can splash it about on thier box, it would make commercial sense as you more likely to get your badge on the site, or b ox. Its okay to simplify things if they are too complicated why didnt they just convert it to a percentage, easier to understand, and is transparent, where as the new system isnt. Im glad i buy PC Gamer UK for reviews

Stupid Feature... I'm probably going to stop reading these reviews now. *sigh* The 100 point scale was much better, and if anything, should have been made more complicated and accurate.

"In our quest to make our reviews as straightforward and easy to understand" Wow, you don't put much faith in your readers. Why would you decide that it is a good idea to scale back your reviews? Your ratings had meaning on a .1 scale, now they just resemble a cheesy game magazine.

This sux. The End

Gamespot is dumbing down to appeal to the broadest "newbie gamer" demographic. Honestly, I go to eurgamer more and more. Its like Gamespot was 6 years ago.

It sucks, this seems a way of avoiding the fanboy hate for giving a 360 game .1 of a mark more than the PS3 version by reverting to a hideous whole or half point score system. Bring back the old style, this new one is terrible.

i'm always visiting your site for your reviews but gamespot, why in god's name are you doing this? i liked your usual reviews but why change to this? now you're becoming as horrible as other game reviewers like IGN, gamepro and EGM because i'm feeling bored now on going to your site anymore. i give your horrible review revamp a 1.0 out of 10 period.

I thought the medals and demerits were a great idea. But look at their pop-up explanations - it seems Gamespot is now really trying to cater those that were introduced to gaming Monday last week.

Hmm, YEAH, totally great decision. Let's dumb it down even more by using "LOL" and "OMG" more frequently.

How much negative feedback and simple logic does it take to get a response out of the editorial staff? If this is about playing chicken with subscribers, I hate to say it, but gamespot will lose big time. I never thought I'd say this, but as of this moment IGN is waaaay ahead of gamespot in terms of detailed reviews under this new format. Given that the bottom line scores between IGN and Gamespot are usually close, it's not a hard call if Gamespot doesn't shape up. To add insult to injury, the thread to which we were all originally directed in the forum to discuss issues with the gamespace and review ( http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_topics.php?board_id=314159277 ) has now been restricted to JUST gamespace issues. Never mind that 95%+ of the comments are negative feedback about the reviews. Never mind that a similar directive to a similarly well organized thread hasn't been started to field those issues. Sorry Gamespot, but playing ostrich with your head in the sand is going to come back to bite you. How many veteran subscribers (read: reliable income for CNET) will it take for your bosses to start making angry noises?

So, I'm reading the new transformers game review, with all that fancy new upgrades Gamespot has made to their review system. As usual, the written part of the review is a typical, solid piece of writing that points out all the pros and cons about a game. Then the bad set in: Upon reading about how much the reviewer approved of the voice acting and graphics, I automatically scrolled up to see "how good" these two things were, and immediately realized that I no longer have a guage value to compare against the written review and other games. I felt lost and empty inside...okay maybe not seeing as i have no care about that particular game. However, when a game comes out that I am looking forward to possibly purchasing, you will find my happy butt cruising reviews on OTHER websites in hopes that I can see exactly what it is about a game that makes its review score so high/low. YOU'RE CHASING AWAY A LOYAL FAN!!! Oh and those badges...I'm glad someone feels the need to apply boyscout logic to video game reviews. I spent just as much time trying to figure out what each badge meant as I used to spend reading the good and the bad sections. There is no useful change present in any of this nonsense. This site has officially become more ridiculous and shady than some random fan site that says "Halo 2 is teh HAXXORs!!!" I mean honestly, if I wanted these kinds of review scores, I'd go to IGN...wait no even they haven't stooped this low yet. WHAT DO THESE NUMBERS MEAN? WHY DO I CARE ANYMORE?! I'm a gamer who wants a crisp balance between graphics, sound, and gameplay. I'm far less critical of RPGs, and am hypercritical of FPSs. Under the old rating system, I could get a general idea as to whether or not I'd like a game. Now...I have no bleeding idea. I don't care what yall say, unless I see how the average score was achieved, I stand by my statement that ya'lls reviews are no more than the personal and biased opinion of the gamer who has written the particular review. Prove me wrong...please. Oh, and bring back Kavasin. He wouldn't have let something so retarded happening...or maybe that's just me wanting to blame Gerstmann.

The score breakdowns into the 5 different areas of gameplay, graphics, etc. were a big reason i liked Gamespot reviews so much. If you take that away, you just have a generic number sitting on top of a generic review. At least keep the numerical rating for gameplay, graphics, sound, and value. It's too much hassle to read deep into the reviews of every game to figure out those details.

GG Gamespot.

The new review system is horrible. Seriously change it back! The good review system was one of things that separated and made gamespot far better then other game reviewing sites. Now it's just far too simple, it's not like 5 yr olds come on this site anyway!

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

new transformers review is up. review system is as awful as we imagined, but now that the system is functioning this news thread isnt ven featured in the news categories anymore. seems like they know how we'll react and just dont want to hear it.

The FF Review is a complete step down version of the old review. You have no info on the graphic, value, gameplay on the start, no quick info anymore, its a complete step down and I'm very, very desapointed with this new review format and yes, its enough to cancel my subscription if this thing stay here.

Oh god, go look at the "new" review (the FF review up now). Jeff Gerstmann is going to need a LOT more than a patronizing blog entry to justify stripping gamespot of any accountability and value. I'll give them a week to shape up or I'm taking my money and walking. I doubt I'll be alone.

Gamespot may begin rounding game reviews as many have mentioned (8.3 to 8.5 and 8.2 to 8.0). Or, they may loosen their reviews completely. Since they are apparantly removing the current scoring criteria (gameplay, graphics, sound, value, and tilt) a game earning 9.5 now may be dropped to an 8.5 due to the redistribution and weighting of criteria that has been maintained by the current scoring system. There are some sites throwing out 10 out 10 on games receiving 9.5 and below on Gamespot. That would surely widdle away at Gamespots review credibility. How could they not end up providing more subjective, less congruent game reviews if they remove their system for scoring? If they do not provide a legitimate base for how they reach their numerical score aside from the written review they are effectively exempt from any credibility they now have. All in all, the result will be a less accurate ordinal scale between games.

Perhaps users should be given the choice of having the reviews given in 0.1 increments or 0.5 increments? Have 0.5 the standard but then put in the option of changing to 0.1 increments in a fairly obvious place.

there's a difference between 8.1 and 8.4 and now we'll never know... thanks for checkin in with your site users 1st gamespot, as you can see from these posts hardly anybody is down with this system..

I really don't see this as a good thing... How will we ever actually know if one game is more worth the $$ than the other with this dumbed down system... Guess I'll be checking reviews elsewhere and not Gamespot..

Well that's pretty lame. Why would GameSpot take out the .1 increments? Pointless and stupid. Change it back, GS.

Pleeease keep .1 rating intervals. The rest sounds okay.

I'm a little confused by this. It sounds like Gamespot is changing their review process, not the user review process. As opposed to being in 1 point increments, the reviews will be more granular in .5 increments.

Change it back!!! Seriously, of the almost 2000 user comments on this thread 99% want to keep the old review point scale. I think the people have spoken out quite soundly on this issue

for over a year i've been keeping with GameSpot's accurate rating system of games, and for countless times the reviews made me stay away from games that i would otherwise hate if bought. but now this new system is horribly stupid. why would it be easier to have 0.5 increments instead of 0.1? that's just... i dunno. sometimes, a buyer's decision to buy games hinges on that 0.1.

Lame. Who's bright idea was this? Did you guys even consider putting up a VOTE about what the READERS want??? As said before, there is a definite difference between a 9.7 and a 10, or an 8.8 and a 9... Gamespot, just because you guys get tired of your own website doesn't mean you have to go changing things periodically to make it better.

well, it seems the general consensus is that the new review system oversimplifies ratings and eliminates the subtleties between and 8.8 and a 9. GameSpot's main support comes from their fans and they should give them enough respect to listen to our advice and keep the old review system while adding medals/demerits.

i do like the whole adding in medals and stuff like that, but on the other hand taking out the .1 scale system and now having a .5 scale system is completely stupid. How is the system you had before confusing to people ?? and alot of people made some good points about how a 10 isnt going to have that "OMFG" factor about it and how a 8.8 and a 9.2 are both going to be a 9. that is sooo messed up gamespot. please go back to the .1 pt scaling system, that was one of the reason i liked this site soo much. :(

Sounds like they got lazy, now they don't have to spend as much time playing a game since it will be much more broad with the .5 increments.

I wonder if this is done to keep their advertisers (publishers) happy. Publishers need good ratings to help sell games. This way they can 'hide' the true rating better. Nobody will review the various stickers and emblems. Comparison will mostly be made on the final rating. So if they no longer have to distinguish between 7.3 and 7.7, they can claim ignorance to two publishers and keep both happy. Bad for the consumer, good for Gamespot.

Medels - great idea for obvious reasons. However, that other idea belongs to your sister site Lamespot or Gamespot for monkeys. , I pretty sure most of us have that decimal concept understood. I guess the brains of the operation left a few months back, please bring back Gregg before you start censoring other thought-provoking concepts. If it aint broke don't fix it.

It's funny that they haven't made any statements yet to the people

This... is bad. Really, reviews need to be accurate. There is a big difference between 7.8 and 8.0, theres an even bigger difference between 7.5 and 8.0! Lets say one game gets 7.5 and 8.0 with the new system, but with the old one they both would have gotten 7.8! Or if two games get 8.0 when when deserved an 8.0 and the other only deserved a 7.7, the reviews are not accurate enough and it's like saying one game is clearly better then another when they are fairly similar.

@BCTS: I find that hard to believe. Have you visited IGN or 1UP recently?

jakinja they still score with .5 so what you say makes no sense what so ever...

Who really benefits by these changes, the GameSpot reviewers or the Game Player reviewers ?

Since we don't have a choice, we will have to see how this works out. I don't care as long as the reviews fairly accurate. But I don't see how it will work at this point in time.

Bad idea, Gamespot. Seriously, you shouldn't make your reviews "easier to understand". After all, what can get more simplistic than a number telling you how good the game is? Apparently, making that number have to be in smaller increments. Also, I find that the fact that you count off for in-game advertising ironic because your site has more ads than almost any gaming site I've ever seen.