User Reviews and Ratings. VERSION 2.0 IS LIVE

Ok, talk to me... Some of you guys are serious die-hard reviewers.

First some interesting stats:

1. The most prolific reviewer has 677 full bodied reviews.
2. The most prolific rater has 9327 ratings. (beside a paid shill with 47,000 ratings who lost their account and ratings today)

There's lots of you who have ratings only reviews. Many are in the 100 - 400 range. You guys want to see these of course.

I'm guessing that those of you with rating-only reviews in that range do not want those ratings to show up in your list of reviews available here (open in a new window) since paging though 100+ would be tedious. My thought (possibly flawed) has been that if you rated a game and cared to look at that rating later you probably also have it in one of more of your stacks available here (open in a new window) and that is where you want to see your rating.

Yeah?

Otherwise where do you want all your ratings?

Another option / consideration: If you didn't choose to use stacks (lists) in the past would you mind if we created a stack for you called "Games I've Rated" and put all your rated games into that stack?

Please be constructive and keep your comments here so we all can talk about this. Be forewarned, I'm deleting any post that smells of passive aggressiveness or troll-bait.

I'd be ok with if you made a stack for all of us and added our rated games in it. Of course in the list I'd like it to see the game and rating. I don't want to have to click on each game to see my rating or it'd be pointless.

Basically, at least for me, I just want an easy to read list that lists the game and their ratings I have given them (as close to how it was on the old site as possible). I'd prefer, like the old site, to be able to click view all or something and see a lot of the games I've rated with their ratings next to them. I don't want to have to click see more a hundred times to get through my ratings. it doesn't have to be fancy looking. I just want a simple easy to read list like how it was before.

I think ratings and reviews should be separate like you mentioned. wouldn't make sense to make listings for ratings in the "my reviews" list for people, as long as we get a separate list for "my ratings".

I'd be really happy with an automatically updated stack something like this (except more games per page). I understand it might be slightly jarring for some users to see this stack behave differently to the others, but i think it's fairly obvious why it does? even an explanation below the header "This lists all the games you've rated on Gamespot. Add to this list by rating additional titles." or whatever if you're worried about that

ability to sort games would be great. preferably both date/name/rating

As for thumbnails.. originally I was against their use in this stack, but now I'm not so sure I care. I looked at IMDB/Goodread's ratings list and they both include thumbnails and I have been happily viewing them like that for some time.

Also noticed another thing ... why in the stacks, does it tell you the release date, but not the release year? the only use i see of showing the release is differentiating between say Tomb Raider (2013) and Tomb Raider (1996). I mean they both could have came out on the same day years apart, so omitting the year doesn't really provide useful information except for very recent releases.

Ok, dude.

I saw AC IV had a user score of 8.5. Since your site is so bugged it says it had 0 player reviews, I wanted to know -roughly- how many of actual ratings there may be. So I rated it 1 and brought the average rating down to 8.2. OK, so not many people have rated it, now I'll delete my rating and --

That's the thing. I can not. Unless you hid this option deep down in gamespot's basement and I can't find it. But to me it seems it was just another bad-thought decision on gamespot's site. Am I right?

Personally, I'd also like X.5 ratings to come back. You've got A LOT of people bitching about it, why are you so stubborn? It's not like it's very difficult to bring them -- *looks at how bad site functions right now* Ok then. I'd still like you to try.

Just simple list of ratings, like in old gamespot's days, would be fine. Separate page and stuff. Though, I guess, if you want these on stacks, that'd be ok too -- all ratings automatically go to 'Games I've Played'.

Also, I hope you remembered your promise about separating multi-console releases.

I tried to keep this post as least aggressive and troll-baiting as possible. This is my best. Sorry.

I'd want to see a rating column in my collection stack, as having that column on the old site allowed me to see which games I had in my collection that I hadn't yet rated, and could compare directly from there with the GS review score.

Maybe it should be a column that's available in every stack regardless?

A 'Games I've rated' stack is really only useful if it also shows the rating I've given.

Well yeah, of course. All stacks will show a rating you've given a game if you rated it.

...and game release dates will include the year (that little part will go live tomorrow)

A games I've rated stack would be great. Sortable by rating, date, title, etc.

@supermajic said:

I'd be really happy with an automatically updated stack something like this (except more games per page). I understand it might be slightly jarring for some users to see this stack behave differently to the others, but i think it's fairly obvious why it does? even an explanation below the header "This lists all the games you've rated on Gamespot. Add to this list by rating additional titles." or whatever if you're worried about that

ability to sort games would be great. preferably both date/name/rating

As for thumbnails.. originally I was against their use in this stack, but now I'm not so sure I care. I looked at IMDB/Goodread's ratings list and they both include thumbnails and I have been happily viewing them like that for some time.

Also noticed another thing ... why in the stacks, does it tell you the release date, but not the release year? the only use i see of showing the release is differentiating between say Tomb Raider (2013) and Tomb Raider (1996). I mean they both could have came out on the same day years apart, so omitting the year doesn't really provide useful information except for very recent releases.

I could work with something like this, but stacks would be much better if sub-categorized by platform.

As one who used the old system I agree with this and most comments above. The adding of game icons/covers improves the look but it's the (sortable) data we wish to capture/reflect that is important.

I believe we do not just record the title played and ranked but also the platform on which it was played/ranked. The proposed new "stack" should be sortable by title, platform, rating, date (meaning year) of release, etc as was the previous "owned games" list. It is likely I would only use this one "stack" as it should combine all the useful information (to us gamers/users) in one place.

Anyway it's good to see that the message(s) about "stacks" is getting through and being followed up.

Finally, I'm not really sure we need a "games I've finished" stack in addition to "games I've played". Thoughts?

I am already using "Games I've Finished," but I might also use that one because there are games I have played without completing. I say keep both.

Yup definitely keep both. I don't finish every game I play. There are also many games that you can't finish eg. competitive online multiplayer gaming etc.

i'm happy that you care about our feedback..you can keep the rated games in a sortable "games I've rated" stack, it's ok for me, and you can also keep the "games i've played" stack. I don't find a use in a "games i've finished" stack.

The best option to have ratings would be a separate page, just like you have the reviews page http://www.gamespot.com/profile/reviews/ it would be separate page just like reviews or trophies, etc, something like this http://www.gamespot.com/profile/ratings/ (lol, when tried that I noticed there is a person / profile called Ratings) where you would have all ratings, details and sort options. This would be ideal for me, however as I know there are likely challenges involved, e.g. the site was programmed without such a sub-page, then from the options you mention:

A. definitely not on the reviews page, would be indeed tedious

B. a separate stack would be a far better idea

A few thoughts to the stack:

- the stack should be possible to display at least 50 or 100 items per page in that stack, best would be having show ALL, however if that is not possible a 100 will do

- there should be a sorting option to sort them by score (I also advise a default autosort from 10 to 1 like in the old website) + sort by platform + sort by how recent the ratings - these should be there the very least, if possible also add a sort / filter by date of giving the rating and date of game release these would be a great bonus

- consider making users aware of what scores were previously 0.5 and have now been changed to .0, for ex. the score would be in red until they re-score it, etc.

- definitely add the possibility to change score directly from the rating if possible, this would be a HUGE bonus if we do not have to visit the game page when he want to re-score it

Just my 2 cents, thanks guys for asking the community about this!

For the programmer geeks out there... This happened today:

git commit -m 'holy crap. user ratings list!'

Once we get net ops infrastructure in place, an early version of this goes live...

There's still lots of work to do so keep going with the feedback!

@edgework: that is a great idea, a stack called "Games I've Rated" would be perfect solution!

I know I'm a broken record, edgework, but what use is it to rate a version of a multi-platform game if all User Ratings are going to get lumped into one number that aggregates all User Reviews? Why would I spend the time to give a great Wii game a 9, and its crappy port for DS a 5, when Gamespot is just going to combine the two for a User Review score across all the versions?

Maybe this is off-topic, but Gamespot's new policy of giving one aggregate score for User Reviews no matter how different the various versions of a game may be is, in my humble opinion, the worst thing about the new site. It renders almost useless one of the site's biggest advantages over other sites - the huge database of user reviews.

If you just tell me that y'all are aware of the problem, and are working to fix it, I'll be patient and wait for a few months.

(and P.S., the ability to sort games by User Review score is something for which I've been hoping for years. I'm still crossing my fingers...)

^^^ that

If you're a good boy maybe the software elves will bring you joy in an upcoming update...

Sorting within stacks by my ratings is perfect. Would also like the ability to sort by the GS score and or (more important to me) general User Review score.

My two cents! Thanks, checking every day for the update :)

THANK YOU!!! I'm going to stop bitching now. :)

thank you, I'll also be patient and wait for a few months.

Agreed. Given that others have already started using the new "stacks" system (which I've avoided pending changes) keeping the completed games stack is fine. I'm probably in a real minority as I don't rate/review games until I've completed the SP campaign (if it has one) and the credits roll.

Good to read that the users' comments are being taken on board by the GS staff/programmers so I will await the revised version before adding/moving my games between stacks.

Although this has been acknowledged, I would like to reiterate for good measure. I will never ever use a score made by averaging scores of the same game from multiple systems in any way. I have no use for it because that is not how video games are made. Therefore, they should not be rated in such a way. It is generalizing at best and misleading at worst.

Depending on how you feel about the accuracy of the birth dates and gender info of users in your database, you could really go crazy and give us a more comprehensive breakdown of user ratings by age and gender and so on (e.g.how high a game is rated by the top 1000 raters or the Gamespot staff). Not the most pressing need, but that could yield some interesting insights.

What about moving items between stacks?

Consider this:

First I add items to my 'Games I want' stack. Then I move items I buy to the 'Games I own' stack. Once I get the time, I start playing a game so I copy it from the former to the 'Games I'm playing' stack and when I finish it (I usually rate a game once I'm finished with it) it should move to the 'Games I've finished' stack.

This is how I used to manage my lists in the old GS...I hope I'm not the only one

Carrying over from a similar topic:

Link

Posted by Derek3143 (23 posts) - 14 days, 2 hours ago

One of the changes Gamespot inexplicably made for the new site is to aggregate user reviews for multi-platform games. What this means is that if a great game comes out on PS3 and 500 users give the game an average score of 9.2, then a crappy port of the same game comes out on PSP and 500 users give the game a 7.2, all you're going to see for EITHER version of the game is 1000 people giving the game an average score of 8.2. As far as I can tell, there is no way at all to figure out which game got which scores, even if you try to look at the scoring details.

So forget about looking at User Reviews for older games, which would, for example, be released on the Playstation, Genesis, and PC with wildly different levels of quality. You can no longer see what version users preferred - all you get is one big aggregate score that now tells you nothing.

Why did Gamespot do this? They certainly didn't do the same thing for their own reviews - you can still see a breakdown when Gamespot gives one version of a game a lower score than another. I just don't get it - and it's really a slap in the face for all the users who take the time to actually give a score to a game. I'm sure Gamespot gets a financial consideration for every time a user rates a game. Why would users give any score to any game when their efforts are going to be rendered completely meaningless by Gamespot's decision to aggregate mutli-platform scores? You might as well aggregate user scores for sequels of a given game - it makes about as much sense.

The only reason I can see that nobody seems to be talking about this but me is that people don't realize it yet. C'mon - the only way this gets changed is if I'm not the only one who says something about it.

I believe the Software Elves have left you guys a present under the tree.

@edgework:

I now see the number (249) on my Reviews tab, but when I click on the tab, there is no Ratings content, only a static header that says "Reviews and Ratings".

Oops. Sorry about that. You have no Reviews, just Ratings and because of that you're getting bit by a bug.

Try this for now

http://www.gamespot.com/profile/reviews/?show=ratings

We'll fix for real ASAP

Good. I like this. Now, if you bring back .5 ratings I'll bless your babies.

@edgework:

That's encouraging! I see my ratings via the link. They won't sort and many still have the Japanese titles, but it's going in the right direction! Thanks!

Won't sort?

Japanese titles?

Dufug?

Try again. I don't see any of that...

@edgework:

:) When I click on the Sort dropdown to Highest Score, nothing changes in the order of the stack.

As for Japanese titles, scroll down...I do not own Argus no Senshi, but I do have Rygar. Same thing with Soul Cradle: Sekai o Kurau Mono, but I do have Soul Nomad and the World Eaters.

I also see japanese verions of games for games I've rated. It shows the japanese box art. For example I rated kirby's dreamland on the gameboy but in my ratings list it shows "Hoshi No Kirby" with Japanese box art. If I click on the link for it, end up on the Kirby's Dreamland US release page. Same thing is happening with Quarth on the gameboy, Turok on the Gameboy, Tetris Attack on the gameboy. Sometimes the title isn't changed, but there is Japanese box art instead of the US one.

Ahhh ok. Yeah. that's because you rated a Japanese version of the game! I'm sure you didn't realize that. That 'feature' is still around. There's a complicated explanation behind that behavoir that I don't have time to get into but it is a fact that probably won't change and most definitely if it does it will not be retroactive.

How much of a problem is this?

@edgework:

If we somehow rated Japanese versions of the games, why would the English versions have shown before? All of the ones for me that are showing Japanese titles are from games in my list that showed as U.S. release titles and that I rated. I don't think it has to do with rating a different version. If you look in my Games I Own Stack, it shows those titles as Japanese, too, and I own the North America versions. There's something else at work in the transition process that didn't distinguish between versions.

You'd think so but no... Old Gamespot lied to you. Seriously. The simple explanation is that when you just rate a game, a release of that game is semi-randomly chosen to hold that rating because ratings are attached to releases, not games and to make it one-click we did the worst-guess matching for you. I'm going to try to make that better. We'll see where that goes.

Anyway, new GameSpot is being accurate in displaying the artwork etc for the game you rated / added to your stack.

@edgework:

So this goes for the games in Games I Own, too? It was just tied to a release and did worst-guessing there?

Quick thought: Reviews should automatically show up as ratings as well. They do for titles reviewed prior to the redesign, but reviews post-reboot seemingly do not. Granted sample size is just one game so far (Stanley Parable). That one shows an 8 rating on the game's actual page, but it only shows up as a review on my profile and not as a rating as well.

From another thread:

#1 Edited by Dr_Dogood (6 posts) - 1 day, 13 hours ago

I used to look for top games for a given platform and genre, sorted by rating. If I'm not mistaken it's also possible to select a certain timeframe (like this year, or last 12 months...).

However with the new website design/layout I can't find it.

Anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks...

--------------------------

OK so. For platforms and genres. Do you guys want to sort by them or filter results to only show those matching a given platform or genre?

Talk amongst yourselves...

Yeah, any single click to do something with a game would do a worst-guess.

Yeah, we're going to merge both in an aggregate list. Right now that's a super slow operation so they're segregated for the moment. That will change.

awesome. thank you.

They're back, thanks! :)

Could you add an option to sort them out by name (in alphabetical order) ?

hey man, thanks you saved my life, i can now continue here!

I have the same issue. I did not rate any Japanese versions of games, yet there are least two getting followed in one of my stacks.

I assume the cause of this is all versions being added to a stack as one entry. For example, even if I wish to rate the PS3 version of a multiplatform game only, there is no separation of user scoring anymore.

I would like the options to choose between platform and genre among other categories such as year released.

@edgework: Are the pre-website redesign ratings gone forever? If so I am done with this site. I've been rating games for years now and suddenly all that is just gone? Or am I just missing something?