I saw a review recently, and it annoyed me enough to burn a Frontpage:
"To the people who voted below an 8: Do you understand the programming it takes to make a game of this scale? Of course this game has glitches! EVERY GREAT GAME DOES! I mean look at Halo, Gears of War, COD series, those games are the best right now and they have alot of glitches in them! So lay off him for the small glitches in the game! This is a programming master piece!"
Really? So every game no matter how bad automatically deserves an 8/10? Just for being a game? *Really?* By that logic I suppose every game should get at least a 4.0. After all, they're hard to make. That means it's okay if the game isn't fun or isn't playable, it's still at least 80% perfect.
No. I'm sorry. I review stuff all the time. There are games which deserve an 8, and there are games which deserve a 6. Hell, I've MADE some games that deserve a 6. And guess what? They get 1's and they get 10's and they get all kinds of numbers in between.
Yes, the game was just as hard to program as a good game would have been. No, that doesn't mean I should get the same score as someone who made a good game.
(Speaking specifically of Witching Hour and Linear Assault, here. That other game doesn't count. It was a freak situation, and the voting criteria were unusual at the time when it got most of its hits.)
Everyone's taste is different, and everyone's gameplay experience is going to be different. If I make a game, and one guy can blast away at the same stupid enemy over and over again for 20 minutes and not get bored because he LIKES that sort of thing, and another guy takes one look at the game and goes "Oh god it's just the same thing over and over again" and quits, and the first guy gives it an 8/10 and the second guy gives it a 2/10, guess what? THAT'S FINE.
This is friggin' Newgrounds! We don't give out Gold Stars for participation here!
The only number that matters is the game's final score. And YES, I'm aware that everyone just gives out 5's and 0's just to increase the weight of their vote by a marginal amount, but that DOESN'T MATTER, because lots of people voting 0's and 5's leads to everything from blams to high 4's. (Nothing ever gets a pure 5.0, because guess what? NOTHING'S EVER PERFECT.)
As of right now, the highest-scoring submission EVER on newgrounds has a score of 4.39. If that were an average of review scores-- of impulsive people reviewing with either a 1 or a 10 instead of a 1 or a 5, it'd probably look like 8.78.
That's a little over 8 and a half. In other words, 8 is the HIGH end of the scale. Not the low end.
I don't know where you got the idea that everyone deserves 8/10. If everyone starts counting at 8, and your submission GETS an 8, then guess what? You really got a zero out of two. Congratulations. Enjoy your 8.
I think the content of a review is more important than the big shiny number next to it, anyway, but that's another rant for another day.
Pelemus-McSoy
I agree with you. "Pobody's nerfect" my 6th grade teacher would tell me...
The review content as you said is the most important part. When I read the (very little) reviews I get, I actually like the reviews that may only be 6, but have reasons why it is 6 and what could be done to improve it, rather than the 10 that says, "Great job". Well, what was great about it? The animation? The coding? The music? The plot twist? The random hidden sex scene if you press a certain button combo?
I've also noted that a lot of games get 10s for being so flashy and special effecty, but not being very fun. It just baffles me...or maybe I just don't like those kinds of games. Either or.
Regardless, it takes hard work (and sometimes sheer dumb luck) to earn a good review and score here.
And Zombiffix, Clock Day is a special event where everyone votes 5. Any other day and they would have been blammed before I was even finished typing this comment.
WarpZone, if you reply to this, please let me know via PM or on my page.
You speak the truth, my friend. Keep speaking.
~Pelo
WarpZone (Updated )
I know right? I'm the same way. I like feedback, even if it's negative. The number just helps me gague how bad of a deal-breaker it was for whoever left the review.
Stuff that gets a few 10s, it's probably best to just chalk it up to people randomly being impressed. I mean, unless it gets like two pages of perfect 10's in a row right when the flash comes out, and then a bunch of 0-4s from known members of the community afterward. Then you might be looking at shill voting. But that kind of thing is usually pretty obvious when it happens. Most of the time a string of 10's is just a lucky streak of generous reviewers. Social Proof may play a role, too.
Some people really do only vote 8-10. Maybe they can't take criticism so they're extra polite to everybody else. And, hey, that's fine. Just don't try to tell me how I can and can't vote.
Truth? Pffft. Nah. Practically everything I say on NG is opinion-based. But it's always nice when someone agrees with your opinion.