[QUOTE="GabeRamos"][QUOTE="subrosian"]Anyone who uses aggregated reviews given the number of times the statistical deception employed by all of the sites that create them has been demonstrated... and the stupidity of utilizing numerical scoring as a quality-indicator has been showcased... and when legitimate review sites have been tryign to move away from doing so... well, there's no other word for it: they're an idiot.
The site may be being freaky, but frankly let's not ignore the bigger problem: aggregated review scores are the schizophrenia of the gaming world - a mental cancer that distorts reality, destroys reason, and shatters meaning.
subrosian
You act as if the matter will determine the fate of the world. Last time I checked, videogames are for entertainment. They are a luxury for anyone and if someone would like to know whether the so-called "acclaimed" critics like it or not, let them be convinced by a number and later debate it on an internet forum. I generally see that scores reflect public demand for a game, whether or not one is a product of the other is besides the point, because none of this really matters on a scale you seem to be alluding to.
Public demand is not an indicator of quality, only popularity. Popular does not mean good - McDonalds hamburgers are the best selling in the world. Does that mean they're the best tasting?
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Review scores are not an indicator of quality - they can vary wildly from site to site, and over the life of a game. They are an opinion of one person or group of people at one point in time that tries (awkwardly and I would argue unsuccessfully) to summarize the hundreds of metrics by which we may judge a game as one meaningless numerical value.
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Sites that attempt to combine these numbers that were generated by dozens of different methods, and actually are intended to mean hundreds of different things, into one number, which does not reflect any of the systems used, are further from reality, and are ultimately complete failures.
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And actually, yes, the fate of the world DOES depend on it. We've seen shoddy statistics used to justify everything from energy policy to what countries we should go to war with. The "wikification" of knowledge has resulted in a generation that is far stupider than its predecessor. The inability to proper grasp source-attribution errors, false-beliefs, propaganda, winner-oriented history, and faulty precedent has cost millions of people their lives over the ages.
Stupid beliefs, held for the wrong reasons - be it the Salem Witchhunts or our modern day wikified clueless youth, are the root cause of pointless wars, pointless death, poor economic policy, and poor political decision making.
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Simple gaming? No - it's a reflection of something far worse - mental laziness. Gamerankings, metacritic, etc - only a moron would use those sites - and someone who, despite know their statistical fraudulence, continue to use them, deserves nothing but the utmost scorn. After all, why should anyone who chooses to be stupid be granted social priveledges?
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And this is a gaming site, really, please, we're here to discuss gaming. When people are proven wrong on complex issues they say things like "lolz people are dying in Iraq, and that's what you care about?" Does this say political wars on the board title? No, it's System Wars. However you want the deeper reason why we will NEVER, EVER use Gamerankings, Metacritic, etc? Because people believe they are legitimate, when they are, in fact, not.
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Using just GameSpot scores, people are far more inclined to question the validity of a review, and that's healthy, people *should question* reviewers, they should challenge journalists, they should think for themselves. The day (which will never come) that we switch to an aggregated review score is the day that an even larger number of people shut off their brains.
Although I agree with you very much upon the "stupidization" of culture and knowledge, i still beleive we are talking about videogames. I never said anything about iraq or anything outside the scope of videogames, so while it did strengthen your arguement, do not hold it against me that i related any information of the sort. I can tell you know your stuff, so to speak, so i am not going to argue senslessly.
But I do have one question for you, and as I ask i am not advocating any sort of aggregated oppinion, but asking a simple, albeit loaded, question.
Assuming that the score measures Enjoyment out of a game along with technical proficieny, do YOU not agree with the "final" scores alloted to these games, not considering the process in which they were conceived?
I usually agree with the scores despite their "faulty" means of acquisition. i dont take them as an end-all-be-all, but certainly i find they usually have an idea within my ballpark, after playing and carefully contemplating each game myself. I declared before that the public generally agrees with the scores, no matter how apathetic they may be. Thus, if you do not agree with these scores, you go against public oppinion, which is not a bad thing, it just means that it is obvious these scores were meant to please the public, not intellectuals such as yourself.
So that takes us back to the origional point. We are still dealing with entertainment. I do not have the time or resources to carefully research every single one of my products of entertainment, so someimes if i just want a game to play over the weekend and dont want to go through that process, i can just check gamerankings and see what people liked this week. So i have a game that I assume is probably a safe bet, not 100%, but ost likely, and the world continues to turn.
Sure wiki-zation is probably not good for everything, but that doesnt mean it isnt good for anything. People can wiki games and still be culturally literate, questioning and healthy. I understand your frustration, but besides me and maybe a few others, you are not really making a lot of sense to most forum-goers.
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