Is 8/10 a bad score?

[Dae314]

I found this article over at bit-tech, and I thought it was interesting. I was always aware of academic grade inflation (something I hate with a passion), but I didn't realize something similar was happening to reviews on the internet. I wonder if there's a correlation in these events? Perhaps grade inflation is making the next generation have inflated expectations about score percentages in everything (not just school) which in turn drives the next generation reviewers (and the current reviewers) to cater to those inflated expectations.

What do you think?

[Koby]

Honestly when I review anything, I still go by the whole, anything under 7/10 is bad, 7/10 is okay but average and only worth one watch/playthrough, 8/10 is above average, 9/10 is excellent, and 10/10 is near perfection (no such thing as perfection). It's rare that I rate anything under 6/10, because to get less means it just completely failed on all levels. Though I understand every one has their own opinions and their own way of rating and reviewing things.

Anyhow to the topic, no I don't think 8/10 is a bad score, just judging from the news post linked to it seems fanboys got butthurt because their favorite game wasn't perfect received by others with varying opinions. That's the problem these days... if you don't agree with someone they run you down, call you names, troll you, etc.. for having a different opinion. People all believe their opinion is fact and everyone else can go to hell with their opinion if they don't agree.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Grade inflation, yes. It seems a lot of people are taught to think that "good enough" is a huge insult, that everything you do has to be top-notch, A+, 100% work or else it's not worth doing. When I went through school, getting straight As was a relief, not something I got excited about. Since going through the military and DLI, I've learnt to better accept "good enough". If the minimum is 65 and I got a 66, screw it, I passed and I am done. When I got an 85 on one of my military tests and the minimum was 65, I was super ecstatic, haha. If I had gotten a 66 when I was in school, you can bet your bottom dollar I would be crying my heart out. Even an 85 would have me desperate for extra credit on future assignments.

An 8/10 for a game is a fantastic score! An 8/10 for anything is a great score! Like it says, an 8 is near greatness, not near failure. I mean, if you consider that a 5 is "average", "just barely acceptable", and "decent", an 8 is far above that. The reactions to that score for the game are over the top. It seems that people are attributing the quality of "good enough" with higher scores because those lower numbers are so daunting, so horrible. It's like recoiling in fear from a C or a D or, god forbid, an F. It's an interesting reaction to see people be presented with a rating like an 8 out of 10 and equate it with an F or D.

Personally, I try not to put much stock into reviews. My tastes don't always run in line with other peoples and when I do read reviews, I almost always convince myself to never look or think about the item in question. It just isn't productive, haha. I do find this quote from the article rather funny, though.

Reviews are an emotional crutch for people who clearly have no idea how to operate in the real world

[DrumRoll]

reviews mean very little these days. Its all about the label on the box.

You'll understand what I mean when call of duty 32:generic middle-eastern conflict, hits the shelves.

[lemmingllama]

I agree with Koby on this one. 7/10 is the average that things are normally based on. This means that 8/10 is above average and is commendable. Screw the fanboys who think that anything that isnt 10/10 is an insult to their "perfect game/series/book/movie/whatever". Really, as long as it is good then you will enjoy it. For reviews, dont actually look at the scoring, look for what the person says was superb and what was terrible. It is what really stands out that defines something, not just a random number assigned to it

[Kasoivc]

8/10 Has always been a good enough score for me. I used to be a nut for 10/10, 100%, A++, but not anymore. If I really want to make a 10/10, all I need is a 9.1/10,90.5%+, to have an "A" on my transcripts. I learned the long and stupid way that people higher up don't care much in the education business whether or not you have a 90.5% or a 100%, you still have an A and are catagorized as a "honor student." The only time details like that are mentioned is when they try to bloat it up and brag about it, like you did that much more.

In scoring for other things like video games and movies, I find that 7/10 is satisfactory, 8/10 is good, 9 is great, and 10 as Koby put it - perfection. It's rare for myself to place things below 7/10 unless the concept of the movie or game seemed to be incredulously stupid.

[Dae314]

It's interesting that I can see academic grades reflecting the choice for 7/10 to be "average". When most people go to school they're given the message at some point that F is fail, D is mostly fail, C is average, B is above average, and A is excellent. Some parents/schools/other external sources try to push this scale up as the joke goes about Asian parent's grading system: F is for F***** because that's what you are when you get home, D is for Dead because that's what you might as well be once your parents see the grade, C is for Cr** because that's the score you got, B is for Bad because you are a bad person for getting a B, and A is for Average.

But going back to the traditional, C is average, I think that going through at least 12 years of school where this kind of system is in place does have an effect on how reviewers choose their "average" rating. Usually when asked to choose something on a scale from 1-10, 1 is the lowest possible value, 5 is average, and 10 is the highest possible value. So theoretically, game ratings should follow the objective full scale and use 5 as average. However, I think this isn't used in practice because of school's influence to make you think that 7/10 is average and anything below that goes toward fail (below 6/10 means fail). So I wonder if the rising expectation for students to get 85%+ on everything is also having an effect on readers expecting that above average games should get above an 8 because they're taught that an 8/10 is not good enough.

[† Emotional Outlet]

It's possible. I thought I was being an oddball by saying that 5 was average when it seems that most think that 7 is average. And not just here--I go to a lot of appointments and when asked to rate something on a scale of 1 to 10, I said it was a 7. The response was, "Well, that's not bad, but it's not good either." I think a 7 is a pretty high number, but, again, I would not have thought this before I joined the military. It definitely is an interesting phenomenon.

But definitely what Llama said about reading the whole review and not just relying on the overall score. There some things that people consider inexcusable sins that I don't care about and vice versa. And consider that my husband is an audiophile and I may or may not be tone deaf, audio quality is lost on me. It's like people don't want to read in-depth analyses on things or take risks on something they may not like and just want something easy, to be told right now whether they should like it or not.

[wb4etgf5erbt]

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Edited March 9, 2023 by ShamelessEnd

[salmun]

I don't know if this was just a rumor or not since I'm not in high school any more but I remember hearing that they were going to get rid of the whole D scoring which means it would be easier to get an F and that would suck. But when it comes to video games do I think 8/10 is a bad score? no, a game scored a 3/5 maybe but not if its two numbers from being an almost perfect score. come to think of it both 3/5 and 8/10 are two numbers away from a perfect score, but the 8/10 looks a whole lot better than getting a three out of five to me ><. Anything bellow a 7/10 is a red flag for me although as others have said its always good to listen to the pros and cons (the whole review) instead of just the scoring of a game, tech, etc.

[† Anras Rune]

well i must say this thread is pretty trivial... but in saying that, this is a forum and this is a thread about ratings, so i give this thread an 8/10...lmao

anyhoo, I rarely post my reviews on the forum, but due to my crazy clan/family/insanity on counterstrike (yes, i have and still play CS with a clan) I normally have to give ratings on maps. Of course compared to the threads link I doubt it seems relevant but in the sense of true forum madness... I'm a bastard. It comes from years of playing counterstrike, and I mean years... I started from the beginning on source, on cs 6.7 or the first builds. I'm vet that noobs scream at, im the bane of cs. But, back on topic, I regulalary rate new maps. Generally anything between 6 too 10 is good. 10 being epic, 9 being excellent, 8 being very damn good.

So in the context of the thread, 8 out of 10 is pretty damn good...

[zx0]

In terms of reviews I totally agree, 7/10 is average.

In terms of grades, getting a C is average, but there are a LOT of thick people out there. A C is pretty rubbish to be honest. I have seen many people who are rubbish at a subject get a C. As long as there are enough people in the world who don't try hard at the subject then even below average people can appear average.

[westnortel]

8/10 is above average for reviews...though it also depends on the site itself where you can compare to something (a game/anime/manga/wutever) that you have personally peruse to make a "scaled" score for u to decide to whether or not ur interested in...

In terms of grades...8/10 is kinda average since alot of schools(non-post secondary level) are inflating all the scores to make them look better...

[lemmingllama]

I would just like to add something else to this that I realized recently. When I looked at my MAL scorings of anime, unless there was something wrong with it then it normally got at least a 7. Simply put, anything that is entertaining was getting a decent score. And is there anything wrong with that? Sure a 5/10 may be average, but since the things that I watch or play are normally good, I would normally rank them above the "meh" of average and give it a higher score. As such, most games normally are fairly decent and so the average for those are a 7/10 because normally stuff is worthy of at least a 7/10.