Defying Review Aggregation

Logiksan writes "With the growing number of review aggregation sites like GameRankings and RottenTomatoes, it's becoming increasingly harder for individual game critics to be heard. GameDAILY Biz took a stab at the issue at came up with 5 aggregation-defiant tactics designed to help make reviews relevant again. Among their list of ideas is to destroy the typical review grading curve. The article states, 'If, for instance, a publication could establish a 10 point scale in which reviews were based upon purchase value and average games scored only a 3 or a 4, the higher scores would certainly become far more important. The lower scores would give the publication instant credibility as 'discerning gamers' and would free up the top scores (5-10) to show a more full range of differentiation for the top-tier titles gamers care about most.'"

why?

[free space]

If I make good reviews, and they get aggregated with other reviews, why is this a bad thing that has to be 'defied'?
Isn't the aggregation service something the readers persumably want?

And why assume that the reader will only look at the score from your review? perhaps the reader is actually interested in the detailed information you provide and click on a link to your site from the aggregation site? And then the aggregation site will actually benfit the reviewer, not go against him.

Aggregation not the problem

[yotto]

I don't read game reviews any more, but not because of access to aggregation sites. I don't read them any more because they are generally paid ads for the game or fanboys who just go on and on about how great it is that Joanna Dark's boobs are made from so many polygons.

why the need for a numerical rating?

[usrusr]

while the suggestion to increase the actually used "dynamic range" of the scoring system used is certainly a step into the right direction, why does he stick to the an overall numerical rating system at all?

i could imagine very good reviews that would group the usual categories into pairs of that are contradicting each other or at least are quite opposite to each other, like "this game focuses on replayability" vs "this game focuses on an intense story", "focuses on technical aspects" vs "focuses on other qualities", or just distribute a _fixed_ number of points on the various categories, to describe the game, give it a rough position in an n-dimensional matrix, not rate it.

a serious review should never pretend to be able give ratings with more precision than something along the lines of "you will love it"/"you will like it"/"you might enjoy it"/"pain" (all assuming you generally enjoy the genre).

"game x is 3.5% better than game y" is pure bullshit and a sure sign of a review that is actually nothing more than comparing technical specs and skipping through the game with cheat codes to provide some screenshots.

and yeah, pissing off game publishers with honest ratings is a really bad idea in a business that mostly depends on hyping up "exclusive" previews to lure customers.

the threat of losing "early screenshot" benefits is probably an even bigger threat than the whole dependency on ad money from publishers, not only because it looks less like bribery but also because customers lost due to lack of exciting "next gen" cover stories will affect the ad-income from all companies, not only the one in question.