PCG Article Epic Rating

[Zloth]

Epic Games Store introduces rating system designed to stop review-bombing

But it does sound a bit annoying.

www.pcgamer.com

That seems like a really interesting development! Epic is going to use a rating system based on random sample polling.

There're some real hurdles to deal with, naturally.

First, the length of a game could make a mess. It would be fine if people that don't like a game tend to drop out around, say, 25% of the way through regardless of the length. If the game is 100 hours long, people that don't like it will check out about 25hrs in while people who don't like a 10hr game tend to drop it 2.5hrs in. However, I don't think that's going to be how it works. I'm guessing that people would take more like 5hrs for the short game on average, with quite a few people finishing the game even though they didn't like it much. Meanwhile, the people who don't like the 100 hour game are giving up after maybe 10 hours on average with very few finishing the game even though they dislike it. It's probably possible to correct for that, but I bet it won't be easy. If they don't, longer games are going to get higher ratings than short ones.

Second, those detail questions are going to be a bother. "How challenging are the bosses" makes no sense in a game like Civilization. It would be nice if they could tailer the questions for every game, but there's a LOT of games out there. For the blatant examples like Civ and bosses, they can just have an "n/a" option and call it good, but what about the harder ones? Some games have encounters that are kinda boss fights, kinda not - so some people are putting in n/a while others are putting in ratings. They seem to need another system that checks to see which of the questions are most relevant to a given game.

It could have a lot of plusses, though. Like the article says, you aren't going to see the ratings plummet because a small group of people all go out and review bomb a game. If a game does something that many people don't like, it will still pick that up, but it has a decent sized chunk of the people that play. It's fast, so they should get more participation (especially if they make it worth your time by, say, giving you a tiny discount on your next game). Also, you aren't stuck with the up/down binary system that Steam has.

It is a RATING system, of course. All you'll get out of the system is whether people are liking the game or not. The extra questions might give some insight on why, but those questions aren't going to cover everything. I wouldn't be surprised to see a game rated as 2 star even though all its specific questions are 4+ stars.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I'm just glad they're adding stuff.

 

[Pifanjr]

It'll be interesting to see how well it works.

(especially if they make it worth your time by, say, giving you a tiny discount on your next game)

I feel that'll just incentivize people to put in a bunch of random answers just to get the discount.

 

[Zloth]

I feel that'll just incentivize people to put in a bunch of random answers just to get the discount.

Oh, good point. If those random answers were really random, it wouldn't matter, but the option closest to the OK button is likely to get hit more.

I thought they would just ask ONE question. Maybe two, if there's some legal 'agree to participate' thing they need. They can make it nearly as easy to answer truthfully as it is to not answer or lie. Something like "How much are you enjoying this game?" or "How would you rate the story so far?" and give the 5 star options (plus maybe an "n/a" option). It's there, you click once, it's gone.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Yeah, I don't think this is actually going to end up working well. But worst case scenario, they are working on making changes, which is much needed.

 

[ZedClampet]

The real reason Epic doesn't have user reviews is because Tim Sweeney can't stand criticism and doesn't particularly like gamers. He blocked me on Twitter because I responded to one of his ridiculous tweets with, "That's just crazy speculation," because he said Windows was going to become a closed system like Apple.

But, anyway, the real issue with Epic's system is that I won't get to skim through user reviews and find detailed descriptions of what is right or wrong with a game, which I do all the time. All I'm going to see is that the game was rated "3" or something, which is completely useless to me.

Also, some review bombing is necessary. When developers act like a-holes they should get review bombed.

 

[Zloth]

The real reason Epic doesn't have user reviews is because Tim Sweeney can't stand criticism and doesn't particularly like gamers. He blocked me on Twitter because I responded to one of his ridiculous tweets with, "That's just crazy speculation," because he said Windows was going to become a closed system like Apple.

When he was going on about how UWP was going to force everyone to buy games through the Windows Store? Yeah, he lost pretty much all respect I had for him with that silliness.

But, anyway, the real issue with Epic's system is that I won't get to skim through user reviews and find detailed descriptions of what is right or wrong with a game, which I do all the time. All I'm going to see is that the game was rated "3" or something, which is completely useless to me.

Use them for sorting. Steam does the same thing with it's up/down votes, but I think these will be better because they are getting a random sample instead of just people who want to say something about the game.

Also, some review bombing is necessary. When developers act like a-holes they should get review bombed.

If the developers properly screw up, the random sample of people is still going to reflect that. On the other hand, if only a few people are bothered by something, it won't.

P.S. The stats might be nice for developers, too, if they can correlate ratings with player progress. For instance, they might be able to detect that player fun is great until a certain boss fight, then it plummets and doesn't recover for several hours. (Though I'm not sure if laws allow that sort of monitoring.)

 

[Pifanjr]

(Though I'm not sure if laws allow that sort of monitoring.)

If games are allowed to track your every move for the sake of achievements, I assume they can also do it for reviews.