This is by no means a new topic, but with all the noise surrounding the reviews of Days Gone and people making claims of what they mean, I thought it was important to dig back into it. Some claim that a 7 is a bad score, while others sya it's a great one. Truth is, it's neither. So what does a 7/10 or a 70/100 mean in terms of the general consensus? It means it's about as average as a game can possibly be.
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Game review scores has become inflated to the point where 7 has become the statistical average. There's a reason why this score is described as "fair" and "mixed" by Metacritic and Opencritic.
A 7 is medicore, but medicore can mean basically anything anybody wants it to be, that's why it's so ubiquitous. Assassins Unity was a technical mess at launch with excessive busy work and a weak story. Yet it has 7 because it has good graphics and fairly decent gameplay. That's all that a 7 really is. Mixed is a good way to describe it. It's neither good or bad.
But I enjoy that game, therefore it deserves even better! No actually. With the exception of some titles that have different intentions, games are a source of entertainment. Being enjoyable is the minimum, the D grade(which is conveniently a 70% in most US schools). There are of course titles that are greater than the sum of their parts at face value like Deadly Premonition, but this of course is highly subjective and typically limited to niche titles.
But how did we get here? The reason for this is due to a lot of complicated factors that has lead to the current culture. To keep it brief, some of the of reasons that might be is that it is often in the reviewers best interest to give a more positive review score. This keeps the publisher happy, ensuring a healthy relationship with their outlet which comes with many obvious benefits. It also keeps readers/viewers happy ensuring there's no backlash(unless it's a Zelda or Uncharted game since apparently giving anything below a 9 is worthy of harassment)
There are plenty of other factors like personal bias', but this isn't quite as quantifiable.
TL;DR- A 7 isn't bad or good, its a generic and safe score thrown onto anything that's niether offensively bad or particurally impressive. It's what a 5 should be.
Game review scores has become inflated to the point where 7 has become the statistical average. There's a reason why this score is described as "fair" and "mixed" by Metacritic and Opencritic.
A 7 is medicore, but medicore can mean basically anything anybody wants it to be, that's why it's so ubiquitous. Assassins Unity was a technical mess at launch with excessive busy work and a weak story. Yet it has 7 because it has good graphics and fairly decent gameplay. That's all that a 7 really is. Mixed is a good way to describe it. It's neither good or bad.
But I enjoy that game, therefore it deserves even better! No actually. With the exception of some titles that have different intentions, games are a source of entertainment. Being enjoyable is the minimum, the D grade(which is conveniently a 70% in most US schools). There are of course titles that are greater than the sum of their parts at face value like Deadly Premonition, but this of course is highly subjective and typically limited to niche titles.
But how did we get here? The reason for this is due to a lot of complicated factors that has lead to the current culture. To keep it brief, some of the of reasons that might be is that it is often in the reviewers best interest to give a more positive review score. This keeps the publisher happy, ensuring a healthy relationship with their outlet which comes with many obvious benefits. It also keeps readers/viewers happy ensuring there's no backlash(unless it's a Zelda or Uncharted game since apparently giving anything below a 9 is worthy of harassment)
There are plenty of other factors like personal bias', but this isn't quite as quantifiable.
TL;DR- A 7 isn't bad or good, its a generic and safe score thrown onto anything that's niether offensively bad or particurally impressive. It's what a 5 should be.
