Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Jan 18, 2020

https://i.imgur.com/pRnMfLQ.png Screenshot from another user.
Yesterday here been mobyrank. What happen?
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
JudgeDeadd (26819) on Jan 18, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Alaka (77127) on Jan 18, 2020

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MAT (220335) on Jan 21, 2020

I hope that is back as well. At least "Personal Slant".
Sorry, not following discord discussions much, but such things should be added to news or at least changelog, imho.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Jan 18, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 19, 2020

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Alaka (77127) on Jan 19, 2020

So much more I could write about this, but what's the point. I'm sure this was a well thought out change. smh
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Rik Hideto (375615) on Jan 19, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MAT (220335) on Jan 23, 2020

Instead of points only the quantity of things could be displayed. So instead of 3000 points showing for someone submitting covers, there could simply say how many covers that user submitted instead of how many points s/he got for submitting those covers.
This could ever be taken a notch up and show how many electronic covers and how many physical someone submitted. Same for games, how many written submission in comparison to scraped submissions.
I know, none of this will be done, but quantity of submitted item would be more informative than score for it. On user pages anyone can already see that score mapped in quantity of items submitted so the info is already there.
Plus, personally, it sounds much cooler to see someone uploaded 500 screenshots than someone got 1000 points for uploaded screenshots. And it looks less competitive since we don't earn any points/score, it just says how much we contributed.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 23, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
JudgeDeadd (26819) on Jan 19, 2020

On the other hand, there's no longer any way to see the average Critic Score... (Something that provided a bit of additional motivation to contribute new Critic reviews)
Honestly, I'm glad that something getting changed in MobyGames, but this seems like a pretty ill-thought-out, spur-of-the-moment change.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Jan 19, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MobyReed (79) on Jan 19, 2020

Most of our games don't have a useful score, especially those released in the past couple decades. Frankly it'd be a bit silly to use the critic or user scores here vs myriad other sources.
That said, there are exceptions, particularly with older games, and what we may do is show the scores in cases like those.
Regardless, the reviews are still shown on game's overview and review pages. As well as the ability to rate them.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 19, 2020

And in general, removal of functionality is never all right.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Jan 19, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
firefang9212 (73854) on Jan 20, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MobyReed (79) on Jan 20, 2020

This was just a snapshot overview that's frequently misleading / empty / of little value. Especially to the typical MobyGames visitor. You have to view it from that perspective, and overall I think it was doing more harm than good, at least in its current incarnation. Also it had been there since the dawn of time, so I think it's safe to say it wasn't doing the job of attracting sufficient contribution.
Though we may show the overview for games with enough info... or rework the display and logic to resolve the aforementioned issues.
We'll have to take a different approach in regards to improving review contributions or questioning what things should have more or less focus. Going to start a larger discussion on this.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Jan 20, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
chirinea (46640) on Jan 20, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
JudgeDeadd (26819) on Jan 20, 2020

I'm not sure what you mean by "often misleading". Now, I can't speak for user scores, since they are always highly subjective, but I've taken a look at our Critic Scores.
I picked 25 games (that had at least 5 Critic Scores) more or less at random, and compared their averaged ratings to the corresponding ratings at Metacritic and OpenCritic.
Out of these 25 games, pretty much all have the same averaged critic score on MobyGames as they have on Meta/OpenCritic. The single biggest discrepancy is a difference of 9 points; most averaged MobyGames critic scores differ by no more than 3 points from the Meta/OpenCritic result.
So in conclusion: I don't see a reason to believe that the averaged critic scores on MobyGames (especially for games released "in the past couple decades") are untrustworthy. At least if you go by the averaged scores on other review aggregators (which presumably are no less trustworthy than MobyGames).
Of course, by necessity my survey only included a handful of platforms which do have coverage on Meta/OpenCritic (PC, Xbox 360, Dreamcast; most games were from after 2010). So maybe games from different platforms do have a significant problem with untrustworthy averaged scores. But, of course, one has to ask: untrustworthy compared to what?
When it comes to older platforms, MobyGames is (as far as I know) the only website which can offer averaged review scores. Removing the averaged Critic Score from the main page means a removal of one of the unique things about MobyGames.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MobyReed (79) on Jan 20, 2020

Bear in mind that the core value of reviews is to help with purchasing decisions, and most games being bought are new releases. That's usually why people are looking for reviews in the first place. (of course there is also value for those curious about the historical record, but we still have that)
Now let's look at a couple popular, recent examples. Disco Elysium, 0 user reviews and 11 reviews. There are 69 on OpenCritic. Sekiro, 0 user reviews and 20 critic reviews (including platform dupes). OpenCritic has 169. MetaCritic similar, plus over 2000 user ratings and about 600 user reviews.
So yeah... we're not representative for critical nor user reviews. When people see or feel such a discrepancy, it has an affect on how they view MobyGames as a resource and calls into question the reliability of everything else. We were putting it front and center that many games have no user reviews and few critic reviews, thus misleading.
That's no good. Older games with sufficient reviews are a different story, but would need to rework things for that and consider it holistically (e.g., make sure it doesn't introduce confusion about why it's sometimes there and sometimes not).
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 20, 2020

And either way, user score and a way to rate a game should be immediately available on the game's main page. Now if you want, you may move them lower down the page, to the sections in question, display user score next to user reviews header, and maybe the rate game link next to the review game one, and critic score next to the critic reviews header, possibly next to the number of reviews it's based on.
As for submissions, still say there should be ways to automate the process on many sites for everything bar abstracts. In some cases even those may be grabbed directly, if they're set in a separate container, user intervention only required if what's there goes over the character limit, in others the user will be asked to manually pick and add the abstract, but the rest will be scraped. Just need someone to tell a script where to look for on the page code for date and rating, and once that's done just add URL and script grabs what's needed. And maybe it could also be made to grab review URLs from the article listing, so everything will be added automatically (possibly remaining pending until abstracts are added manually).
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
GTramp (67577) on Jan 21, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MobyReed (79) on Jan 23, 2020

That could only be true if adding things was always the right choice, and that's certainly not the case. More is not automatically better, often it's worse.
Rating a game now is a little more of a hassle, true. It takes another click. But actually rating them is the biggest hurdle - which is why there are so few and why most games were just displaying a big 0. I think for user ratings to make sense as a core part of the display, they would have to be much easier to rate. Which is a discussion all its own...
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
vedder (50604) on Jan 21, 2020

Moving it down to the relevant subsection makes sense I think and not showing the empty averages boxes when there's no average is also fine.
Another idea: Currently when you have one platform selected you see only the score for that platform. When you have all platforms selected you see a random selection of 3 averages (for both critic reviews and user score). Maybe in the latter case show the average across all platforms instead? That makes more sense I think than just showing three randomly selected scores.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
RhYnoECfnW (2392) on Jan 28, 2020
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Feb 11, 2020

I'd suggest removing the rating limit altogether, as there are a lot of obscure games and platforms on Moby. While you might be afraid of "garbage ratings", these are much more likely to appear on more popular releases – anyone who goes to rate some obscure BBC Micro title probably knows what they're doing. And people are going to be less likely to actually rate if their vote isn't counted – I know I am. But reducing it to 3 would be a step in the right direction.
And, while I'm not so sure about displaying an all-platform average, which will undoubtedly get dragged down by shoddy Android "ports", some care should be taken as to which scores are shown (on top). I'd suggest either the lead/original platform, or the one with the most "votes".
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Ripperian (229) on Feb 07, 2020

HISTORICAL INFORMATION ABOUT GAMES.
I can't believe they loose track on this.
I agree to upgrade the system, but removal of this functionality is a HUGE mistake.
Saludos.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Alianger (234) on Feb 12, 2020

This doesn't really mean those sites are more reliable or representative overall, since review bombing by kids (of all ages) is a thing. Critics also get together and decide to collectively push or bash games for stupid, in the moment reasons as well.
It was always implied that the scores represent what's been contributed here by the community and nothing else. One of the best site features imo.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Bozzly (272) on Jun 09, 2020
So yeah... we're not representative for critical nor user reviews. When people see or feel such a discrepancy, it has an affect on how they view MobyGames as a resource and calls into question the reliability of everything else. We were putting it front and center that many games have no user reviews and few critic reviews, thus misleading.
The reason why the likes of OpenCritic and MetaCritic have more reviews is because those sites are run and used by a lot of people.
Just because a site has fewer reviews, that doesn't make it misleading. It just means users need to submit more. A game may have under 10 reviews now, but who knows months after that?
Anyway, I still don't think removing the average critic score was a good decision. As I said before, it represent the average view of those who review a game. The defunct GameRankings site never removed its average critic score.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Matthias Günl (1316) on Jan 22, 2020
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Patrick Bregger (256925) on Jan 24, 2020

To claim that MobyRanks are useless for games released "within the last decades" is an atrocity. Five years max. Yes, our content for current games is lacking, but this is true for everything.
If the argument was at least that aggregated scores in itself are useless, that would be an interesting discussion.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 24, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Tony Kail (4772) on Feb 02, 2020
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
PoliticallyCorrupt (2512) on Feb 06, 2020

Averaging such heterogeneous metrics is inevitably prone to debate: anyone could argue that gameplay and personal slant should matter more. Even with a weighted average, though, the debate on what the actual weights should be could last forever.
Even professionals like GameSpot or IGN have been abandoning the policy of giving scores to each parameter *and* to the game as a whole: they understood they would otherwise always have to deal with someone picking on details to find leverage to defend their favourite title. I teach in University and I used to accompany a student's grading for an assignment with a list of pros and cons of their work: as a result I was occasionally accused of being unfair to a student for giving them a lower score than to another student who had the same number of pros and cons (regardless of which ones they were!). I gave up on that scheme and now just accompany grades with a short review.
I think a sensible trade-off would be to display the user scores for each parameter and let users make up their minds about what it means to them. The score for *that* parameter could be averaged out of all the versions, yes. This way MobyGames would only commit to state that e.g. "users say this game looks and sounds stunning, has a compelling story but plays poorly: it's up to you to decide if that makes for a good game or not".
Average critic scores are another story: I would have kept them, as it would be safe to assume a critic's opinion matters just as much as any other's.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Adam H on Apr 22, 2020
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
M D (24) on Apr 29, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Bozzly (272) on Apr 29, 2020
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Cantillon (34060) on Apr 30, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on May 02, 2020

Remove something? Right away!
Add something? Uh, let's see if we have the time, if it's not better used elsewhere, if it won't make anything "confusing" for the dumbest user we can think of, if it may not have consequences elsewhere...
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Bozzly (272) on Nov 05, 2020
Most of our games don't have a useful score, especially those released in the past couple decades. Frankly it'd be a bit silly to use the critic or user scores here vs myriad other sources.
That said, there are exceptions, particularly with older games, and what we may do is show the scores in cases like those.
Regardless, the reviews are still shown on game's overview and review pages. As well as the ability to rate them.
What games released in the last couple of decades in particular don't have a useful score? What makes a score useful?
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
f1reball (292) on Jan 21, 2020

Also, I think the user score at least makes sense in every case, I mean why have it when you're going to not display it prominently.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
The cranky hermit (2922) on Jan 22, 2020
User Scores, on the other hand, have always been a core piece of functionality to me, and I have to strongly disagree with the idea of tucking them away. Mobygames attracts a different sort of user than Metacritic, etc, and I find the user ratings here much more predictive of my own tastes.
It's also really not intuitive that you'd need to click "reviews" to see rating averages, especially when this number is derived from tallying votes, and not necessarily from any reviews.
Count me as another who would rather see the ratings come back as they were before. If the Critic Scores must go for reasons stated, fine, but I can't see how that rationale would apply to User Scores, as those are useful front and center for showing users what Mobygames users think of the game.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

People can't rate anyway, nowadays people only know how to select the 1 and 5 stars/points. Not much worth in a rating system where people can just click how they feel at that moment, instead of having to explain why they feel about that and why they gave that number. Seeing fanboys giving 5 out of 5 and haters giving 1 out of 5 for everything isn't useful.
But that aside, on most games the box was empty as there weren't enough (minimum of 5) user scores. I don't see how an empty box at the top right is useful in any way to anyone.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Alianger (234) on Feb 12, 2020

Having to explain why you picked a score doesn't stop what you don't like about user ratings, as you can see on metacritic. Not that I'm against having that. You can try to avoid this with additional rules but then the average person just goes to another site instead (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!).
But on that point, a score average conversion of a variety of opinions ultimately isn't that useful anyway, it just gives a vague idea of what people think without the why. So I'm not that upset about this, I just prefer having it to not having it.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

I say good riddance. I never used it and found it the most useless part of a game entry page. Rating games as a Moby user here seemed useless and I actually never did it (aside from 5 games or so). It was so underused, most times it didn't even show a number since there weren't enough votes. Utterly useless.
Critic scores on the other hand are pretty useful (and we didn't remove those) but maybe we can add back the average number, on the reviews tab for example, that could be useful.
EDIT
Wow, I knew humans naturally don't really like change, but i'm a bit baffled after reading the comments...
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MAT (220335) on Jan 23, 2020

Basically, every score is subjective. Someone may like some game, someone may not. Rating from 1-5 was fine but should've stayed only for Personal Slant, imho.
All other ratings are silly and cannot be subjective. Let's take Spiderman for PS4 for example. Noone should be able to rate graphics for that game less than 5. But someone who doesn't like the game or Spiderman or Marvel may go and rate it 0 or 1 which was obvious nonesense. Also users just rate games they don't like without ever playing them so there should be trivia questions that anyone who finished some game should know the answer to but those who didn't play it won't and that would eliminate bad voters who don't really rate the game bad because they gave it a shot but really didn't like it and it would also eliminate those who rate it high just because they like its title but never played it.
But if people do rate games like that, then leaving rating really makes no sense because it's silly and incorrect. Critical reviews may be subjective and too good or too bad, but you at least know those people played the game and reviewed it so their score, no matter how subjective, was done after they played and/or finished the game.
Yeah, after writing this I see that leaving user score really wasn't that good nor correct so the site is fine without it. Damn, I changed my own opinion at the start of this post after writing this, lol!
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

User ratings on the other hand were just giving some numbers, with no supporting info at all. Which could end up pretty misleading in ways that you and Reed described, amongst other reasons.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Alaka (77127) on Jan 23, 2020

Wow, I knew humans naturally don't really like change, but i'm a bit baffled after reading the comments...
You know what boggles my mind. How people who barely submitted critic scores to this site can so easily toss the work of people who did aside like it doesn't matter. Gee thanks.
I also hate that you guys can't handle change excuse. We can handle change, but it better damn well be for the good of most. And this certainly isn't.
And of course the removal was half-assed because they left the top games link still there. B-b-b-ut the scores are inaccurate. Good job fellas.
I guarantee critic score submissions are going to go down dramatically because of this. If that's the point, well congrats then. smh
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

Yes the change was made too quickly without hearing anyone's opinion, never said it wasn't.
But I wasn't talking about critic scores, I just said I was a fan of those, in several posts.
I don't see why critic score additions would go down. Critic scores are still there, on the main page of game entries. You just have to scroll down a bit. The only thing that got removed for Critic Scores is the average, which was pretty useful as I suggested to put that back, just not in a big table at the top right.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Alaka (77127) on Jan 23, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

I'm with you on critic scores, I find them useful and it would be sad to see people's just be deleted in one press of a button. And I also think that the critic score average is pretty useful and should still be displayed on the main page or the review tab.
Oh and I'll remove the snarky things from my post, there was no need for that.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
chirinea (46640) on Jan 23, 2020

I was one of those people who would go to the Most Wanted page and click on "games missing MobyRank" to find games to submit rankings. I hope at least that link doesn't get removed, even though there's no average to be shown now.
I wish at least the average could still be seen when clicking "see more rankings".
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
MobyReed (79) on Jan 23, 2020

But to give you an idea, at the time of removing that display, there had been 0 new user reviews in over 3 weeks.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 23, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
JudgeDeadd (26819) on Jan 23, 2020

But to give you an idea, at the time of removing that display, there had been 0 new user reviews in over 3 weeks.
...Actually, the slowness of approvals is to blame for that. *whistles innocently* That said, all the pending reviews have been dealt with now.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Feb 15, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Feb 15, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Feb 16, 2020

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Cavalary (10984) on Jan 23, 2020

*nauseous*
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Kennyannydenny (123121) on Jan 23, 2020

God forbids someone has a different opinion....
I never said that it should just get removed based upon that I didn't use it. I just said I encountered empty after empty after empty tables (because obviously most people don't use that voting system, see examples of Reed above). And an empty table is of no use.
I also never said that if people 'misuse things it must be the things's fault', now you're just rabble-rousing.
And yes, change is often good. Why wouldn't it be? It all depends on the specific change, we could give examples like Hitler coming to power or whatever (there's always something to mention), but i'm not an old grumpy grandpa who can't stand change. Is that something that counts against me now?
You obviously only hear what you want to hear.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Jan 23, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Dusty Bunny on Jan 24, 2020
So let's reduce the functionality of the site for older games while doing nothing to improve the site for newer ones. But hey I guess some people just like to read "There are no game credits on file for this release of the game."
In that case why not have "There are no game reviews on file for this release of this game." for the newer titles that don't have the reviews and leave the damn thing as it was?
I think it's been a really stupid decision that goes against what I thought MobyGames was all about; the retro games, not the new ones. MobyGames ain't never going to compete with the 1001 other sites when it comes to new games. But for the old games this place is the best. Please keep it that way and don't hurt your retro stuff chasing after the new stuff.
Now if you'll excuse me I'll go lurk somewhere else.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Elsa Ellingbure (1) on Jan 26, 2020
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eddiecochran on Jan 30, 2020

The average critic score is one of my most used features. Of course I always get a deeper look into the critic details but the average is (ehm ... WAS) an important starting point when researching games ... mostly old games. Im less interested in newer ones - but that's almost the whole reason for using MobyGames!
Sure the display badly needs an overhaul (and I already read some good suggestions here). Blank boxes shouldn't be displayed at all and I would be fine if the average score will be only displayed in the reviews tab. (EDIT: I had to correct myself - the average critics score belongs somewhere on the main tab!)
One of the admins even said that they should bring it back for older games in some way. So why the hell you COMPLETELY removed it BEFORE you built in a reasonable alternate solution? Jesus ...
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Matthias Günl (1316) on Feb 01, 2020
Amen to that! It's also a complete puzzle to me.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Salavat Valiullin (53) on Feb 01, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Matthias Günl (1316) on Feb 02, 2020
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Virgil (8602) on Feb 03, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Billus Gatus on Feb 05, 2020
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Cavalary (10984) on Feb 05, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Feb 12, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Feb 12, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Feb 12, 2020

I know you can *rate* games there, hidden as it is, but that's not what I meant.
I meant submitting "critic reviews" – there's no link for that anywhere, not even in the "contribute" menu, unless the game in question has no critic reviews on file.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
JudgeDeadd (26819) on Feb 12, 2020

I know you can *rate* games there, hidden as it is, but that's not what I meant.
I meant submitting "critic reviews" – there's no link for that anywhere, not even in the "contribute" menu, unless the game in question has no critic reviews on file.
Not sure what you're talking about... There's an "add review" link on the game's main page, below the "Critic Reviews" header, no matter if any critic reviews actually exist or not.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Feb 12, 2020

No. https://i.imgur.com/Wyhhr1f.gif
It's only there if the section is empty.
Re: Ratings on main page disappear
JudgeDeadd (26819) on Feb 12, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Feb 13, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Mar 09, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Bozzly (272) on Feb 29, 2020
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Adam H on Mar 02, 2020
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Stelios Kanitsakis (92) on Mar 07, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Bozzly (272) on Oct 26, 2020
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Cavalary (10984) on Oct 28, 2020

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chirinea (46640) on Nov 17, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
Cavalary (10984) on Nov 17, 2020

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666gonzo666 (62946) on Nov 20, 2020

Re: Ratings on main page disappear
lights out party (35225) on Nov 25, 2020
