Who said it means that?

I do agree though that thumbs up/thumbs down is good for user ratings; it definitely gets to the root of people's feelings on a game and removes personal interpretation of what the intervals in a graded scale mean.

I've a picture that will help you - it's not mine, but it's pretty much accurate.
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x291/Tpiom/understandingonlinestarratings.png

And I agree: thumbs up/down is a much better system, That's how it works in real life too. You either you recommend a game or you don't.

You must have got that off the TripAdvisor page for my place.

Well, I can tell you this - a generic shooter rehash like Rise of the Triad getting 5 stars tells me all I need to know about the critical quality of Gog ratings.

Lol - and I gotta say, comparing me to a high school gym teacher that you're still rankling over says more about your own hangups than anything related to this conversation.

That's a great observation.

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. But I also find that many internet communities are so defensive that any time you say anything critical, even if it's not a reflection on the community per se, you stand a good chance at being attacked, rather than your position being attacked. When a community springs up around a for-profit business, like gog, it's a recipe for fanboy-ism because the business is going to do what businesses do - make a profit. Whether or not all their policies are good for customers gets lost in the fact that people jump to defend the community, despite the fact that the community is really something separate than the business making the money.

I think the star system as designed is fine as it is, but ultimately it's up to the users to adhere to an honest rating system that focuses more on quality rather than nostalgia.

For what it's worth I usually find the "most helpful" reviews to be just that - they discuss what made a game good or bad and also offer contrary points. But the written reviews are a small fraction of the overall ratings.

Either way, there actually aren't many scores I'd disagree with. Some games might be over- or underrated by a half or whole star, but I think the overall picture is okay.

Isn't it possible that people find it to be one of the best shooters of its type? A stellar example of shooters done right? I have not played it, but I don't think a game "needs" to be groundbreaking to be worthy if a high score, as long as it is really well made. StarCraft was hardly groundbreaking in its design when it was released, but it is an incredibly well made game, and thus deserves a high score.

YouTube game footage is one of the best ways to go before deciding whether or not to buy a game. Just wanted to throw that out there.

It is an interpretation. More than one game can be a 5 star game. Look at it like getting grades in school. Are you of the opinion that you can only ever get 1, 100? Any time I got all the answers right, I got a 100. But 100 isn't the only thing that defines an A. Anything from a 90-100 is an A. So, if I got a 90 on one test and a 100 on the other, I still got straight A's. The 5 stars isn't saying that a game is "PERFECT"... they are saying, its an A. Its a great game. Your opinion isn't "wrong", but there is certainly more ways to interpret it than you have done.

Better games will always come around, but great games still deserve great scores.

Well, I kinda agree - a star or score system is bound to fail when everybody is able to provide a rating. People have a different understanding of a star's worth and many users get too emotional and are unable to provide an honest rating. Then again, I think a thumbs up / thumbs down system works best for measuring popularity rather than quality (what that really means is debatable).

Anyway, I still think the star rating works fine since a) you learn over time how the community as a whole generally rates games (for example you do know that a 4 star average means "be careful" and that a straight 5 star average means that a game is near perfect while games with 3 or 3.5 stars usually aren't really good and may only satisfy a small group - that there's no 1 or 2 star games is not really a problem) and b) with the information you get from user reviews you can get a pretty clear understanding of the reasons of a game's rating. So personally I feel that I'm fine.

Speaking of multiple stars, what Seven Star constellation is better known as "The Seven Sisters"?

The winner gets a life time supply of jack squat! :D

Ok, I'm convinced: my interpretation is just that, an interpretation. So I may just be looking at things in a different way. I thought the issue was more 'ratings inflation' rather than ' 5 stars -> all very good games should get '.

Though, I will say, that this just makes me think a thumbs up thumbs down ala Rotten Tomatoes ratings system is better as it leaves little in the way of interpretation. Thanks for everyone's thoughts.

Personally I treat five stars as "I enjoyed this product and don't have anything really bad to say". Normally it did something better than I expected and was competent at other levels. Lower scores means "something bothered me".

When I look at reviews, I usually read them, to get an idea what the reviewer considers the strengths and weaknesses. On Amazon when it's possible to read reviews by the rating, I usually sample the reviews of the different levels. The average score often means little without reading at least a few opinions. For example a game might get bad reviews because many people feel that it's not faithful to the previous games in the series, and that is totally meaningless if I haven't played the previous ones.

Pleadies - I used to like a bit of astronomy and no, I didn't google it. Now where's my supply of Jack Squat? Will I need to pay an import tax?

OT; The 1 to 5* system works fine for me, providing there are enough reviews. I understand the query relating to the priniciple of the scoring system but in reality it works for me. When buying a game rated 4.5* and above, I love 9 in 10 games. Between 3 and 4 stars, the ratio drops and so on.

I do agree there is an issue with "some" of the voters (there are even a few example threads that highlight some voters intentionally tanking reviews (one direction or the other). But I do like the system and how the rest seems to interpret it.

You mentioned ROTT. I'm only 2 levels in, but based on that, I would rate it a 3/5 if I had to rate it right now. Its got quite a few bugs and some of the things that ARE working right are not my preference in design. However, its fun enough, I'm going to finish it and may even play it again. I consider the game average in its genre and genre fans shouldn't be afraid to try it out... especially for its price.

5 star games for me are games that I often want to REPLAY in lieu of trying newer games. But its certainly subjective across the board.

1 star --> I hate it
2 stars --> not terrible, but didn't like it too much
3 stars --> eh, decent enough
4 stars --> very enjoyable
5 stars --> I like this game so much that I'm willing to go to the review page and add my rating

Everyone has their favourites, and it's the favourites which tend to get rated, creating a natural bias toward most games being highly-rated. There's no need to worry about people not understanding what 5-stars means because the problem (if you want to consider it a problem) is something else entirely.