A 7/10 is basically a complete failure, so why didn’t reviewers take my feelings into account before publishing their scores?
A 7/10 is basically a complete failure, so why didn’t reviewers take my feelings into account before publishing their scores?
I blame the school grading system for it. 70% and below is already a failing grade in many courses. So by extension anything that gets rated 7 or below is asscoiated with failure.
I am not from the US, so I don’t know how long this grading system has been in use there but here in Central Eruope that’s a rather new thing. That’s why a 5/10 didn’t feel as bad 20 years ago while today a 7/10 feels worse.
Interesting take. I’ve been in educational institutions in South America and Australia and usually the bare minimum you need to pass is a 6, occasionally a 5/10. I think expecting most people to score a 7/10 to pass is a bit unrealistic, unless we are talking about school for gifted children or something. No idea that was the standard in Central Europe
It’s not the standard, it’s just something that started to pop up in some university courses. Anything before that we usually are just graded 1-6/A-F. But even 15 years ago when I attended University there were a few courses that required a 70%+ for passing and what I have heared this has become more common. It’s basically to weed out people and reduce the number of students since university is usually free.
I’m in college now and I haven’t taken a single course where 70% wasn’t the bare minimum for passing. I even took a comp sci course and it was the very first year that department lowered the passing grade from 80% to 70%. Apparently for the past 30 years of the comp sci department’s existance, a B- was barely passing.
I think I know some friends whose majors have 60% as the passing grade, but my major is a science and it’s all been 70%.
Fair enough, thanks for the explanation
I think it definitely depends on how the course is assessed, what content it covers, and how much of that content the student needs to have absorbed to be considered to have met the requirement to pass. I just completed one in the UK where, to put it in simple terms, you had to get 10/10 to pass, and you got higher grades if you went above and beyond. But that’s because each module had a set of criteria and you had to demonstrate proficiency in all of them at least once in the coursework, and you got extra credit if you demonstrated “very good” or “excellent” proficiency. (This grading system is unusual in this country, but it exists for very skills-focused courses, where demonstrating proficiency with doing something is more important than showing you know something.)
By that standard, a game with “only” 7/10 would have significant chunks missing in a way that would make it unplayable. A 10/10 game would be average: everything that’s meant to be in there is there, but it’s only done the bare minimum to make a functional game. Every part of the game that could be described as “very good” or “excellent” would earn it ratings above 10.
Not that I’m saying games should be graded this way. It’d be ridiculous and confusing. But it just demonstrates that what constitutes a “failing” grade definitely varies not only between countries, but between different courses. Which means I actually agree that basing game reviews on the grading system of the US educational system is flawed: it makes too many assumptions about what constitutes “passing” or “failing”.
But it’s not based on any educational system. That’s just the spin people erroneously attribute to it. It’s just a percentage, and it’s up to each person to figure out what number works for them or not as an acceptable minimum.
Same with movies, another commenter said a 5/10 movie was good enough for them sometimes, whereas for me the lowest enjoyable is a 6.
All that is fine, what makes no sense is to expect others to have the same standards I do.
My preferred approach is to ignore the number/percentage rating entirely, and focus on what the review actually says. Maybe the reviewer is marking it down because of stuff I don’t care about, and the good parts of the game are exactly the things I value highly. Or maybe they’ve given something a 9/10 but the things they love about it are things that would make me hate it. There are so many more important things when deciding if I want to buy and play a game than what overall percentage it was given in reviews.
Ah yes totally, and never stick to a single review. Ratings tend to be accurate when they are the average out of a large pool of ratings
60% and below is failing but below 70% is below average (which make no sense mathematically)