That is not a bad point. Stars do connote something specific, even if they donāt mean that here on Grouvee.
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Just for anyone interested, Polygonās review scoring system is very well thought out and worth a read:
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I disagree.
Infact, I think they should expand the rating system to allow half-star votes (a 1-10 scale rather than 1-5, in essence).
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So I found yet another unreleased game with a rating. Five stars no less:
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A shoutout to Peter: are you fixing the 1-star description ādid not like it allā? 
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I might get around to that some day. I think it adds character to the site 
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Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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So very entertaining 
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Yeah, sureā¦ āentertainingāā¦ that is the right word for it!
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Charming? Yeah, thatās it. Itās charming.
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The 5 Star Rating system should be replaced with a half star rating system with the ability to give ratings such as ā ā Ā½. Is there somewhere on Grouvee I could start a poll or send a message to the websiteās administrators?
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Hi @QDB, thank you for the feedback. Your request is one that has been discussed in past, as are similar requests, because we all have very individual ways of rating our favourite media. There are many ways to handle ratings, and I think it can be fair to say that no system is perfect, and no one system will satisfy everyoneās needs. Grouveeās founder, @Peter has touched on the subject before, and has indicated a preference for leaving the system in its current state for the moment. However, I am sure he will take your opinion into consideration if the need to reevaluate the rating system arises. Crucially, I donāt want to suggest that your input and feedback are not important. Please feel free to discuss your request further at any time. I know many people have different reasons for wanting certain granularity, and it is always good to get a discussion going.
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+1 to what BMO said. I donāt mean to just push your comment aside, but right now I donāt intend on changing it. I seriously considered it at one point, but mostly decided that I wouldnāt like the system, and I donāt want to build a website that I donāt like. Hope thatās enough of a reason!
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Have you ever considered, doing something similar to HowLongToBeat, where the users can chose their rating scale? They have the option of 5/5, 10/10, or 100/100. Since here it adds up to a decimal rating anyway for the average rating, it wouldnāt change as much on the whole, apart from satisfying those people who really crave more precision in the ratings. For example having an option of half stars bringing it up to 10 point rating scale.
I respect all the effort youāve put into this site, and understand if thatās something you wonāt do, but was just wondering if you have considered this kind of workaround?
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I think, itās enough to have 4 stars:
- bad - you just didnāt like it
- nothing really special
- good - the one you could recommend to others
- great - one of your favorites
Because when you claim the game as ābadā, it doesnāt really matter, how bad it was - mostly or completely.
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For me it just means almost every single game gets the same exact score, bar a few exceptional games. 100s of different games all with the same exact score kind of devalues the scoring for me.
Either way each person will prefer a different method of scoring and organizing their games. I was just wondering if Peter had considered having an option to choose a half star scale, for those who really want to, while leaving the default as it is.
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If we wanted to change the rating system what would the change be addressing or trying to do? I like a five star system OK. For me, the only real utility in doing anything with this stuff is to find something or keep track of it. Maybe a star system could be used for ādiscoveryā of content among users but iām somewhat skeptical of it being that useful. If we had a 10 star system or a 100 star system. What would i be looking at with that expanded tiering?
Hereās how i use the 5 stars and why 5 stars works for how i use it. I have a tendency to give a lot of 3 star ratings to maybe 65-80% of stuff it feels like. Is that bad? Hmm. Most games I feel are mediocre plain and simple! More stars/depth wouldnt do much to change my habit. Iād give it a 5/10 or 50/100. I certainyl canāt look at my collection and filter things and compare games that are 49s and 51s. (if iām looking for stuff in the 60s range iām going to be missing things or vote things unfairly anyway)
5 stars are for the best games that i want to stick out. (So thatās basically a āfavoritesā button for me.) And they dont get it easy from me. I also give 1 stars to games i wont touch with a ten foot pole and want to remember to stay away (And warn others?) Likewise few things really are so bad there is nothing good about it. Fours and two are hard and tend to be loose in my mind becuase generally if iām thinking it it itās a 2 star its because there is some weird feeling of āi didnt enjoy it myself but thought it was okayā or something like that. Fours are games i tend to love but have technical issues or something, had higher expectations/overhype, OR they are just mediocre games that hit it right for me/i just tend to like too much 
Reviews work better than stellar debris. I really think the stars could be condesnse down to three stars the way i use it lol. 3 4 5 and an option to make something dissapear (a black hole button?)
Adding ratings to subcats like graphics, gameplay, sound, design, seems more trouble than itās really worth (i dont see myself doing all that but hey iād look at someoneās SNES shelf who did and sort it that way!) It would be interesting to look at SNES games that the community gave 5 stars to graphcs in, sound etc. Iād be curious to look at it, but I dont think iād particpate.
If we really wanted to do something like a subcat star system for the intent of content discovery maybe make some append where every user could āvoteā on some quality of a game for ābest aspect of itā from various categories. The games that actually have an edge in some respect would say that on the main page. (āGrouvee thinks Chrono Trigger has strong quality in Graphicsā This doesnt mean it has five star graphics but it means it is a game where grouvee users who vote its best quality is the graphics, are in the majority amongst other categories (basically a poll) It would be interesting to participate in and look at, especially if everyone gets one vote per title) it woudl also be kept semi-simple.
off topic: 120 star rating system would be ideal. with an option to let users get stars themselves for writing reviews or recruiting members to the site. there could also be powerups and combo breakers. come on! shoryuken!
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Thatās mostly how it goes for me and most games end up with a 3 star rating, but for me it annoys me a little bit having so many games with the same rating. I have gotten somewhat used to the 5 star system given how long I have been on this site and have had to deal with it, and I like it a lot more than initially. Still giving people more options is almost never a bad thing.
And I like the idea, of different ratings for different categories for content discovery. Some categories like: soundtrack, graphics, asthetic, fun-factor, story, etc. would really allow for a great way to discover new games in a category you like. The more I think about it the more it sounds like a brilliant idea. Why hasnāt this been done somewhere before?
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I thought Iād chime in and say that I also prefer a simple rating system. Iād probably be content with a three star system myself, but the five star system works as well. I really like the tooltips for the ratings as well, because then I can simply try saying the phrases āI liked itā, āmostly didnāt like itā and so on and see what feels most right.
I am not sure if I can agree with that. From a UI point of view that is definitely not that black and white, it is very easy to boggle down something with too many knobs and dials. On top of that, ask anyone writing a somewhat large application, the additional cost of maintaining a bunch of rarely used features quite often adds more stress to the developer than it adds value to its users, and slows down development in general.
When it comes to ratings I find it harder to use the more options I have. It happens way too often with me that I feel like I have to go through my entire library in these database services because I have rated things inconsistently (i.e. by giving thing X a .5 higher score than Y even though I actually like Y better when I think about it later). With fewer ratings to choose from, I am less likely to have these inconsistencies, and I generally feel better about it all. Thatās me though, not saying itās like that for everyone.
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I have considered that actually. Iād thought about making a āprivateā rating and a āpublicā rating for a while. The private rating would have been whatever scale you wanted, and the public would be what our scale now is. I just thought it took away from the simplicity of the site too much.
I actually kind of like this aspect of the 5 star scale. I didnāt want people to think too hard about it. A 6 and a 7 on a 10 point scale are the same thing to me. You might have been in a better mood because of something that happened at work when you played the game you gave a 7 than when you played the game you gave a 6. They probably deserve roughly the same score. Thatās how I like to think about it anyway.
I always kind of point at the top 250 list on Grouvee (Top 250 games on Grouvee) as a little bit of validation that the rating system is working. Final Fantasy VI is the top rated Final Fantasy game, and that is the correct answer . In all seriousness, I think the games that people feel the most strongly about are at the top of that list.
This is an interesting idea. I think it would overcomplicate things on a site like this, but I like the thought. Thereās a site out there called goodfil.ms that people give two ratings on a movie, critical quality and rewatchability. Itās a cool way to rate movies, but I donāt know how something like that would work on Grouvee.
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