Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

ScottG13 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:00:00 GMT

So the switch is sort of an automatic 2 point bump for games on the metacritic scale and 1up lowers the amount of play they have in their scale. Seems like a lose/lose situation for readers. Why change your system for the worse to accomidate the brain damaged minority who don't care to read your scale explanation?

I understand a 5.0 is average. Its the scale I use because it gives me a wide range. 1up is only hurting itself. I'm sure the advertisers appretiate the free two points, though...

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

SuperEffective — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:56:44 GMT

Metacritic is not real. Every review system has a pretty arbitrary curve, and there's no way to aggregate them without essentially fudging the whole thing. I'm glad 1up is moving away from numbers because it'll just make it slightly easier for the average Metacritic reader to understand that the 'conversion' is more a matter of art than science.

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

Evilbaby — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:04:03 GMT

if you have been listening to all of the 1up podcasts, you know that they have been struggling to find a way to circumvent current preconceptions about the enthusiast press. The fact being that gamers, developers, advertisers, and marketers all have a preconception that some "averaging" of scores represents what gamers think of their game. When in fact each review needs to be examined individually.

A big part of that is moving away from numbers. Metacritic is a big scam and a terrible diservice to gamers. If you could actually aggregate all the "scores" on a game and come up with something meaningful then I would be all for it. The reality is that you just get a bunch of numbers all averaged together, but with no accounting for the context in which they were created. All of the individual scores have the personal and professional context that their reviewers were facing at the time. Ignoring the obvious difference that was already apparent in the scale that 1up was using compared with the "norm" of other gaming sites, this move is a great idea. It not only seperates their brand from the rest of the market, but clarifies their own postition when it comes to individual reviews. Its the context of the reviewer that gives the greatest insight into a game review. Its not some arbitrary number.

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

Evilbaby — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:45:12 GMT

Couldn't you have found a bigger picture of Dan Hsu? Seriously its not big enough

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

ScottG13 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:12:51 GMT

Metacritic is not the problem. The problem is that publishers use Metacritic as a bench mark against the quality of a game. Thus 70% Metacritic score is not as good as 80% and developers are penalized for this. Publishers need to develop their own internal measurements that determine whether a game lived up to their expectation / quality standards. Averaging 100 reviews doesn't really tell you anything insightful. A combination of focus testing, consumer awareness, sales, timetable efficiency, resource efficiency, and other things will tell you much more about the quality of a game and whether it met the expectations of the publisher.

Metacritic is for the lazy.

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

J Lindy — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:13:10 GMT

evilbaby-

hahaha, that was funny, made me register. i was thinking the same thing.

re: Grading on a Curveball: 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu Explains His Company's Recent Overhaul To Level Up

Ginger Yellow — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:09:33 GMT

I've always found the proliferation of titles at Ziff Davis hilarious. Each publication seems to have about three different people whose job titles would translate in most offices to "managing editor".