3 ms·

In my perception that wasn't the idea of any company, but companies just decided to adapt to how the majority of users use the 5-star rating system: basically l

In my perception that wasn't the idea of any company, but companies just decided to adapt to how the majority of users use the 5-star rating system: basically like a one-star-system, where 5 means "all ok" (1 star), and 1 star means "crap" (0 stars), and in between there's a wasteland nobody uses anyway. I think it started to go wrong on eBay back in 2000. People gave any seller overly enthusiastic comments on any sale that somehow made its way to their door, as if that was something special and totally unexpected. And the sellers gave best ratings to buyers in return. Soon, both expected the other to provide a perfect rating for any transaction.

CM30 7y ago
Wonder if it started before that to be honest. It's pretty common knowledge that game reviews have ridiculously inflated scores for example, with anything lower than 70% being seen as bad and people not bothering with anything under 80-90% when choosing what to buy. So perhaps the average for a review score/rating has just steadily crept upwards over time, til the scale collapsed into a two choice system with 'bad' and 'great' being the only options.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Yes, gaming scores were inflated indeed. This gaming magazine from the 90s called Hoog Spel [1] never gave ratings to games. Instead they gave a summary of plus and minus points. Such a summary takes slightly more time to read (but not a lot) and gives the reader a good idea on the positive and negative sides of the story. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoog_Spel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoog_Spel
- nearbuy 7y ago
  Coincidentally, the inflated subjective scores from game reviews tends to match the percentage of players that rate a game as "recommended" on Steam. The median rating on Steam is about 80% positive (meaning 80% of players who rated it would recommend it). A game with a 70% Steam rating tends to be mediocre. It's interesting that even though a rating system where you choose between "recommended" and "not recommended" is much less subjective than trying to rate a game on a scale from 0-100, in aggregate, you get similar scores.
Fnoord 7y ago
It was eBay indeed which introduced me to this system. eBay is just a symptom though. The problem is fundamental, that a rating does not tell much. Because what you rate 3/5 someone else rates different. Its the same with movie reviews and game reviews. You'd need to read the review in order to understand it. I do that on e.g. Amazon (and my conclusion is often: this writer is clueless).

CM30 7y ago

Wonder if it started before that to be honest. It's pretty common knowledge that game reviews have ridiculously inflated scores for example, with anything lower than 70% being seen as bad and people not bothering with anything under 80-90% when choosing what to buy. So perhaps the average for a review score/rating has just steadily crept upwards over time, til the scale collapsed into a two choice system with 'bad' and 'great' being the only options.

Fnoord 7y ago
Yes, gaming scores were inflated indeed. This gaming magazine from the 90s called Hoog Spel [1] never gave ratings to games. Instead they gave a summary of plus and minus points. Such a summary takes slightly more time to read (but not a lot) and gives the reader a good idea on the positive and negative sides of the story. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoog_Spel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoog_Spel
nearbuy 7y ago
Coincidentally, the inflated subjective scores from game reviews tends to match the percentage of players that rate a game as "recommended" on Steam. The median rating on Steam is about 80% positive (meaning 80% of players who rated it would recommend it). A game with a 70% Steam rating tends to be mediocre. It's interesting that even though a rating system where you choose between "recommended" and "not recommended" is much less subjective than trying to rate a game on a scale from 0-100, in aggregate, you get similar scores.

Fnoord 7y ago

It was eBay indeed which introduced me to this system. eBay is just a symptom though. The problem is fundamental, that a rating does not tell much. Because what you rate 3/5 someone else rates different. Its the same with movie reviews and game reviews. You'd need to read the review in order to understand it. I do that on e.g. Amazon (and my conclusion is often: this writer is clueless).