1up Scoring Schooled
Newly crowned 1up EIC James Mielke discusses his outlet’s reorganization in a lengthy post over at his 1up blog, and just happens to drop this interesting little tidbit:
Also, don’t know if you noticed this or not, but we’re going to be switching our reviews scores from the old 1-to-10 scale to a letter grade format. Some of you will undoubtedly feel dismay at this announcement, but it’s for the better good. Here’s what the official press release says:
“In addition to the reorganization, 1UP Network is making changes with its game scoring system on 1UP.com, in EGM and in GFW. Games will be graded on a letter scale, A+ to F, rather than a numerical scale. All previously scored games on 1UP.com will also be converted to the new letter scale. Look out for these changes in March on 1UP.com, in the April issue of EGM and in the April/May issue of GFW.”
It’ll take some getting used to, but we feel it’ll more accurately convey how we feel about a game. I mean, we knew a 5 out of 10 meant ‘average’ to us, but no one else seemed to get the clue. So we’re changing things around so that anyone who’s gone to school will instantly know how we feel when they see our letter grade on a game review. Feel free to discuss this at your leisure.
Not exactly surprising news. One need look no further than Tom Chick’s defense of his 4-out-of-10 score for Hellgate London, or Hsu’s recent revelation of 1up’s pariah status among certain publishers, to see how the “5 equals average” scoring system drew the ire of gamers and industry types alike.
The bottom line is that if you want to weigh in in the era of review aggregators like Metacritic and Gamerankings you’ve got to skew your scores accordingly. Which is what 1up’s new letter grading system accomplishes, as letter grades neatly translate to percentage scores. The old 1up average was 5. Now it’s C. Which is 75%, right where “average” games fall when their scores are aggregated.
The decision makes sense. The fact that 1up needed to make it shows just how ridiculous this whole game review scoring business has become.