Besides, could you IMAGINE if a South Park episode got a 1 or 2 on IGN? People already freaked the hell out over a 5.5. IGNers would’ve lost their damn minds on a lower score.

Well, writing short posts isn’t the only way to try to keep your readers reading, as I pointed out there are other ways too. I’d just like to add that keeping it short doesn’t necessarily mean dumbing it down, personally I just try to cut all the redundancy and get straight to the point, hopefully also being entertaining meanwhile. To make an example, if I want to review Gears of War 3, do I really need to spend half page recounting all the plot of the saga, knowing that my readers have probably read about it on countless other websites already, and if they haven’t, then probably they’re not interested at all in it?

Anyway my point was that “score yes/score no” is IMHO a false problem, the real problem is: how do I make ppl read what I write? Taking the score out often means that instead of just reading the number ppl just read the final comment or the final paragraph.

And even if we like to think that it’s just dumb ppl that skim here and there, fact is that the internet itself, with its multi-tabbed browsing in multi-tasking environments, encourages “hit and run” reading behaviours.

I write about a game until I have nothing else to say. It might be 1,000 words. It might be 300. All that matters to me is that my thoughts on the game are properly conveyed in their entirety.

I often ponder this little issue. My own writing style often leads my previews / reviews to be in the ballpark for 1400-1800 words, which I hear is a little larger than many people can deal with, apparently.

At first I thought maybe I should change my writing style to make my write-ups shorter and easier to digest, but then it just takes me back to one of the things I hate about scoring systems, which is that it DUMBS THINGS DOWN.

I absolutely HATE the idea that people are so completely ridiculous and all over the place that they can’t sit down and READ an entire fucking review for like 5-10 minutes. Seriously, think about what that says about people: They can’t just sit down and read for 5-10 minutes, it’s TOO MUCH for them.

I do NOT accept that. Maybe it’ll damage my potential readership, but I simply do not care. I have things to say, and I will say them in exactly the way my mind forms them. Unless these people are illiterate, they can sit down and read for a few minutes.

Just like with review scores, it’s only ever gonna change if people actually start fighting it. I refuse to blunt my writing, and I don’t think anybody else should either. Big name sites like IGN have no choice but to stick to the industry standards, but we smaller folk, the “indie” writers, we can write however we damn well please, and I think we should stay true to whatever our natural style of writing may be.

I think if your writing is GOOD, people will read it. If you write about something they’re interested in, people will read it. That’s how you get people to stick around for your write-ups.

If you shorten your original writing to the bare essentials, all you’re really doing is making it easier for people to skim over your work.

Put a score or not, most of your readers will just skim through your reviews at best. How to engage readers, that’s the real trouble. As for myself, I started trying to write very concise and short reviews, three paragraphs maximum, using bold text here and there to emphasize key terms in them, so even the most distract reader can get a glimpse of it.

Of course there could be other ways to keep ppl reading: writing short paragraphs, using a simple style, being funny and witty as Kairi here, employing an inverse pyramid writing style… also, putting the score at the end, maybe it should be put at the start, ’cause putting it at the end means the reader goes to it, sees it and then he’s ready to close the website already.

So to wrap it up, scores are a problem because often ppl just looks at them, so the real challenge IMHO is to make ppl actually read what you wrote.

… I actually know somebody who has done that on multiple occasions. Doesn’t read a DAMN thing and just looks at the score, as if it’s psychically imparting some kind of irrefutable super-logic straight to his brain, so he has NO need whatsoever to actually read anything about the game. It’s infuriating! You can’t see the pros and cons of a game by looking at a score, therefore you have no idea if you and the reviewer even share the same opinions!

It’s especially bad when the overall score is actually an average of all the sub-scores. Generally a score of ‘8’ is considered “Great.” But if the sound and visuals were atrocious, and there was little to no replay value, the score would get dragged through the mud. My overall experience may have still been GREAT (presentation be damned), but thanks to that score averaging bullshit, that’s not what readers will get out of it.

Anyways, I love that you don’t use a scoring system. Keep NOT doing that shit. Hopefully the more we decry that busted system of reviewing games, eventually it’ll be changed. It’s not much, but sites like this are a start…

It’s the same with breaking out he scores, Graphics 10, Sound 9, Packaging 10, Colors 10, Gameplay 2: Final Score 8.2! Go Buy it! And game publishers see, I sold your crap to the masses so buy more ads!

These are great reviews, indie reviews for indie games.

NOOOO!!!

Boobs are precious!

Awww…now that the boob has been punched I’ll have to scrap building the “Boob Defense Force 2012” game and start working on “Boob Avenger” instead.

A single review score.

3 stars is “meh, if you like the genre/setting/style/characters, you have a decent chance of enjoying the game”

Above that, it’s “good” and “highly recommended”, and below it’s “problematic” and “this game has a deep and abiding hatred for your mental and physical well-being”

If [proverbial] you are going to have a rating system, that’s a good model to follow.

And if not, no big deal.