Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Why We're Changing the Kinda Funny Review Scale - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

We're leveling up -- let's talk about what works for video game reviews, what works for Kinda Funny reviews, and what our next steps are! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Topic of the Show - Our Final Score - Scale breakdown - The SCALE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, May 8th, 2024. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30, AKA the second best baby loses, San Francisco, aka the engaged one at Tim Gettys. He is Forbes 30 under 30, aka New York Times.

No, not goddamn New York Game Awards nominated. Sorry, New York Times. I'll take you, yeah, New York Times. Have you been to New York Times? Have I been to New York Times? Have you been in the New York Times? New York Times. Yeah.

We can't do that. We have to know somebody can get you in the New York Times. He's a leftover poppy blessing Eddie Oye Jr. I've won quite a few word old game. Oh, okay. Yeah, sure.

What's your streak at right now? I don't have a street. I'm not playing in a while. Yeah, fair enough. Okay, cool. Yeah, when I went to New York Times, it's kind of like, eh. But I came back recently.

I had like a good three week run with it where I was like every day doing it. Well, it was your longest streak. Well, I didn't carry over my stuff from the original one back in the day. Because back then it would have been there. Yeah, exactly. Steam clouds.

But when they did it, I was like, it's nice. You have a starter word? Yeah, sugar. Okay. Still the same. I'm altar. I go altar.

That's a good one. That's good. You're doubling up on the A's though, you know, alliteration. No. It's an E. Right. I go beefy. Sorry, everybody that I pray to the one true God, Jesus Christ, and or Satan.

I thought that altar. Not altar. Like, the one true God, this and or that. I got to cover my bases, right? The lock, Roger Picornie. Yeep. And of course. New York Times.

Square zone. Oh, there it is. I like that. New York Times Square zone. The Hispanic heart throw up Texas street, Latino, he, clicking heads, ripping to shreds, the globe trotting,

head shot and root and two, and three point shooting. Nitro rifle from Twitch.tv. Andy Cortez. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. How are you? I'm well, how are you? I'm great.

It's a stacked cast here for the kind of funny games cast, and I'm super excited about that. How about YouTube? Very excited. Yep. Oh, yeah. Of course, this is a conversation we were going to do yesterday,

ladies and gentlemen, Guess what? Xbox decided to close four studios. And the whole point of the kind of funny games cast being daily is that we can address the biggest topics in gaming and jump right into them. So we did that. But today's the day, ladies and gentlemen, where we will wade into what we're doing

with the kind of funny review scale, scale, scale, scale. But before that, I'll, of course, remind you, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest topics, reviews, previews, you name it in the video game world live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you like that,

we're asking you for 10 measly dollars over with the Kind of Funny membership, either on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny or Patreon or YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny games. Of course, if you gave us that 10 bucks, you'd be saying, hey, we love this independent 11-person operation in San Francisco and the content they produce. Plus, you'd get all of our shows ad-free. You'd get the ability to watch us record the afternoon podcast live when we record them. And of course, you'd get the daily multimedia experience known as Greg Way. But everybody's been crushing lately. Of course, Blessing, Roger, you guys have been doing them.

for the rap beef, then escalated that to a kind of funny podcast. Barrett did one on Star Wars yesterday. You recorded Barrett doing one for a special thing that's going up at some point as a Gregway. Absolutely. Killing it out there. Yeah. Right, Andy? Yeah. You do anything? Nah. Of course, for a chance to be part of this show, live as we go. We're looking for those YouTube super chats. Of course, you can come in, be a part of it, give us your thoughts on review scales, all the questions will ask and what we're thinking about where we're going. Some housekeeping for you. Kind of funny, like I said, is an 11-person small business all about live talk shows.

You've already gotten reports of perfect darks reboot being in trouble on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Of course, that's on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services. And up next, I'm going back to one of my most infamous IGN reviews of all time. I am playing Spider-Man Web of Shadows for the first time in 16 years. Holy shit. I'm old. Yeah.

it was not some you watched your video of Spider-Man Web of Shadows I watched it very recently You gotta watch it Can we watch it on stream bear Yeah bear will make that problem We should move back to old IGN reviews And it really is like

Yeah so I was playing this game It's pretty good It's exactly dude I mean This is like y'all are even trying I'm excited for us talking about the review scale Because it's a lot of what kind of funny Is what we're trying to accomplish Yada yada yada

But there will be so much Looking back at what IGN was Because of course that's you know, what we're all based on. Kind of funny, he's based on, right? Coming from IGN and working there for so long, but like, you don't even know. You guys don't even know, because you came in later than that,

but you don't even know. It used to be, yeah. All right, it's time as you do the video review for whatever game you are. Okay, cool. You would, Craig Baradown would click record and sit there, and you would go into the booth and just talk. No script. No bullet points, no paper.

She'd be like, all right, yeah, so this, oh, you know, you slurred this word, you did that. That's a dumb thing to say, okay, I'll do it again. I don't know. At that point, did you write the review already? Because you had a written review. Okay, got you. Sometimes you did.

Sometimes you hadn't. You know what I mean? It was very... I would hazard to guess lots of times you hadn't, right? Because usually it was that, like, you know, you'd write till the last second you could. You'd play the last thing you could, but video reviews needed time to do it. So you go back and watch a Siskel and Ebert review. They're just there droning on.

They're just sitting there talking. It's modern YouTube that changed the way that everything has to be directly into the camera and it's fucking Mr. like, you know, like, that's the... I think you're fine. Oh, no, I'm fine with the evolution. When somebody was like, we need to write scripts, I was like, what? This is killing.

I've gone back for other ones where it is, literally the... Yeah, and so that, I don't know. It's like... It's... Essentially our reviews now. No, because now we know how to present. Yeah, it is back then where it is. Yeah, you're not even doing, like, the presenting...

What's up? Spider-Man. Spider-Man, Black Cat shows up, and her titties are hanging out. That's the second line. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Was there a review that changed at all? Was there like a moment where it's like, okay, this is the game.

No, I don't remember there being a watershed moment. Because I think it would have to be something that went so badly. But it's probably the opposite of where it's maybe something was so important. But honestly, it was, I think, the video team growing up and being like, shit, we need an elevator process. I think it was the evolution of internet video that changed it because then it was like cool. There's a video team that really took that product seriously. And because the IGN video team and video itself started as a premium product. You only got the video if you paid.

because back then there was no YouTube. It was like you putting videos up and like they had to pay for the servers differently and there were people that would pay for high quality downloads of trailers because that was the only way for consumers to watch trailers for games, period. And Fran let up a lot of that stuff, which is why I know so much about it. But over time as the team grew, the video team was like, hey, we need to like, if we're going to put videos out there,

like we need a script, we need to actually go in, we need to read the review. And the person doing the VO, like for a long time, it was more game trailer style where it'd be like, there was like a VO person reading review, uh, the reading the reviews that other people wrote. And then editorial got mad and they're like, no, fuck that.

We want our voices heard. Then a lot of editorial people weren't good at reading VO because that's not what they do. And then there was just like so much back and forth with all the stuff. And it's also the matrix where this reset so many different times where like, I would have been like, oh, no, we talked for the longest time. But I do remember when there is then a VO thing for a while. But then I remember it switching back. And I know that since then I've clicked on IGN many times.

And it's Damon Hatfield voicing it. as written by whoever, yeah. Crazy things, man. Change. That's the whole thing. It all changes. If you're lucky enough to stick around that long, and because of your support,

we have been lucky enough to stick around. And because of your support, if you're a kind of funny member, you could get today's Gregway, where I ask the question, is Fallout 76 a good game in 2024? Real quick, I know you already talked about

Games Daily that just happened. I just want to give a shout out to the Games Daily episode that me and Abu did. I loved it. I think it was really, really good. And I feel like everybody should listen to it. We talk about the news and stuff.

At the beginning and end, we also just talk about him, and I feel like it's one of those must-listen type thing. So check it out. What the fuck is this shit? Average Joe on air says, I remember IGN start, and they'd have original shows like Game Shop and others.

Yeah, fucking up at noon. Fucking up at noon. Fucking face of IG and Star. God damn. Game shop is what you came up with. She's cool crazy, baby. She'd cool crazy. I was another one.

That was another one out there. Thank you for making our dreams of reality. Patreon producers Delaney Twineyne in, Kieran Hovesiepian and Carl Jacobs. Today we're right. by ORAFrames, Shady rays, and Better Help. We'll talk about that later. For now, let's start with topic of the show.

Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tats. All right, it's gaining momentum. You know what I mean? We're getting there with Tots. I appreciate it. Blessing you were there for me. I appreciate that. Of course.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're changing the kind of funny, I almost said IGN, the kind of funny review scale. We've been operating on a three, no, a five-point scale. We use three a lot. A five-point scale. Right now, we are leaning towards moving it to a 20-point, point scale. So, you know, one to ten, having their point fives in there. We're going to talk about that today on this show. We're going to talk about the adjectives those words might have. We're

going to talk about what we like and what we don't like about reviews, et cetera, et cetera, et we're going to get into all of that on this episode of the games cast. But we are not saying at the start of this, we need to have it all figured out by the time we say goodbye. That'd be nice. That'd be great if we've said a little all in one show, but we're not trying to paint ourselves in a corner and say, by the end of this, it's all done, da-da-da-da. Because there's going to be things we figure out as we go. And similar to how we review games or movies or anything here. It's about the discussion. So here we are, having

a discussion about the review scale. And that discussion will dictate where things end up going. But if we need more time, we'll take more time. If we don't, we'll lock it in, move on, and have a great time with all of our lives until we change it again in the future. But that's how this works. That is a good thing. We should always be able to look at what we've done, reflect on it and be like

what makes sense for now and what makes sense for the future and make those changes. Of course. We want your super chats, obviously, to be part of the show as we go. for right now I want to point out that kind of when he started in 2015 and when we did, holy shit, were we against review scores on it? I think we had been so locked in for so long to having your public crucifixion every time you scored anything on IGN in just the scroll to the number and then the people

mad about the number that we were so adamant when we started that we wanted it to be about the words and we wanted that to happen. But inevitably, as we went all the way up until March 22, the problem was that we would do that. And then also go, yeah, so it's probably 7.05. It's this idea or 7.5. Well, you'd get to inevitably a score or a ranking or a star or whatever because you're just trying to crystallize what your words are and what your thought is and try to summarize the X amount of hours you put into a game to get to that point. But like I said, March 22, we debuted a five point scale here at kind of funny.

Tim, why? We mainly did that to reflect where the industry was and how people talk about video games, specifically how we talk about video games and wanted to be seen. with our peers and having a number we saw really allowed us to get a lot more eyes on the conversations we were having. And we saw that demonstrated time and time again where, uh, especially bringing Roger on with the social clips we would put out, being able to start them with just that really quick grab of like, I'm giving this game, this score. And here's why blah, blah, blah, blah. Get more information on the games cast. That worked. We saw people watch those videos, share those videos and it got more eyes on our content that we actually want people to consume.

which is the kind of funny games cast or any of the other shows that we do. So that's why we did it then. And specifically a lot of it was, I mean, we said it from day one there. It's marketing. Like we really were putting the numbers out there as a way to entice people. And the same way you're talking about, you jump to an IGN review and you scroll all the way down just to see the number. There's a human instinct there. I know a lot of people don't do that.

The majority of people do. And the stats back that up. We know. We've seen it. We literally worked at IGN. We know that people's eyes. we had trackers instead of seeing people would do that. And we see that when we post a video discussion about a game,

it gets X amount of retweets. When we start it with, I'm giving this game a 1 out of 5, 2 out of 5, 3 out of 5, 4 to 5, 5, 5. The score didn't matter. It got more shares. Yeah. It's just facts. Sure.

Yeah, you know, it's a thesis statement for whatever your argument is, whatever you, I was considered reviews persuasive writing, right? And so you need that opening statement to say what you're trying to say. And it can be a summarization of a conclusion. but if people are going to use it the way they use IGN reviews, as you said, page tracking, everything else, you'd scroll to the bottom, you'd see it. So then the question becomes, of course, we did it there for marketing and stuff. Why are we changing this now, I think, is the question, right? And I would say at a top level, there's a couple different reasons, right? But in general,

it's the idea that we've seen our own personal feedback. We've seen your feedback as the audience. And we need something that reflects more how we talk about games. And so that's where I want to heard over to you blessing eddie oh yay junior you and roger were the first folks to approach me this year be like hey let's address it let's talk about it what's going something's been on the back burner forever tim and i have had conversations about it but there's always another fire to go here blessing what you know you've been here the entire time we've used the five point scale what are your what's your thoughts on it why did it need to change well i think for me i've the place i'll start with the conversation from my perspective is going back to

uh i think games daily yesterday when me and tim were having a conversation of like Hey, kind of funny is a group of people that are all, have their own opinions, right, that we bring to the table when we have discussions. And, like, you know, we don't necessarily have, like, a meeting beforehand for anything that is, hey, we're all going to go in and say this exact thing, right? It very much is, hey, let's sit down and come at it from our own perspectives and all this stuff, right? And so, like, I think for me, I somewhat have the same idea of back in 2015, where you're talking about, like, oh, let's not do review scores, not like a review scores and all that stuff.

I think even with the five point scale, I had that, but like it's the thing of, hey, let's try it. Like, I'm down to hang. I'm down to, like, you know, see how this works. And I think for me and the discussions I've had with Roger recently, right, like, I think over the years, I found that the five point scale didn't really work for communicating what I feel like the way I talk about a game is. Sure. And I think that's, that comes with, like, quite a few reasons.

I think one of them is that five point scale always felt a bit limiting just in terms of the amount of threes that I give that feels like, oh man, it's the three that's like a bad three or a three that's an okay three or a three that's a good three. And then you get to a four and a five. And I think the having it be the thing of feeling the restriction of the five points was a big hindrance for me, but then also, you know, giving a game a five out of five never felt truly special to me. Yeah. Right. The thing I mentioned you was like a five out of five feels like a thing that you would just automatically give like a prestige game or a game that's a triple a big budget PlayStation or Nintendo game right like that feels like the automatic oh well it's super

polished so it's a five out of five but I think a ten point scale gives you more of that exploration of all right like maybe it's very polished but maybe I didn't love the story or maybe I didn't like this gameplay aspect or maybe I can kind of like get more in the weeds I think that's what's nice about having more numbers to work with and then also having a 10 out of 10 which I think reflects more of a, this is a masterpiece as opposed to a five out of five type thing. And so I think that's kind of where I started with. But then, you know,

I think there are multiple facets of the conversation that are interesting. I think one of them is what we do with lead review as well, where, you know, going in, we'll have somebody that is assigned that is, all right, you're giving the kind of funny score. And I think that one of the things that I think is different about kind of funny than something like IGN or GameSpot or any other outlet is that our content primarily is podcasts and they are discussions. and it is, you know, usually multiple of us, if not all of us, have played a video game.

And so it usually, for me, feels weird when it is, okay, blessing hates this game, Greg loves this game, Tim thinks it's okay, and he thinks it's terrible. Four to five is what kind of funny gives it, right? Like, that always never felt like a... Representative. Yeah, good representative of, oh, yeah, this is the score. Like, this is how kind of funny feels about this thing, when kind of funny is usually made up of conversations where people are coming at it from different angles.

For sure. Yeah. Roger, what about you? Yeah, it's an interesting one, because when I've, first joined kind of funny. I was actually the person that edited like the five point review scale like video that we did, which at the time I wasn't reviewing games much. I was maybe like once a year. I'd be like, hey, unpacking is really good. Unpacking was really good. But is it unpacking or unpacked? Okay, just making sure. I was like, packing, I'm packing. But yeah, so I wasn't really

using it. It wasn't a big deal for me to like actually have the time to see what that review scale feels like. But in the last year, I've been using it a lot more. I've been on content reviewing a lot of games. And the way that I review games, and it takes a lot for me to say a game is great, right? Like, a great is like a big deal for me. Like, I feel like most games end up being in like the okay to good range. And I ended up reviewing like three, maybe four games in a row that were all three out of fives. And I gave them all three out of five through very different reasons. And I was able to explain that in the review when I think I did a good job of being like, hey, this game is just okay. This game is good. It's actually a really good game, but we don't have a good on the review

scale, so I'm giving it a three out of five, which is technically okay. But as I was doing that, I started to feel like, oh, I'm not representing, at least in that score, what I'm actually feeling, right? I think it was the Final Fantasy Rebirth Review, where it's like, I said everything I needed to say in the actual review, but saying it's technically okay, I was like, eh, that's not really what I feel. I feel like this is a good video game. It's a really good video game. So I think that was the conversation, right, is like, we're going into gamescasters as a new era for kind of funny. I think that this is a great way for us to change it up and potentially have that conversation. I wanted to open it up and talk to you, talk to blessing, talk to everybody about it.

And yeah, I think we're, I'm leaning towards the 20 point scale. That's definitely, that's where we're all at, but that's definitely where, like, my heart is. I love the point five. I love being able to get in the granular, but it's not too granular. We're not talking about like 0.7s or point eight. It's adding color to it, right? It's what we're talking about the meeting for me, at least. It's the tip of the hat, right? Where if it's going to be a seven, if, if, in that seven range, it's that. And for me, that's, you know, one of the things of looking at this and my history with review scores and yada, yada, yada.

I do think the five-point scale is incredibly broad, right? And I think that's by design to some, just in general the scale. And then also for us, it's still the fact that I want to make this crystal clear that us talking about the game and getting out our thoughts and making the YouTube and the podcast you love is what we do. That is what a kind of funny review is. the score, what the scale is, whatever you want to call it, right, is just the billboard to get you to come in and have the discussion. We care about the discussion, not more than the score, in a different way, I guess.

But that's the prime product, yeah. I will say, I think for me, I do care about the discussion more than the score. And I'm saying that, yeah, exactly. I'm with you on it. I'm just trying to say it's not that we don't care about the score. It's hard to get into the, again, you start worrying about your adjectives and what you're saying. But, like, yeah. And I think, but I think that comes back to, you know, me not necessarily being the biggest fan of reviews.

review scores is like in general, right? I understand the necessity of them and I'm like, I'm not mad when I need to use them, right? Like I think review scores can be done very well, especially if they're used in an additive way. But like discussions that we've had is like, you know, one of the things I struggle with is opening up a review and being like, hey, I'm giving this game a four out of five and then spending my opening statements. And maybe the whole review sometimes it feels like defending why it's a four out of five as opposed to the discussion being about, I think what could be more thoughtful, interesting discussions about different things about the game, right?

Like, I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of reviews having to be, hey, this is how good or how bad this game is when I think it could be about, hey, this is why I like the way this game tackles this themes, or this is the interesting thing about what this game has to say, or this is the interesting different thing this game did with this gameplay loop. I think those conversations, like the more qualitative conversations about games, can oftentimes be way more interesting than the quantitative, oh, this is a three out of five, and here's my persuasive essay on why. And I, like, you know, we talked about this.

We've had a meeting already about this, right, too, actually. And that was one of the things I brought up to you in a way that, again, I'm not trying to push it on you. But I think for you that, I think I said in the last meeting, right, like, is that a you problem, right? Which sounds way more aggressive than I mean it to. And I know you understand who I am and what I'm saying, though, right? Of like, I think for you, the challenge is then to try to disassemble that line of thought, right? Because even what I'm saying, it's my persuasive essay, right? once I say what I

I get this game in two out of five or whatever the hell it is right for me that's gone then now I'm just talking I've given it and I already know what I feel and that's how I got to the score and I think one of you maybe you blessed but it might have been Roger had brought up in the meeting right like oh but I don't like doing it in the front because then what if we wanted to change by the end of it right

I'm right back to it of like that is the power of what we do in the audience we've built is that we can do that and I'm looking forward to when that inevitably happens where it is this game's a four out of five from me This game's a four out of five or whatever. Eight out of eight point five out of ten. And then I'm like, you know what? I've talked this thing.

You guys have raised shit, this is more like a seven point five. Maybe this is an eight. But I mean, Gallum review for me. For me, for me, for me, for me,

that was a, I think at the time, Tim was like, would you give this now? For me, I was a four to five. But then after playing 50 hours more, I was like,

no, there's a five out of five. That was a tweet for me on Twitter. But it's still a thing that feels, I don't know. Like, I feel like it won if I'm going to give a number, it almost feels like I have to give in like a formal, formal manner, or at least the audience expects it in a formal manner. And I don't know if that's a thing that's going to be tough to condition an entire audience to be like, hey, we're using these loosey goosey. But I mean, well, we're doing that right now. We're telling them that, right? Like, I think that's the power. But not our entire audience is listening to you. But guess what? Like those people will get it and understand it. Or they won't and they'll, they'll be the normal YouTube commenter, Andy. That's just yelling at us for no reason about the stupidest thing.

Yeah, and I really loved Blessings idea that a 10 out of 10 should really be something super special. And we play a lot of eights and nines. And I've also, I've always used like the 20 point scale because I love being able to see a game and not feel like it's quite great. But, you know, it's almost there. It's on the precipice. This is a good to great game. That's a 7.5 for me. the um i love the idea like i was just mentioning of the the having a 10 really really mean something

and i i'm so excited for the first 10 of beat shadow of the earth tree when that comes out later like that's really what i'm looking for that i like that i appreciate that yeah yeah it's funny for me just because i my perspective on all of it is it is totally about the conversation and the number should not mean anything it means whatever you want it to and like i feel like going in going out like it is again it's all marketing and that's all the numbers are period for anybody doing stuff. And I feel like us is it kind of funny. We are not taking the editorial side that seriously. It's personal opinion first and foremost and not just first and foremost to the end of the line there. Like we are not going to, it's your authentic opinion of what you're

talking about. We're not going on. We're talking about our experience. We're reviewing our experience with the aim and that's through talking about it. We're not going on Metacritic. We're not trying to say Foxy Steve Super Chadson is that are you trying to get kind of funny included in a Medicare school. No. Absolutely not. And coming back to something you mentioned there that we muddled, I think, and just, again, the evolution since 2022 of what we're doing is that lead reviewers going away. Like, there still might be a, oh, blessing is going to be on the show because he's the guy who beat the game. Or when we're doing assignments leading up to it, it's like, well, Andy's playing X, you're playing Y, so I'm playing C, which means I need, I want to beat C. The perfect world,

I beat C so that I get there and I can have the opinion. But to be clear, that's what lead reviewer always was. Sure, but again, I think we muddled it as what I'm saying. Yeah, we definitely did. We definitely did. But like, just I want to say this. So the. audience understands. When we say lead reviewer, it doesn't mean this person's review matters more than anyone else is. It always just meant they are the ones that us is a business, we're, we are telling blessed, hey man, we need you to play this game and whatever that experience is, because you were the one we're expecting to lead to the content of the episode. Yeah, that's a great way. Hopefully more people get to play the game, but that their reviews matter equally to the lead. It's just, so yeah,

maybe calling it lead reviewer, the wrong terminology. But it's just like, it's, it's, it's internal terminology of what we all knew it meant, but I think when we set it on content, I don't know if we drove at home as much. I think they had the functionality, though, like, we don't make as many or any, like, review TikToks anymore, right? But, like, you would have the person that is the lead reviewer. You are the one that's making the TikTok, and that is the score that's getting put out to Nibel or Noble or whoever it is.

So I think there was that functionality of lead reviewer there. Again, because you were usually the person who beat it, right? Or whoever was, was the one committed to beating it. And we're only not doing those right now for bandwidth reasons. Like, we definitely want to keep doing those. And when we get back to the hope would be that if there's multiple people, it is you and me both play Ghost of Sushuamu, we sit down. We did it.

What do you think? I gave it an eight. I gave it a seven. Okay, and that's it. Like there's no, we're not trying. Again, the old billboard in review score idea was the hope of getting wrapped up in a Wario 64. Here's everybody in embargo.

Here's everybody in embargo tweet, right? And it worked for a little bit there with Nival and that he went away, right? And then nobody else picked it up, which is understandable because we are a podcast. And you click on a podcast and go. goes on for an hour and it's us bullshitting around in the very, like, I get that you can't sift through it. I think that we're pushing off of that more where if there are people, if there is going to be that all of us beat Spider-Man, then I think the review video TikTok should be, we all beat Spider-Man. What did you think? What did you think?

What did you think? And then that's the thing, right? We're trying to drive home that it is the conversation that's going here. I think since we're so personality-based also, like that also helps a lot where people know when they align with a Greg game or when they align with what blessings tastes are. and to, I think, just get a collection of scores and go, oh, Andy wasn't super into this game, but I'm rarely aligning with him in my favors and my taste anyway.

So, like, Greg loved it. I know that this is going to be a game for me as well, you know? 100%. Ladies and gentlemen, I see a lot of you popping off. Sorry, I know you're about you. You just cut your mouth out there. It's popping off and saying, you like this or whatever. Thank God.

You're changing your score. It says a blurb. I never liked five, says, seven, six. It feels like a meeting, a live meeting, and I'm all here for it. If you like us, that kind of funny an 11-person operation, doing stuff like this, trying to make the content better for you and for us and for the industry we work in and try to thrive in, we could use your support. Ten bucks gets you the kind of funny membership and gets all of our shows ad-free. Of course, you could watch us record the afternoon podcast as we recorded. And of course, you can get the daily multimedia experience known as Greg White.

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What'd you ever say? There's so much to address because the chat keeps going. Like I wish I was like pulling notes as it's going here. So I'm trying to get to a lot of things here. Somebody just said that like there's no way to satisfy. by everybody with numbers. I think that that's an important thing to just put out there that none of us agree

even on what this should be. We all are trying our best to come to some type of consensus to be able to be able to speak with each other that we all feel like, okay, cool. We can translate what we feel into these numbers so that you guys can understand what we feel about the thing. So we all understand.

There is no right answer. That's impossible. This is putting a number on art period is a silly thing to do. However, it's what people do. So that's why we're doing it because it makes sense and there's an understanding around it.

and I feel like the consensus that we're all coming to is something that we all understand. We could get other people to understand to the best of their abilities. Now with that too, I saw a lot of people asking, is there going to be a kind of funny score? No, there's not.

It's not a single kind of funny score. It is Blessings Review. It is Tim's review. We represent kind of funny. But the numbers and discussions we're having, the games cast review, the conversation, that is the kind of funny review.

The numbers we're giving are just trying to get across what we're saying and how we feel about it. And I cannot stress that enough. And we keep talking about why we made the change and trying to get on the Y-O-604 tweets and the Nibel tweets. And I've seen a lot of feedback from people over the years on that of just like, that seems like a silly thing to try to do. That was part of it. But the bigger part

in what we saw on why we kept doing and why we will continue to do it is the TikToks. It is the social media. Our organic content that we're making about our content, the performance that has and like the effect that has had and how it's allowed us to have, I think, more in-depth conversations, whether it is arguing for what the review is and why we're backing the number that we gave, or switching our score throughout it or whatever. It's a fluid thing. Me giving a game a five on one day and a four the next day and a five the next day. If that's my thoughts I'm expressing that, that's the point. The number is just a conversation point. It's not an end-all be all and it never will be. Yeah, back to what blessing I were wrestling with in terms of like the number doesn't matter.

Well, we're not saying that. It is the fact that the conversation and the podcast and the day-to-day and that's what we are trying to do is kind of funny. We are not trying to be Metacritic. We are not trying to be IGN. We are not trying to be any of that with a score. We're trying to put up, hopefully, from here on outright, a tweet that is, hey, Gamescast went up, and it was this review and Blessing gave it this,

and Greg gave it that. Come find out why, right? Like, again, to go back to adding in scores, for kind of funny in 2022, and the five-point scale, the idea behind that right was the idea that, okay, there's not that many numbers, so it should lead to discussions about why it's this

and put you into tougher situations. That's not correct. But, you know, situations where it is, this is good, but it's not that. So I have to choose between a three and a four and I'm waffling because X, Y and Z. I think we just got to the point where with so few numbers, it all got samey, right? Whereas I think going up to a 20 point scale where you can be like, this is what a seven is an eight is a nine is, this is what a three is a two, you know what I mean? You can then go in there and be like, okay, cool. And then the little point five is the shade. like. Yeah, and I look forward to the inevitable podcast, which we might see this week, we might see in the future, where we all sit around a table and all of us have even similar scores, but maybe they're

0.5s off, right? So then we can all go around and say that, and then we can all kind of shade in what that means for us. I think it will create a more interesting podcast, at least from the offset of like, we start up and it's like, hey, we're all a little bit different. Why are we a little bit different? Are we actually a little bit different, or is it just, that's just the way that we interpret the scores? I think there's a lot of good conversation to have from that. I also really just like the idea of cataloging where we were at certain places in time, and that's all just personal shit.

But I love the idea of how, for example, we always make fun of Fran Mary Bell for giving double dash of 7.9 out of 10. And also, I make fun of him now for giving Super Mario Sunshine a 9.4 out of 10. Where were you thinking, Fran? Just absolutely insane.

Suck at that Nintendo D. You know what I mean? I just really like the idea. Fran sucks! Frank sucks! I love the idea of being able to look back in the past and be like, I gave this game that score at this time, and then I experienced this, you know, new experience, which was Tears of the Kingdom.

And Breath of the Wild was a 10 out of 10 for me then. Is that lower, like, I don't know, it's all fun stuff to just kind of talk about and have conversations? So do you think that when I go back to Spider-Man Web of Shadows, the game I've played since 2008, am I going to go, I was too hard on you? When I gave you the 5.3, I think it's going to be 5.3.

I think it's going to be 5.5. I think it's going to be a big one. It's going to have, well, I mean, the thing is, is, I think it may even be lower. I think it may be like a 4.5. Because here's the thing. When we're talking about like what the review scores are and what the numbers will represent,

I've always just like, I think if anything, we can help reinforce the idea for people who consume game podcasts and reviews that this isn't a grade school grading scale. Like a 7 out of 10 doesn't mean. a D score that's right on the verge of failing. Like, I've always hated that. I know that, like, when you think of school, you go, a 7 out of 10, oh, that's like getting a 70 on a paper or whatever,

or a 6 out of 10, that's like getting a 60 on a paper. No, no, no. Like, to me, 5 is right, smack dab in the middle. I'll stop you right there. That will always be mediocre average. I'll stop you right there. Tell me big day. Because Dexterous Joe went out of his way to super chat and go,

will you commit to using the whole scale? Too often, games are just okay. Just okay. Three out of five was confusing and cumbersome. You're claiming Andy Cortez, you're going to use the whole scale. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

because I've always loved the idea that a five out of ten is the most average, okay, mediocre. I think mediocre can sometimes feel like a pejorative of like an average or an okay game or whatever. But for me, that's like a five out of ten. This is the most average experience. And based on your personal taste,

could be disappointing because you were looking for something, you know, you were maybe expecting a bit more. And then, you know, we go up from there above average. To me, it's like... Can you name a game that's a 5 out of 10 to you? Question. One scale, Andy.

The fucking devolver game with a... Nightrunner? No, the devolver game with the... Catan Zero? Road to... Something road to... Trek to Yomi. Road to perdition.

Trek to Yomi's a 5 out of 10 for me. That's like... that failed on certain aspects. Some aspects were amazing for me. And for my personal score, that averages out to like, this is just a whatever game average, you know? Yeah.

Okay. Road to perdition. My argument is we've used the whole scale the whole time. Like, whether it's one to five. What up? I should all over that game. We're not,

we rarely review games that would be a one out of five. That's just how this all works, you know? Yeah, again, I think, you know, this is an interesting conversation

to start bringing in the, asylum I was raised in of IGN.com where it was, you know, the time I reviewed everything. You reviewed everything. And I mean, like, I was looking around trying to find the review scale today. And I run into me reviewing Spelling Bee Challenge that I gave a 2.5 out of, right? Like, that was what IGN did. That is not what kind of funny does. Again, we are an 11-person team making, as you know, a plethora of content, which more than anything is us commenting on the industry and what's happening and talking about this. So it isn't that when you're on camera for one hour, the next seven hours of your workday are playing whatever.

We're all going in being, we're all being drawn to certain games for a certain reason. And you can get into a game and find out it's not great. And then be like, actually, I'm bouncing on this. I'll still talk about it. Hey, I played two hours of this. And again, I hope this will make sense with, again, is we're as actively talking to you about like our review scores don't matter as much as an IGN score or whoever score or whatever. I'd like to think you're going to see more of it.

I played two hours of this or whatever. I would have, based on those two hours were two out of ten or whatever it's going to be. Just to say it and be done with it. What are you doing? I did that with Eldon Ring, it was a mistake. But I mean, I played 20 hours Eldon Ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think here's my counter argument to it, right?

It's like there was value in that discussion, especially because it evolved with you, right? And you change. You can have that conversation. And I think for a game you're stepping away from, I think it's worth being like, I'm leaving this as it is and being done with it. I would say it's this. And you're giving the full. you're giving the full report of

I didn't roll credits and then if there is an IGN score that is and it's an A, because it does whatever. And I also think that's a genuine valid experience. You know what I mean? You're reviewing your experience. But it's not even just us, right?

Like I know a lot of normal people just pick up games on Game Pass actually just pick up a game on sale and they're like, eh, I'm not going to finish this. Like I think that that is a real genuine experience and I totally get, you know, when you review a game fully and you go to the credits roll, like that's totally, that's great and that's the full experience.

But also being like, I didn't finish the game because of X, Y, and Z. I think that's also valid. I agree with you guys fully in terms of the way we talk about games and how we would even talk about games off content of casually meeting. I mean, talking to Roger, yeah, I played four hours of this. It feels like it's like a three out of five or a six out of ten or whatever it is. The thing I worry about, and I know this is just the thing that we just have to do, right,

is how the audience takes it, right? And I think in trying to form what the review scale is and try to form how we talk about games, because we're talking to microphones and it's coming out the speakers and people are receiving it, we have to understand how they're going to receive it. And I think being like, yeah, I play two hours of it. This is the score. I'll probably give it for now. I'm probably not going to come back to or whatever.

A lot of people aren't going to like that. And I think that's just the way it is. Yeah, and that's my thing too. Yeah, Tim Nails it. Right. It's like I think that's something that gets lost a lot, not by you in general, right? It's like in the same way there's no score system that'll make everyone happy. There's no video game podcast that will make everybody happy.

And so as I've talked about since day one with us, right, all we deal in is our authenticity. So if we want to go out there And I do And I guess that is your boss leader I don't know what the fuck you call me Your guy You're a big guy I would say like I do want you to say that

I want you to be Encouraged to say that And when somebody pops up in the chat Or on a thing I can't believe you give it You don't even roll credits That's not a kind of funny best friend That's not a consumer of the content

That's regular Like I had one of these yesterday On Twitter Where I forget what said it all Oh yeah It was when we I tweeted about, hey, the Phil Spencer thing, we're going to talk about it over here.

And this guy was like, well, are you going to make jokes on stage like you did with the Embracer group? And I responded, yeah, dummy, that's what the show is for. And he goes, well, I'll be watching the GDC Awards to see if you do it. And I said, it's the dice awards, you dummy. And he goes, well, you can see the point I'm trying to make. And I'm like, well, you can see the fact that I can,

you don't respect me and you don't actually consume what I do. Like, I don't need to worry about you, right? Like we are trying to make a very specific product for a specific audience because if you try to water it down to appeal to everybody and worry about these edge cases that are going to come, like you know it better than anybody. They're going to come no matter what. It doesn't matter what we do or what we say. There's going to be people who want to be asses about it. Kind of funny. We're going to make you come. So anyways, yeah. Like I, that's me being fired up in defense of you, not at you. I hope you know. Oh, for sure. Okay, cool. Yeah. You do that thing when you lean back sometimes. This is one because you're in a meeting with us right now, audience. I've always.

I've always talked about it. Bless this is the hardest guy to read. I've told him to his face in meetings. I'm like, I can't tell if you're in or out. I don't know what's happening. I got to be mysterious. Keep him guessing. I think it was Janet, but it's gone now saying,

so does everybody on the episode have to give a number? Absolutely not. And Andrew Crime says, whose score will count? How will we know the KF score? I cannot make this any more clear. No one score counts. No one score counts.

It's discussion. It's our feelings on these games. What do you mean counts? It does not count, and there is no kind of funny score. We're expressing our opinions. That's incredible. We're getting them etched into the wall, Tim.

We're getting all the scores. We're putting a banner up every time now. I mean, literally, nothing counts. I feel like we all just need to understand that. And then what counts is the discussion we're having. The number that each one of us gives is to help try to get that across in some way. I think you as the viewer, all you need to do is if there's a big ass game that comes out and for people where we all play it. And it's one of those big special, like, Grand Theft Auto.

six comes out. And if four of the people on the panel give it a 9.5 out of 10 and one person gives it a 10 out of 10, you can gauge by yourself as like what does kind of funny feel about this game. If it's a game where there's a 6 and an 8 and a 10 and a 7.5, you can go

wow, they're kind of all over the place. Will this experience be for me? And if it's a bunch of scores around 5, 6s and 7s, you know, oh, okay, maybe I know what I'm sort of in for in this experience. The podcast that I bring up in relation to this conversation, always is the Midnight Boys, which is, um, you know, the part of the ringer podcast network or

whatever. And they do the thing where they review TV shows and like, because of TV shows is not game, right? Like all of them are able to watch all the episodes and all the seasons. And so there's always four people on the panel. And they do the thing where it is. It's a segment, right? All right, now it's time. Let's go around, give a scores. And it never feels like a completely formalized. Oh, and, you know, we're, we're going to combine the scores. It's going to be this. And it's going to be representative. It is like, it's a segment. Hey, like, let's go around. Each person gives their number. And it's just a fun thing of, all right, they've had the conversation, they've dug into it.

All right, now let's see what the numbers are and you move on to the next thing. And it's so informal in the way that like, they'll do a episode at the end of the year where they go back and they do their molligans. It'll change their scores. Yeah. And see, that's how I think we should treat it. It's things to discuss. Like, the more things that we can talk about and reflect

on and try to explain why we're doing what we're doing and how things change over time. Like, that's only a good thing. Like, Eric in the chat said, if the numbers don't count, then drop them entirely. I hope you've been listening to what we've been saying here of like there's a lot of value to the numbers, both for the discussions we're having, also forcing us to kind of think within parameters of,

as a group, we do this together. We speak together to each other. So we need to respect each other's time and understanding of, what I'm trying to explain to Roger, what I'm thinking about a game, if we're using a scale that we're all using, there's a level of, hey, we understand this.

Smittergy says the score is a tool they can use to speak the same language. 100%. That's what it is. It is us trying to come up with a language that we're committing to using together so that the conversations can be enhanced that you can listen and understand because you also are part of this conversation. Did you be in the comments?

You being in the chat, even if you're not actually saying anything to us, you listening to us, like you know what Tim thinks of games. You know what Bless thinks of games. Us all trying to translate what I think about a game and what great thinks about a game

to similar numbers that we can all kind of agree we're at least using the same structure. That's valuable. 100%. And I think what's fascinating is I've said this before on All Manor.

shows and stuff, but like, I'll never be able to consume kind of funny content, right, as you do as a viewer, as a listener, right? You out there have your own relationship with this and doda. I, it's, this is, I'm glad we're doing this live. I'm glad we're talking it out with you so you understand where we're coming from. Because looking at the chat and people being hung up on, well, wait, what is the, I've, I know this sounds ridiculous. I've never thought that there's a kind of funny score. I even, guys on the roof. Even when it was only one of There was a lead reviewer or whatever. I still always thought the audience looked at that as,

Blessing thinks, X, Y, and Z. He works it kind of funny. I will say, I feel the opposite. Like, the example I'll give would be the Starfield Review, where, like, you know, I can tell he leaned back when he's, like, the attitude this kid's got. We promoted it as like, Paris is going to be the lead reviewer. He's going to come through and, like, he's going to lead the charge and all that stuff, right?

But it's the game that we all played. And this is me complaining, right? because I think that was one of the best reviews we've ever done. I love you talking about this. And everybody knows that we're in a safe spot. Nobody's mad or anything like that. And I'm like, I'm not saying that review necessarily,

like my opinion means less than Paris's opinion or anything like that. But I think that it does come with the perception. The way it's presented. Paris was our kind of funny review, right? Paris was the most representative score. And so even though I'm on that review giving a three out of five, I'm like, I'm there giving a three out of five thinking like,

hey, man, this is an easy score to give because I know my score isn't the one that's going to be like the most representative of the thing. We're all locked in to see what Paris thinks about this thing. And so I think we have done it like that, at least in my opinion. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not saying it wasn't happening that way. It was never my perception of it, if that makes sense. Where for me, Paris being in the video and saying he gives it a four out of five, right,

one day it could be a five out of five. Like him saying that in the video and putting that score out there, to me, and this sounds horrible, I guess, but in a lot of ways, it's just shouting into the void. It's not like that went to Metacritic. It's not like that went somewhere. It's not like Todd Howard got a plaque from us that said four out of, you know what I mean? And like, for me, again, it's a billboard to get you to come in to watch the thing to see what we all think of what we've played. But I totally get it.

You know what I mean? And like, that's what matters is that we understand what each person thinks about the games. When we get to the game of the year and it is on your top 10 or not on your top 10 and all of that. I think that still comes to the thing of if Nibel is still around overlooking for like the review roundups, there is still a score we would put out for the review roundup. It is the one that Paris gave. I think that's kind of where the disconnect is as far as. is like the top way thing versus... This isn't that we had it right or that the audience is wrong or the percent.

I'm just talking about my own perception was always, oh, it's just a billboard to get you in to see what we all think. And so I never thought that somebody's opinion mattered more than somebody else's opinion. But I'm just trying to get my name on a commercial, okay? Like, you know, when there's a big Christmas game coming out, big fucking cool cinematic trailer, I want to see Andy Cortez 5 out of, you know, 5 out of 10. It's a real bad game. 3 out of 10.

Why do we do this? Why do we include it this? Why do we include it? I was quoted in a trailer today, which is pretty cool. What score was it? No score. But, uh, they just listen to the games cast and quoting me.

You know, because that's how this works too. Spin rhythm XD. And I was, I think it was just to be saying, this is dope or something like that. Very Tim thing. But yeah, it was cool.

It was in a trailer. No, that's good. I saw a comment asking what my review scale would be on our new review scale. Like, what my score would be on the new review scale. And it's funny you bring that up because like I've, whenever I do my own personal streams, I will automatically go to the zero to 10, 20 point scale that I have anyway. And it's like, yeah, everybody, you know, gave it, I gave it a three out of five at work. But if I were to put it on my scale, you know, like, I do that anyway.

But I think, I think right now I'm leaning like a 9.5. Wow. Yeah. See, I think it's a five because it's just kind of average. You know what I mean? I feel like the most people out. there would say that this is the score that they would want, but, you know,

people that think all the scores are better and people that other scores are worse. Well, what kind of average? Like an amazing average? Joey Radster once said, Super Chat and said I rate this decision of 9.5 out of 10. Oh, we're explaining your three out of five. The other one too is Newly. Get ready for the explaining the three out of five to turn into

explaining the, you know, seven to nine scale. Well, we need to get to that. So I want to address that in a second, but first I need to address Isaiah Smith, newly engaged. in the chat who said, how does this affect the orio-oration scale? And what's insulting, Isaiah,

is the fact that you would show up here and not know that this is the Oreo-O-Ration scale. The patented Oreo-O-Ration scale has always been the 20-point scale that I ripped off from IGN. Yeah, Andy. What's the worst score you've given an Oreo? Well, I don't know if you know this.

Review scores, really no matter. I don't remember any of my game. I read like 78-90 Oreos. I don't even know. They're all gone. But there wasn't one where you're like, this one's jalapeno flavor. This is a three out of ten.

thinkers in there for sure. I've explored the scale for sure. Yeah. And remember, I didn't let my bias for pumpkin get me in the pumpkin spice one either, which was a big deal. Can we get those new churros ones? Sure. There's like a new one. Yeah, I've seen them around. Yeah, yeah. This does, as we talked a lot about this move on to this, we do need then to go in and figure out what these

numbers mean. Kevin, you earlier had tossed it up, right? IGN, of course, operates on a 10 point scale, not a 20 point scale. But right now they have, we can look off of them of a 10 being a masterpiece. 9 being amazing. eight being great, seven being good, six being okay, five being mediocre, four being bad, three being awful, two being painful, two being unbearable.

That's pretty much right where mine is. I love that to be true. Instead, can you please throw up mine, Kevin? Because this is the asylum I was literally raised in, all right? Where we got, not only did we have the 20 point scale, actually the 21 point scale, I believe, you had it broken down by the 0.5. So what? No, no, we'll get there. Okay.

10 out of 10 was masterful. 9.5 to 9.9 was incredible. 90 to 94 was outstanding. 8.5 to 8.9 was great. 8 to 8.4 was impressive. 75 to 7.9 was good. 7.0 to 7 to 4 was decent. 6 to 6.9 was passable.

5.5 to 5.1 to 5.9 was mediocre. 5.0. M. 4.0 to 4.9 was poor. 3 to... 3 was bad. Two was terrible. One was abysmal. Point five to, I'm sorry, point one to point nine was worthless. And point zero, zero was what the fuck. Are you sure we want to do a 20 point scale?

I have a 100% sure. I'm on the 10 point scale side of this. But no, I stick with me. Yeah, we're going to do a 20 point scale. You could just do 10 anyway. We're going to, no one would ever know. But that's the thing. It's so similar at the end of the day.

But stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Because no, this is the asylum I'm raised in. That's not what we're doing. We're going, for me and what I want this scale to be is 20 points. where we have the point fives, the point fives don't change it. So it is nine to ten. Like you're doing a nine,

but is it a nine five, is whatever we, if we say nine's amazing, nine point five doesn't change to amazing plus or something. It's just like, it's amazing, but I think it's that much closer to being a 10 than whatever or whatever.

And for me, it's back to the idea that like, I hate, I worked as you can see and was raised on the hundred point scale at IGN, right, where every decimal point fucking mattered. And I hated that because that was, hey,

it's science. Like, it's not science. We're not, And it was also in the days where you broke it down by presentation, graphics, voice, or no, sound, whatever. A whole bunch of different categories that then don't average out to actually be the score. You just made all this shit up. When we went to 20 points, I found it so freeing because exactly what we're talking about here, where it is, okay, we can put all the sevens in a bucket and a 0.5 is my tip of the hat or whatever it means or this little shader to say that I liked it more than something else.

IGN's 10 point scale that they have right now, I don't like, because it's just, too broad, I feel. There's a lot of sevens, and I feel like we get a little bit back to that three out of five range where it is not, or I'm sorry, why don't I keep saying three out of five? The five out of five scores where it is just like you get put in there. But I like what Roger was talking about in hopeful future episodes where we have all played stuff and we all have a varied opinion to have it be seven, six, five point five. Like there's like these things out there that mean something that are interesting. Oh, like why? Or you know, oh, you went that. That's interesting. And you hear it go through there and the shading of it. So again, I'm not saying we need a 0.5 breakdown of what it is. I'm saying we stick to figuring out what 1 through 10 is. Yeah. But the one thing I want to push for is I do want me. I love to meh. Yeah.

I like ma'er or like mid, either one. Like, I don't like mediocre necessarily. And I don't, Masterpiece is good. I don't know if I like, I love Masterpiece. See, I love Masterpiece because Masterpiece doesn't imply perfection. Yeah. Yeah. That was always the thing where it used to be masterful in my back in my day at IGN.

I liked when they moved to Masterpiece, which was I was pushing for when it's working there. We might have actually gotten it through one year. But I like Masterpiece because you can be a Masterpiece and not be a Ten. I think whatever Ten is should like represent, this is Empire Strikes Back. Like this is the best of the best of the medium, right? Like I think that this is Super Mario 64 levels of good. Fellowship of the Ring. I think Masterpiece describes that or felt I'm not seen that.

I can't confirm nor deny. No, I'm totally with you all because. Wait, you haven't seen it? Because I think about because I think about how like tears of the kingdom could not be any more of a 10 out of 10 masterpiece to me. Yeah. Even though I'd much prefer the combat to be a lot more improved and be different,

but everything else just so outshines that experience and like that. To me, that is well deserving of that score for me. Like for me, I have number one to score, if I gave a game of 1 out of 10 on my scale, it means we need to reflect on ourselves. None of us are better for experiencing this.

And zero out of 10 is go to hell. Yeah. That's the 11 points. Yeah, I love that. If we had zero, go to hell. Yeah. Yeah. And that should be the Ghalm's not? We're never going to give a zero. If the game doesn't boot, it gets a zero. I mean, that's how...

I mean, Ghalm would crash every time you would turn on hair physics. So, like, maybe that is a zero. Let me say about 12 minutes. Oh, get the fuck out of here. I hate that game. I also, you know, everybody knows the world famous contender, right? Everybody talks about it. You see...

Jeff Keeley talks with me right now about trying to use it at SGF. You walk down the streets, you hear people just chatter. All about it. I also have the word opportunities. for having a missed opportunities and you spell teas at the N-T-E-A-S-E because you were teased by all of the

like the potential that was there. That's like a new game showdown game. Yeah, something to think about. Something to think about. There was some missed opportunities, you know, like, oh man. Everyone think about that one. If only they nailed that thing, you know what I mean?

I do think something important to point out here is that like it seems like there was a consensus between all of us that like 10's not perfect. And like Master Bees and whatever, like the words we might not exactly. agree on. I do think masterpiece sounds like we all agree on. I think that's the first score is locked. 10 out of 10 is master. That's what makes sense for this of like how we talk about these things of like 10 does 10 out 10 does not equal perfect in the sense of a review

scale where we're talking about opinions on art and creations. It's like just trying to get across that like this is really, really, really kind of as good as we can expect from this thing to be and we are so surprised by it and like we want to give it as much shoutouts as possible. Like that makes so much sense. That's a masterpiece. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody in the type, I think it was a little Caesar typed in, um, upper two nities. And it makes no sense, but going in there somehow too. There's words. It's on your head, everybody.

There was two opportunities. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Okay, so matcha piece is locked. And again, like, remember, everything, I'm coded to the DNA of IGN. Yeah. So it's hard for me to shake any of it where amazing, great, good, okay, all make sense to me, too. And this all makes sense to me.

The IGN scale makes sense because they take this shit incredibly seriously. So, of course, that this is well, thought out and they have an amazing team over there with people that their sole job is caring about this review scale. And then there's people whose sole job it is is making reviews based on the scale where the numbers actually do count and actually do matter. So of course it makes sense. I think the six, okay, I feel like could be the me. I feel like if I give something a six, I am like, eh. And then I feel like that's all people hear it. Do we think though here? So here's the big question then for the panel. It is when I, if you hear something's,

mediocre, you hear something's meh. Which do you think's better? I think they're the same. That's where my brain goes. For me, like, if we're doing mid, if we're doing five as like mediocre in the middle, like it needs to be a little bit. Like, we need to make it clearly.

Hey, this is above that. Like, can we name a game that's okay in a game that's mediocre? Like, do you guys have any examples in your mind? I'm a visual learner. I'd have to do back from my gym reviews. This is a game scout. I'm a visual lawyer,

but we're telling you. Because I have them kind of occupying the same space my mind. And yeah, like, I know... What did I give Matt Hazard? I feel like that's one. That hazard. Yeah, I think I just need more illustration of, like,

would that help? Would that help of Matt Hazard review? You never heard of. Eat led the return of Matt Hazard from IGN. But... Mess seems worse than mediocre to me. God, I'm so fucking good at my job. Eat led the Matt Hazard review at IGN.com.

5.2, mediocre. Wow. Right? You know what I mean? God, the 100-point scale's hilarious. There's something redeeming about it. Like, there's something there you could enjoy. In a mess, like, eh.

Yeah, the reason I want to catalog these things, buts is because, like, I couldn't tell you what my top ten was last year, just because I got such a bad memory. So I'm just going to Google games 2023 and just see, like... You're right, you're right. You're totally right. Shit. Like... I guess Mediocre could be replaced with me as I'm looking through it again.

Because, okay, I guess for me, the thing I was hung up on it. at first was just like, okay, and mediocre and me all feel like the same bucket of words to me. So stick with me on this then. I like me as a whatever. And back to the IGN scale that we're copying because, and then we'll claim it's our own. Like I said, I think six through ten makes sense.

Okay, good, great, amazing masterpiece. Five, we could leave mediocre, which would be what Andy said at the top of the show. And then I think four could be meh. Right? If we're trying to talk about exploring the scale here, right? Because me is like, why would you waste your time with it?

Yeah. Like, I do not like, and I, the IG has changed, obviously, since I, I was there a lot, and this is different. Like, to go from mediocre to bad, to awful, to painful, to unbearable, like, those adjectives I don't like. And, like, I think that I, I liked it better when it was poor, bad, terrible. Yeah, I, I agree with you because I think four, like, jumping from five to four, like, you're going to get, we're going to get so, such a small amount of games in the history of God of funny that we're going to give a four out of five. Just because that is such a big jump, right? to be like, that game is objectively bad. So for us to explore the scale

and if we want to do that, I think like a bleh or like a meh or something like that. I mean, I do think something helpful, not that we're necessarily doing this and we like, we aren't doing it on in review,

but we do review. The scale would be explored on in review. You know what I mean? I would love to start doing that on in review. And I know, yeah, yeah, we can talk about that.

Yeah. I'm just saying, but that that comes with a different, that changes what the show is because I think that the way we review things on gamescast, is different than the way we review things on in review. And I feel like putting numbers like that on it, we have a system.

We have a voting system. And that's the system for interview because that's the way that that discussion is handled. You know what I mean? With that could change. But I don't want to put more emphasis on these things for things that should not matter. We don't need the headline.

We don't need the help for a review to get people in on that. With the conversation, they're already there for it. Okay, fair enough. I'm trying to fucking talk about this isn't in review. But I do think that what you were saying makes sense. Like, looking at that, if we were to review movies that way, like mediocre being a 5, meh being a 4, bad being a 3, awful being a 2.

One being Golm. I'm 1,000% to write GOLM. I gave it a 1 out of 10, so it's a GOLLE. It's a real GOLM of the game. I know it's a 1 out of 5, but I feel like it's... I mean, I think the game was crashing when I turned on the hair physics, okay, on PS5. What was the game that IGN gave a 1 out of 10 to? the like the scam game

day after day more yeah I would give it to God I feel like that's a one at it I feel like you've never played Gallum's like a two you just won't shut up you just want to say my brish

my brishness my brishness we gotta be honest we gotta be honest about it huh I love leaving we won't want a gollum please do it

I mean it's like so yeah exactly what do we're gonna get there they're gonna do it do it. I would love to figure out. Now I go out of my way to review awful games just to get the goal.

I don't find a way to figure out how to like add a game to each of these numbers that we all just objectively like align with of like this is a two, this is a three, this is a four. That's actually really nice. That way we know like where we're coming from.

I like that a lot. So 12 minutes to 10. What we should do. I'm with you is, but we should do it like. Yeah, but 10 out of 10 for Greg would be fucking, uh, what's a game that just came out.

Don't be, we're friends. Wollong? What's it? I would not have given Wies of the Ronan a 10 out of 10. That's a good poem. I'm fucking hated for giving uncharted 3 a 10 out of 10. You couldn't have picked the real one?

You're going to Ronin? That game that I just said is. Oh, you motherfucker. I mean, that would be a good games cast. That's another great games cast. Yeah. Well, if we all come together and we're like, you know, we each bring a 10,

we each bring a 9, we each eight. Like that. Oh, yeah, you're on the table. And you can have, you can have, you can solidify it, what it means for us. I like this. That'd be fun. Oh, I do like that.

I do like that. Look at us. All right. I'm making content. Making boys. Yeah. We're getting there. Content boys.

Okay. So right now, I mean, we can let a gestate and marinate and we don't have to lock it in, lock it in. But right now the scale is 10 masterpiece. Nine amazing. Eight great. Seven good. Six. Okay.

Five mediocre. Four. Me. Three, bad. Two, awful. One gullum. We didn't read it. We did it.

We did. And then with point five's in between to kind of explain when we're, we're in between. Yeah. I feel good about this. I feel really good about this. And again, this is not like a scientific thing. This is just for us to have shorthand between each other and also for the audience, right? Like the reality of it is that there's going to be people that come in to embargo or non-embarko now 11 a.m. in the middle of the workday just to see, hey, where are they at? And I'll listen later. Like just to kind of see the vibes beforehand. So I think it's important for us to have a review scale and I'm happy about this conversation for sure.

100%. Mr. Showtime in the chat says, Golom seems mean or does it seem kind of funny. I don't get it. I like that. Let's go. That's our name. I can't read it. Sit back in your chair.

I like that a lot. And again, none of this is etched in stone and coming down for the mountain, right? So again, we reserve the right to change this on the fly and do whatever. And I do love,

we have a games meeting in a little bit, right? We'll get in there and try to look ahead to see where we could do a, hey, everybody, bring it together and do that kind of thing. So 20 point scale,

does that imply that that 0.5 is a score we can give? Or a 10.5? Because I would love to give a 10.5. Can we make it a 10.5? Don't blow your load too early. I really like that idea.

I don't think anybody would ever stop you. Tears of the kingdom will be a 10.5. Because breadth of law is a 10. But again, that goes back to what we've been saying here. It's us speaking a language to each other. So if you want to express, yo, this game is so good. It's off the fucking charts.

That's using the scale for the intended purpose because the number doesn't matter. It's how you feel about the thing that matters. So I love that. Dr. Terminus says going with the 20-point scale is going to create the same problem you had with the five-point scale. You have to explain the shit out of it anytime you give a score. Yep. Having to explain the shit out of it is the podcast is the podcast.

That is the point. That is what we are doing. So yes, that will continue to happen. Each and every weekday, live on YouTube, Twitch, podcast services, both of the games casting, kind of funny games daily. So many of you superchatted through this. Thank you. I like a lot. I'm going to toss out here.

Brain 13 says, submit all your scores to Metacritic and take over. I like that one. Yang fan was reacting. I think it says, don't care for the rating. Just tell me if I should play a game or not. That's the fucking point of the podcast. That's why you're supporting us.

That's what we do every day. Plotson, one of the thoughts about averaging the score in a not even perfect world, a different world where it was all of us reviewing every game. We had the time to do that, yada, yada, yada.

I think that would make sense and get to a weighted position. But again, I think it goes too far back to this is the kind of funny score and this is more important than anyone's opinion, which we're trying to get away from and not do, right? Lucy Dream says,

I've been waiting for this change for a long time, and I think it will better serve both the reviewer and the audience. A long time ago, Tom said, Roger, where does Gawlum fall on the new scale? Well, we know. Definitive. Dexterous Joe says he was being sarcastic.

He loves us. He wasn't trying to start stuff earlier. A.A. says, I have full faith. You guys will figure this out, and I love Andy's Jubilee jacket. Oh, yeah. Foxy C-Septs. Kind of remind me of the old judgment day on tech TV,

where each host would give a game their own score and talk about it. Exactly. That's the kind of funny games cast for you, ladies and gentlemen. We're at the end here. Alejandro wants to know under the new review score. Tim, Blessing, Roger, give your Final Fantasy 7 rebirth scale or review. But I don't want to make you just... Oh, I mean, well, it's easy for me.

I'll give it a 9. Okay? Yeah, I'll give it a... Ooh. I'd have to think about it a little bit, but either 8.5 or 9. Love it. Thank you for this question. 75.

I was thinking about this today. Fuck, yeah. See, that's fun. I like that. And that's all it is. Then we would talk about it and do the show. good game. Yeah, exactly. Why not, this is Charlie, why not rate games like Germany rates energy drinks?

At the end of the year, post the list of all the games you reviewed ranked. Oh, shit, guys. Should we start the whole podcast over? Maybe we should do that. Hey, who reviews energy drinks? Germany? The country? German, I don't know. Maybe it's a person. I don't know. I got to take that out. You got to, like, switch a car. My grandma had wheels. She'd be a bicycle. All right? Why doesn't anything happen anyway? Nobody knows. a YouTube video and it was like, Joe Biden here.

I got this monster. Final super chat before I close out this episode of the games cast and go play Spider-Man. Alex Jay Sandoval says, I ultimately don't care because I've always listened to the review for more than I focused.

I've always listened to the review more than I focused on the number. This is better for you all. I'm good with it. Either way, thanks for doing it with us. They meant Jeff Gertzman. No. No.

That makes sense. It's an auto correct or something I've been. That is the best. That is the best. It's not even that. Because it's G-E-R-M-A-N-Y-N. I was like, is this a YouTuber that I don't know about? It's supposed to be Jeff Gersman.

That's awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for hanging out with us as we walked through this with you. Worked on it with you. As I said on January 5th, 2015, we are not building kind of funny for you. building it with you, which means evolving to the ever-changing video game landscape and making a product that serves both you and us better. We couldn't do it without you. So if you've liked this discussion and you like us, please consider giving us 10 bucks over on patreon.com slash kind of funny

or YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. You'd become a kind of funny member. You'd get everything ad-free. You'd get the ability to watch us record our afternoon podcast. Live is recorded. And of course, you'd get the daily video and podcast experience, Greg Way. Right now I'm going to go play. Spider-Man Web of Shadows for the first time in 16 years on my PlayStation 3. No trophies, boo. But until next time, it's been my pleasure to serve you.

6.5 out of 10 loads of the following.