The Bitmob Mailbag, July 2 Edition

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A light mailbag this week (step it up, people!), but what we have is good, including a thoughtful question, a foolish question, a bewildering question, and a throwback question. See if you can guess which is which. And if you want to be part of the fun: letters@bitmob.com.

Hey Bitmob,

I have become interested in a little game these past few weeks I assume all of you have heard about called Ico. Unfortunately, it is seemingly impossible to find even a used copy at any local GameStop or Play & Trade, forcing me to take my hunt online. The lowest price I found was about $40 to $45 for the disk and a generic DVD case.

For anyone at Bitmob who has played through Ico, is it worth paying $40 (at least), or should I hold off and hope that Sony rereleases a digital version on PSN or included with The Last Guardian?

-Scott Haveman

Bitmob: Wait, Scott. You're writing to a gaming site that caters to the core gamer and asking if Ico's worth a few saw backs? You new to this Internet thing?

Now, it would make sense for an Ico push when The Last Guardian drops, but Sony is just now getting games like Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid on the PSN Store -- PS1 goods.

Basically, don't hold your breath...and hope you have a PS3 that actually supports backward compatibility when you buy that used copy.

Hey Bitmob,

"But enough about us, what do you all think about letter grades when it comes to games?" [Editor's note: This is a question we asked in last week's mailbag.]

Hi there -- since you asked, I have to say that I was really not happy with the decision to move to letters instead of numbers.Â All it did was lend a juvenile aura to the whole EGM review system.

I'm not of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school (usually), but this is one case where I felt like you just wanted to change something in order to make the magazine more trailblazing.

-Jane Branden

Bitmob: As we mentioned last week, most of the core Bimob staff was part of this decision, and we can assure you we did not make it just for the sake of change or for any trailblazing reasons.

One of the biggest factors was that too many people (readers, developers, PR people) couldn't grasp the idea that a 5.0 was "average," thanks in no small part to the generally accepted 7-to-9 soft scale used at most outlets, so they'd raise hell when we gave a game decent (but not bad) score on our scale.

With the letter scale, it's hard to argue that C is average. Right? That's a concept we can all get behind. And you won't find many people calling Entertainment Weekly, which also uses a letter-grading scale, juvenile.

Hey Bitmob,

I was just listening to one of your (eminently enjoyable) podcasts and I couldn't help but think of a wonderful way to use Natal/motion-control sensors in Rock Band/Guitar Hero.

The complaint is always that the l337 players will look down, score high, and be complete bores. I was thinking that if the motion tracker could also see the degree of involvement in a music-rhythm game it would compel the players to give it some extra "oomph."

You may be able to score 100 percent on "Through the Fires and Flames"...but can you do it whilst Rockin' like a Demon^TM?

Just a thought. Physical gameplay influencing technical gameplay...

-Scott C.

Bitmob: Honestly, we're not quite following what you're saying here, but we're putting this in simply because we love that you trademarked Rockin' like a Demon!

...

Wait. We don't owe you royalties for saying that, do we?

Hey Bitmob,

Have you guys ever thought of continuing the Broken Pixels podcast on Bitmob. It seems as if the 1UP version has all but died, and it makes me a very sad individual. I don't know if it's possible to get Seanbaby (he is, of course, an essential piece of the puzzle), Shane, and Crispin on regularly...I just really miss the podcast.

Also. Do people still call Shoe "Dan Dan Phan Phan Hsu Hsu"?

Sam Wright

Bitmob: What, are you saying Hoe Down isn't good enough for you?

Broken Pixels is a great show, no doubt, but there's a little problem with us getting it: It's a 1UP property. A little bird tells us that some lost episodes might still exist that you'll see some day, though. Let's hope.

To answer your more pressing question, though: Ha! They will now.

And that's it for this week. If you want to be a part of ever-growing Bitmob history, simply send an e-mail with your thoughts to letters@bitmob.com.

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Brett Bates

July 02, 2009

Personally, I'd respect Entertainment Weekly a lot more if they went back to scoring on a scale of 1-10 Christopher Walkens.

Greg Ford

Ha! We can dream.

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Derek Lavigne

Without stirring up too much controversy, I agree with the Bitmob that C = 5 = Average. Unfortunately Garnett Lee constantly complains about his B- being looked at as a 67/100 or something of that nature.

Chris Ternus

I have to say that scoring from 1-10 and then switching to a letter score with the thought that you would no longer be confused with "Soft Scale" seems odd. It seems like you are just switching to a standardized soft scale system of 100-90 is an "A" and 65 and below is an F. I am not saying I don't like it; letter grades should be easy to understand for anyone who has been to a public school (Unless you went to some odd and most likely failed alternative school.) However when you consider you will be used as a statistic for aggregate sites you are asking for trouble. Either they soft scale from 100-65, or the spread the 1-100 scale out further than it was made for in the letter grade system which gives a 20 point spread to each letter. This makes a C- between a 40-45. If you move the decimal you are right back to the original 10-1 scale, making a c- around a 4-4.5. So really it didn't change anything.

Spencer Gregory

I agree wholeheartedly with Chris.

Or you can look at the letters more like a five-point scale, which people seem to grasp much more easily. (In this case, the pluses and minuses act as modifiers.) When you see something get three out of five stars, your expectations are pretty well in check.

I think the problem is that aggregate sites assume that everything can easily be converted to a hundred-point scale, even if that scale is weighted unevenly. And at this point, it just gets messy, as we have seen.

Dan "Shoe" Hsu

It's FAN FAN, not Phan Phan, fyi. I'm Chinese!

@Greg: Therein lies the magic of the letter grade. It can be viewed from two angles. The online publication can tout C- as a 2.5/5 average, while publishers can squint their eyes and convince themselves C- is a low 70s average. Both parties have it their way, Yet it leaves a reader like myself slightly bewildered. EGM and 1Up definitely pulled some smoke and mirrors with the rating switch. I'm sure it helped them get on the up-and-up with certain companies once again, but it didn't make me think any better of them.

Joshua Henderson

Even if Broken Pixels is a 1UP property couldn't you use the same premise and label it with another name? I don't think you can trademark three guys sitting around cracking on terrible games.

Justin Emmerton

I'm behind Scott C's idea. Everybody should play Rock Band like this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHi6BfTNmTc

Youcef Lardjane

@Spencer: I don't think you can blame the ex EGM guys for trying to catch a break and it's not like it changed the reviews. In the end, the scores were a way to give you the degree of appreciation the reviewer had for the game. If you were used to 1up and EGM, you knew what their scores meant (they bashed us over the head about that for a while so we'd understand) and as long as you trusted them to give you an honest opinion, that's all that really mattered.

July 03, 2009

@Youcef: I agree that the change in rating scales in no way affected the written content they produced. Nevertheless, I feel the switch was a sign that EGM and 1Up were partially folding-in with the norm; they lost a bit of their independence.

Previously, their reviews were honest and complemented by an honest score. EGM and 1Up used the 10-point scale the right way (using all ten points). They were one of the few media outlets who got it right, contrary to nearly everyone else. Now, they have been assimilated into the soft-scale crowd, except they use letter grades so they're still kinda unique. I guess. It's a mask to me.

Scott Haveman

Alright, so mine was a stupid question to ask a site like this. I think I just wanted to hear more praise to give me another push to buy Ico. I think it's possible we may see PS2 games on PSN at some point. I wouldn't put money on it, but I could see it happening. And even if it does, yeah... probably not for quite a long while.

Reed Brown

July 04, 2009

You complain about people not getting that a 5 is "average", yet when you changed to letter grades a 5 would be considered an F. Explain that.

@Scott: If you're still interested in reading more on Ico, check out my review at the link below

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8350225&publicUserId;=5796718.

@Spencer: No offense but I think you're looking for a negative point... You're agreeing that the score change didn't change the editorial content but then you say they lost their independance. They always said that score should be secondary to the review itself anyway, something I've always agreed with. I'm one of the few who loved it when CGW took them out of their reviews. Anyway it's all about interpretation of the scores. They expected readers to understand what they meant and most did, and the PR got what they wanted. Am I reading you wrong or am I just defending 1up blindly?