Do ratings affect whether you download a game?

[silver577]

Yes

 

[kokokokokokoko]

Yes, but unless it's 3 stars or less I will still check the game

 

[kenta50]

Of course it influence me , but might check it as well if it seems interesting.

 

[Fannnnywooper]

yeah, anything below 3.5 and i dip, unless its REALLY down my alley

 

[herelooking027]

When looking at games, do you pay attention to the ratings?

If so, do 'low' ratings make you less likely to download a game?

What are your thresholds for being wary of, or even not downloading a game, based on its rating?

Personally, when there's enough ratings, I generally am wary of anything below a 4/5, and unless in an exceptional situation probably wouldn't download a game under 3.5/5.

Almost every game that has 3/5 or less has been pretty bad, but one of my favorite games was 3.5/5 and I don't like many of the 4.5/5 games

 

[lc1019]

Sometimes. when I think a game looks bad but the reviews are too good, I give it a try.

 

[comendadorbr]

Yes, I tend to don't play games below 3 ratings

 

[User_120358]

if it looks good, why not? people often give ratings based on their subjective preferences

 

[hathgarniche]

It does have an affect, but it wont stop me downloading it. Ive enjoyed quite a few 2 or 3 out of 5 games. They are often just more clunky or the language isnt particularly proficient, etc. Doesnt make them bad really. Ive also downright disliked greatly some 4.5/5 games as well. I decide on three factors. The rating, the general vibe of what people say in the discussion, and the imagery/story summery. If 2 of the 3 seem alright, i'll give it a try.

 

[lcarrow]

They do but I'll always check what the reviews are actually saying because some things like rating 1/5 just because a game is grindy doesn't bother me as much as others. I'll sometimes stumble across a game I played a while back thinking it was pretty good only to see Fuck95 rates it as 2.5/5

 

[TheLowEnder]

Yes, I look at the ratings, and I usually set a first threshold around 3.5.
But I usually read a few reviews on the various side of the spectrum: as others have pointed out, some low ratings are just the consequence of the game being what it is and not what it isn't.
Our personal likes and dislikes should be left out of any review, but that's almost impossible.

 

[kazu13]

I do look at ratings but if it has less than 80% upvotes, I only download it if the premise is to my liking. If it's less than 50%, then better luck next time.

 

[Ghost 👻]

There's a large bias towards negative reviews, i.e. people are more likely to respond if they have a problem, real or perceived, than not. Review bombing for entirely unrelated and unimportant reasons is also a thing in the modern sphere due to cancel culture. There have even been companies that have intentionally sold a small percentage of damaged products just to generate bad reviews they could respond to and solve, as a way of engagement farming to boost themselves in search engine algorithms and generate a public impression that they respond to and solve customer complaints since the value of the reputation generated is greater than the cost to fix the problem; easy to do when money has already been set aside knowing some of your products went out with very minor damage and expecting to respond and fix it. On the other end of the scale, it's easy to just hit 5★ on everything, and it's almost encouraged due to others' negative bias as a way to report, "No issues here." It's a common practice on eBay when developing a new account to buy large volumes of really cheap shit you don't need, sub $5 including shipping, just to generate positive rep for a new account due to people marking you as a 5★ buyer.

People will always both be victims of, and manipulate the system. So I try to be aware of reviews for major problems, but I always give things a try to form my own opinion, unless something is generally marked as being hazardous in some way, or a complete scam.

 

[Saucerr]

Usually what makes me interested in a game on forums is the tags and screenshots, but I often check rating once I'm interested, and if it's really low there's a chance I don't try it.
But in the end that's up to me and sometimes I want to try the game anyway.

On the contrary there are games that dont seem to be interesting to me in the first place and I give them a chance if they are highly rated (after reading some reviews)

TLDR: To me it's always nice to have reviews/rating to confirm/deny a before-playing impression

 

[MattShizzle]

Definitely. I look at the NEGATIVE ratings, because even terrible games have fanbois, some cultlike (see A Wife and Mother) and friends, etc of the dev who will rate absolute dogshit 5 stars. The negative ones will let you know about bad things (Engrish, blueballing, etc) so you know not to bother. Other than just tags you hate.

 

[User_123725]

It depends how much the game promises. If it is promising the best experience, story, a ton of features and ultimately the rating is less than 3. Safe to say they didn't pull it off. But if it's something simple and it has a three or lower I could believe it to still be worth it.

 

[Calogrenant]

Depends on tags.
With some fetishes, I know ratings can be lower than what it should actually be.
But when it drops under 2.5 that usually means more than only something that is not at everyone's taste

 

[leomgr69]

Usually I wont download games under 3 stars however sometimes im amazed at how good a 2 star game is or how bad a 5 star game is.

 

[CharlieV]

Yes but less so these days.

i've noticed some of my favourite games have very average ratings and I've realised it's because some people downvote because they don't like an NTR part of the game or something, rather than judging the actual game quality.

 

[MattShizzle]

Note that on Fuck95, they have so many convoluted rules for ratings, it's almost impossible to not violate 1 or more - so they can delete any ratings they don't like. This usually makes certain games have artificially high ratings.