Topic: Gamers or Everyone/Casual or Intense

Here's something I've been curious about for a while now. I know most of you don't care about the 5 star rating system, but how useful are the two bars in a game's eShop page, in your opinion?

Personally, I would prefer a 1-10 for how difficult someone thought the game was instead. I can understand why Nintendo would think separating casual games from hardcore games would be beneficial, but sometimes it would be nice for them to clarify what a casual or hardcore game should be. Right now, I don't think the four labels accomplish much at all

Yeah, I agree. Some games aren't only for casual gamers or everyone/ casual or intense; there can be games in-between. I think the rating system on the eshop could easily be improved.

The more work to make a rating, the less people will bother with it, though. I think Nintendo's system is fine, despite the fact that apparently everyone who buys any game on it ever loves it like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Personally, I don't pay any attention to any of the eShop's rating "indicators", lol.

Every game I've seen has either 5/5 4/5 or 4 1/2/5 except for Block Factory which had 3 1/2/5

It's a super simple system to give you a general idea. Of course lots of games will have high scores or very few ratings... that's just because many consumers are very well informed before they make a decision to purchase.

I've noticed this quirk in the ratings as well.
Odd.

To reiterate myself... thanks to the many many means of information in the world, most people that would buy something know they will enjoy it. And if they reeeeally enjoy it, they're more likely to want to tell others.

^I don't know about that (on the theory that there's so much information out there). NL is the only website I've ever saw that covers all downloads on a timely manner. Every other site out there that covers eShop & DSiware titles (and their aren't many) aren't as quick about it, and skip over a lot of titles. Furthermore, besides for diehard gamers, I doubt the majority of 3DS owners are checking NL (or gaming sites in general) regularly.

As for the plethora of high ratings on eShop? You only get to rate a game once you've played it for an hour. Thus, chances are that the only ones who will make it to that mark (and feel strongly enough about the game to give it a good rep), are people who really like it, especially for eShop titles (which are small enough that most people will have formed an opinion on them before an hour's playtime).

I don't bother with the casual category question(s) in the game listing. I don't see setting up the feedback on the premise of casual/hardcore gamers as two separate groups as being very helpful for people trying to see if this is a game they'd like. The two groups aren't mutually exclusive, maybe a hardcore gamer is looking for an occasional quick pick, or the casual gamer is looking to try something new. The poll is valuable to marketing if that's how they roll, and for laughs, but I wouldn't use it as a buying guide. I'd say it's more important to provide an informative description of the game (supported by more screenshots, videos, etc.) and let the buyers decide for themselves.

That said, I'd actually glance at the 5-star rating. The ratings tend to skew towards the high end (at least in Canada) and should be taken with a pinch of sodium, but if something is rated 3 stars I would take it as a cautionary alert and look up the game before I go through with the purchase (usually it's 3 stars for a reason).

For poor games, I think either people don't play them for an hour or if they do, they're afraid to judge them harshly, so they give them at least a 3 or don't rate them. It's like people have different standards these days because of the whole "everyone wins" in kids sports and not failing kids in school anymore, so no one thinks it's possible for anything to be a failure. I rate games about 3.5 on average, despite mostly only buying games rated 4.5 or higher, so I definitely think people are way too kind.

The casual/intense everyone/gamers ratings could be useful if you aren't a hard core gamer and only want to download games that are casual and for everyone, but if you're a gamer I guess it doesn't really matter too much.

I agree with people here who said "casual" can be a vague term. Is it characterised by easy difficulty level, short main game/mini-games, etc. ? For the games that sit somewhere in between, the product description is still more useful in the end in deciding whether or not to purchase.

I'd rather they showed short written player comments like one of the CN survey questions (other thoughts you have about the game, up to 255 characters), but it likely won't happen, too much data to display. With written feedback you get a better sense of the tone/view people have towards the game, i.e. the difference between "it's okay, beat the game in 10 hours", "it's good, starts easy then gets harder" and "OMG you must buy this! The characters are sooo awesome!"

imo, a comment system would ruin everything. I can't think of many places on the internet (this site is a very welcome exception ) where the comments haven't been all inane and inflammatory and completely unhelpful. Plus, everyone has subjective views on their own games. Also, because I don't tend to rate games down because they're something that I decided to buy and paid money for, although I don't vote 5/5 unless it's a game I would actively recommend to everyone

As for the deal with casual and intense, I think that there are games which problematically straddle both those terms. Mutant Mudds is a good example - it has very short levels that encourage a pick-up-and-play mentality, but the mechanics are so punishing that anyone who isn't 100% concentrated on the game will fail miserably.

Probably because those who buy the games do their research before to see whether or not they'll like it. Also if someone dislikes a game enough to give it 1-2 stars they probably wont bother playing it for a full hour - which is what I found for the few games I downloaded that I disliked.

On the topic of Casual/Intense though - It's very hard to define for some of the games, but it's just a simple rating system; those who are really interested will look into it more anyway.

Yeah, that's a problem with having a comment system, possibly needing people to moderate and such. The mobile app stores manage okay, though. Maybe the alternative would be to replace with more helpful criteria. It's nice to know the percentage of people who see the game one way or the other, but its says little about the quality, difficulty, presentation or depth of the game, which imho are more important in making a choice. If it's "casual", does that automatically mean it's easy?

Then there's the small segment of apps/titles where the labels don't apply. Take Colors 3D! ... technically not a game, but it's also not for "everyone" either (those with an interest in drawing/painting?), at least not the way anyone can pick up an Angry Birds game. Is it casual or intense? It depends on how you interact with it, you can make little doodles on it or spend hours on a full-colour picture. Of course we're talking about games right now and the eShop titles are predominantly games, but I also like the idea of the few (niche) apps around that give new purpose to the DS/3DS, and for those the casual/intense labels don't make any sense.