Game Rankings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| URL | http://gamerankings.com/ |
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| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Gaming |
| Registration | Free |
| Owner | CNET Networks |
| Created by | Scott Bedard |
Game Rankings is a website which keeps track of video game reviews from other sites, and combines them to present an average rating for each game. Similar services include Metacritic (also owned by CNET), GameStats, Game Ratio and Rotten Tomatoes.
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[edit] Rankings
Game Rankings collects and links to (but does not host) reviews from other websites and magazines and averages specific ones. While hundreds of reviews may get listed, only the ones that Game Rankings deems notable are used for the average. Scores are culled from numerous American, European, and Japanese sources. The site uses a percentage grade for all reviews in order to be able to calculate an average, however, because not all sites use the same scoring system (some rate out of 5 or 10, while others use a letter grade), Game Rankings changes all other types of scores into percentages using a relatively straightforward conversion process.[1]
[edit] Other features
- Along with averaging reviews for individual games, Game Rankings compares games (once a game has at least 20 reviews it is added to the listings) (see the page legend). The description for games lists its position in the rankings for the specific console (multi-platform games have multiple records) as well as its ranking among all games in the database.[2]
- As of November 16, 2006, the database contained 20,090 titles.[3] Each game page also contains links to external sites for news, downloads, and other gaming sites.
- While not included in the rankings, the site also accepts user ratings and reviews (generally a few paragraphs[citation needed]). The site claims to have over 96,000 "active users".[3] There are also message boards for each game, as well as more general discussions.[4]
- The site also includes a searchable database, allowing parameters such as name, system, scores, etc. While registration is not required, users can create accounts to get custom rankings, submit scores/reviews, and post to the message board
[edit] CNET partner sites
As all three sites are owned by CNET, each game record contains links to GameFAQs (for user-submitted cheats, reviews and walkthroughs) and GameSpot (for news, previews and professional reviews).
[edit] Criticism
Game Rankings sometimes receives criticism for treating all media sources equally in allocating rankings for the games. This includes sources that are part of the same company that makes the games (or games in competition) as well as small sites which may or may not be reputable.
[edit] Notes and references
- Note: This article cites information posted on the homepage which is not archived.
[edit] External links
| CNET |
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| Websites |
| Consumating | Download.com | GameFAQs | Game Rankings | GameSpot | Metacritic | MP3.com | mySimon | TechRepublic | TV.com | Webshots | ZDNet |
| People |
| Veronica Belmont | Ina Fried | Jeff Gerstmann | Greg Kasavin | James Kim | Declan McCullagh | Tom Merritt | Halsey Minor | Alex Navarro | Daniel Terdiman | Molly Wood |
| Other |
| Buzz Out Loud | CNET TV |
