Back in September, I wrote an entry called, The Ratings Game in which I looked at Computer Gaming World’s recent decision to stop printing scores along with their reviews. In that post I noted that it seemed that in many cases, CGW was simply rewriting reviews from their 1up.com site — reviews which actually had scores attached to them.
At the end of that post I noted that CGW was being replaced with Games for Windows: The Official Magazine and wrote:
It will be interesting to see if they retain the “no ratings” policy or if they use that opportunity to reinstate them.
Well, I got the first issue of GFW in the mail a couple days ago and guess what? They have gone back to rating games and printing scores with their reviews.
A letter in the issue addresses the issue and their comment is:
The great thing about magazine redesigns is they let you hit the reset button and when you flip to the Reviews section about two-thirds of the way through this magazine, you’ll see that’s exactly what we did. The Computer Gaming World Viewpoint section was a grand experiment, and we think it was a successful one. We learned a ton. And the Games for Windows: The Official Magazine Reviews and Extend sections reap the rewards. (Page 18)
Now to be fair, they didn’t put back their old 5 star system, but they put in a 10 point system which is totally different, right?
Of course the only thing that really matters is that I was right, right? I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!