Members for rating panel, apply here!

[LimpingFish]

I agree with the points scotch has raised.

I also think we may be analyzing this a little too much. From my understanding, this plan is simply to catalog games in a way that is easily accessable to a "layman" from outside the community, and expanding the search options to be more flexible. And removing those entries that, really, offer little to prospective downloaders.

And I'm all for removing the "Oh look! I made a game LOL!" entries that clog the database. I'm also aware that this can be construde as censorship, or an elitist few dictating what is and isn't worthy. I'm not interested in debating the symantics of rating Yatzhee's games over Anonymous Inept Developer no.362's games. I presume, on the whole, the distinction between "acceptable" games over those suitable for removal would be fairly clear.

If you want to piss up a "game" to show to your classmates fine, but you shouldn't automatically have the right to a listing in the game database if your game is obviously lacking any "artistic" merit (and yes, I'm aware that people's impressions of artistic merit can fluctuate wildy, but I'm sure we can all agree on the basics) or contains questionable material. The database is part of the "official" AGS homepage, and, however ridiculous it may seem, its contents may be judged indictive of the community as a whole.

I think rewarding a game for a bit of clever scripting is taking it a little too far, as it really isn't something that would be noticable (or important) to somebody just looking for a fun game to play. I certainly wouldn't be interested in examining a game to that extent.

[blueskirt]

What happen to great looking games which suffer from a handful of game crashing errors like No-Action Jackson?

What happen to games with graphics that do not age very well? In several case we're talking about the best games from 6 and 5 years old games that will be judged next to the games released in the last months. And what will happen in the next 6 years? Will the cup rating suffer from inflation as the quality of games keep on increasing?

Also regarding soundtrack, while originality is great, having a soundtrack that fit the game and the scenes' mood is probably more important than whether or not it comes from a RPG maker's sample soundtrack. Originality doesn't always mean that it's good or that it fits the game.

I too would prefer some sort of system that rate every aspects individually, then make an average or a customized average where some aspects worth a bit more or a little bit less in the balance, but also where some games can win bonus points for original soundtrack, innovation and unique features, because the classifying system that is currently proposed with its pass or crash feel can be unfair for several games, even AGS awards winners that have a negliged aspects.

I think you should divide the score into categories, i.e. so many cups for graphics, so many for sound, etc etc. And then a final score, (which might, or might not be an average).

The existing user ratings will remain for graphics, sound, etc. These already do a good job of rating the sub-categories, and I don't see any point in giving the panel the ability to give each game an "official" graphics or sound rating.

As Andail says, the existing rating system will co-exist with the Panel-awarded Cups; the Games page will display both (eg. "Panel Rating: 3/5 Cups; User Rating: 74%"). Therefore, if you wanted to you could completely ignore the Cup-rating of a game, and just rely on the user rating to find a decent game to play.

Yes, but this time the rating will actually means something if it is done by knowledgable, dedicated and responsible peers instead of a legion of fanboys, even if I'm still unsure on how such system will take into account friendships and grudges between judges and creators.

Also, 2 categories that should be in the search engine:
AGS Award winners
AGS Award nominees

[SSH]

Oh yes, I think award nominees should be added to the database. And really there should be a way to exclude the booby-prize awards from that, too.

[Andail]

I might inform you that the first panel is filled, and the members in question will soon be invited.
Further applications now will fill empty spots from next month and forward.

[Pet Terry]

(this is slightly off-topic, sorry about that)

Seeing that we're discussing the games database, would it be impossible/impractical to include an option to delete your own games from the database? It's kind of embarrassing to see some of my old crappy games there and I'd like to remove them from the database (what the hell was I thinking when I made those games?!). The games are really _not worth playing_ and I don't think the download links even work anymore.

Or would that mess the database up somehow? I'm just asking, because years ago I added the infamous Goldlagoon to the Adventure developers' games database and it seems to be next to impossible to remove the game from there now. I've actually contacted Erwin and some other people about removing the entry, but nothing has happened. I just don't think that the game is going to be finished in the next decade or so, so there's no point in having it in the games database (Erwin, if you read this, is there anything you can do?).

[Pumaman]

I'm still unsure on how such system will take into account friendships and grudges between judges and creators.

Well, we're expecting some sort of professionalism from the panel -- that's why the requirements to be on it are as they are. Also, it's a panel of judges, so if one particular judge was a fanboy or enemy of a game author, the others should outnumber them.

Seeing that we're discussing the games database, would it be impossible/impractical to include an option to delete your own games from the database

It would be possible, but I'm not really in favour because by removing your game you're also removing the reviews and ratings that people have taken time out to submit.

However, if anyone has a game that they added to the games page, and really really want to remove, PM me and I can sort it out.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Pity I have no time. I fit every other category quite well, espeically the "played all games" bit.

[Esseb]

Andail: The panel is already filled you say. Does this also mean that the rating system you proposed is now final, or is it still open for debate? It might be a good idea to use a system that people can agree on, before we get stuck with one for years.

I also really dislike the proposed clinical checklist system. It may be suitable for commercial games where all aspects of a game can be argued are equally worthy since the developers have enough people working on it, but who are we kidding? We're making amateur adventure games, mostly on our own. Any game I made would only get 3 bluecups at best, or more likely a 2, simply because of the art and music criteria. In fact, that seems to apply to almost every single AGS game ever made.

We're not making commerical games. If someone makes a brilliant game with pedestrian graphics I would far prefer it got a rating of "Highly recommended - has an engaging plot, believable characters, and stimulating puzzles. The graphics may not be up to everyone's liking though." instead of "2 bluecups" or "3 bluecupes" which seems to be what the proposed system would result int.

My vote goes to a rating system of 3 levels: Not recommended, recommended, and highly recommended. Including a short description of the reasons why, except perhaps for the not recommended option.

[LimpingFish]

I see Esseb's point, but the following...

I also really dislike the proposed clinical checklist system. It may be suitable for commercial games where all aspects of a game can be argued are equally worthy since the developers have enough people working on it, but who are we kidding? We're making amateur adventure games, mostly on our own. Any game I made would only get 3 bluecups at best, or more likely a 2, simply because of the art and music criteria. In fact, that seems to apply to almost every single AGS game ever made

...isn't helping anyone. If a game has "inferior" graphics it should be rated as such, regardless of the ins and outs of how the graphics were created. Plenty of games made by a single person have "good" graphics, or "good" music, etc.

A single developer who's game has "good" graphics shouldn't be rewarded because of that fact, just as a single developer whose game has "bad" graphics shouldn't have allowances made for them.

Should a game be punished for having bad music, or no music? If it makes an impact on the enjoyability of a game...then yes, imo.

Critics, and that's what any panel formed will inherently be, can only put forth an opinion, not a fact written in stone. And as we all know, opinions are like snowflakes.

[Hudders]

Any game I made would only get 3 bluecups at best, or more likely a 2, simply because of the art and music criteria. In fact, that seems to apply to almost every single AGS game ever made.

If all games are rated on the same scale, there is no problem.

I'm sure that unless your game is infinitely superior to the average, it's not going to get a top score; regardless of what the "top" is. That's as it should be. This is about rewarding the incredible efforts that some achieve and weeding out the dross that is going to put people off AGS altogether. If your game is average, it deserves an average score; whether this is 2 cups or forty-eight cups, if everything's being rated on the same criteria what does it matter?

You might feel like you're being being penalised for art and music; but if someone was to go and create something spectacular, shouldn't they be rewarded?

[MillsJROSS]

I really don't like this idea very much. I agree we do need some new rating system, but I'm not sure this is the way to go.

For one, I don't like the idea of getting rid of panel members. Mainly, for consistency sake. This isn't to say panel members should be set in stone. I just think that if your doing a good job of playing games and voting to some criteria, then there's no reason to get rid of you. You're being productive, and we seem to be under the assumption that there's an endless supply of people who are qualified AND willing to replace people. Get all the people on the panel you can, is really what I'm getting at. Including people under the two year mark. Seems to me, if someone can play games and rate them, it's more accurate if their not embedded within this community as much. If anything, newer people would tend to be more subjective. Also, with the backlog of games it seems you need all the help you can get.

I'm iffish about the criteria being used to judge games. It could be my lack of understanding on how this is going to work, but it just doesn't sit well with me. It seems that there would be games that I love that would fall on the negative side. Is each point getting it's own cup? To me that would make more sense. In this way people could pick and choose what is more important to them when looking at a breakdown of how many cups were given in certain areas.

I don't know how the information will be displayed, just cups, I assume. But I think there has to be some breakdown of how the rating was gotten. The bad graphics lowered the rating to something. Otherwise the cup system is really no better than the percentage system.

I agree with scotch. If this is rating is going to be used more as a filter for people playing the games, than constructive criticism for the actual author of the game, it should be more based on the subjective, "We Liked it." Then some small reasons why.

If a game is buggy just give it some sort of icon that represents how buggy, and let players choose from that.

While it's evident that a lot of thought has been put into this, it also seems like this is being rushed without really having a good discussion about it. It doesn't seem we need a panel till we've discussed all the kinks out. I also just see a panel of people slowly losing interest.

I don't think we need a "dedicated" panel. I think we need a better rating system that is open to everyone. I think we don't need to add on to the old rating system, but almost wipe it clean. I think we need a rating system that is specifically helpful to the author of the game, as well as used to filter out worse games. And I think we then need a panel of people to use the general masses oppinion and rate it according to that.

I really think this needs to be discussed further, and if it wasn't so late in the night for me, I would elaborate and suggest criteria that I think should be in there. The only gem of an idea here is breaking things up into genre's, otherwise, I'm opposed to this way of going about the voting system.

-MillsJROSS

[Andail]

Some quick responses.

First of all, what we have on our hands is a situation, that needs to be solved, preferably quickly.
The situation is basically that 1/3-1/2 of the database entries are dead links, and another 1/4 are made up by games so bad they're not worth downloading.

Another part of this situation is that we have a system of rating games now (the users' percentage) that is far from consistent; some games have a hundred votes, some have only one, and people most often just vote 100% for their favourite games and 0% for games they hate, or games whose authors they hate. Furthermore, people don't have any criteria to weigh their votes against.
Considering that so many members are suddenly very concerned with how the rating is carried out, I find it peculiar that this voting has never been brought to attention. Sure, the verdict of an official panel will weigh more, but the users' percentages have for very long been the only system, and bound to have made huge impact on people's downloading habits.

In order to finally deal with this situation (which nobody has really cared about, since AGS-ers themselves rarely deal with the games database) I've suggested to put together a group of people who will, besides fixing dead links and classifications, also provide a simple rating of their own, that will co-exist with the old ratings.

This group is small enough to allow for quick decisions and close-knit cooperation, but large enough to ensure some sort of validity.

This group is, as we speak, trying to design as good a rating document as possible. Trust me, they are working hard and the results are promising.
And yes, any official document the group will present will be regarded as guidelines and not a set of rules. The guidelines will cater for consistency and the integrity of the individual panel member will cater for common sense.

To allow every single member of this community to have their say is simply not viable. Everyone has their own favourite game, and everyone will be subjective, and everyone will want to argue a bit for argument's sake.

We have some 800 titles to wade through. We need to be effective and professional. We're trying a method now, and this method has been approved by CJ. If, in the end, your very own favourite little darling game ends up with one cup less than you had expected, it's not much to do about it. We can't accomodate for all. In return, we might end up with a games database that looks like somebody actually cared about it.

PS:
The document I presented first was only to have something to start out from, something to look at. The panel members are presenting their own ideas and we'll try to agree on something asap.
Not every AGS-member can have their wishes accomodated for, especially when they aren't prepared to take part in the very labour (signing up for the panel) of sorting the database themselves.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Also, if you don't like the rating you should learn to deal with it just like you deal with the scores players give you.  You can't change those, either.  In the end it's just an opinion, and if you really feel your game is better than that then more power to you.  No one on the panel is going to intentionally slam any game in the database, and some games that haven't been given much notice (older games, non-award winners) will actually benefit as a result of the ags cup system, since the panel ratings could well be higher than the average ags scores for one reason or another.  Cheer up and don't be so down on a process just because it's new or seems scary.  Many game sites have a site rating and it doesn't hurt them.  DON'T PANIC!

[MillsJROSS]

I don't think panic would be the word I'd use, this is something I don't like, I said so. If the system is used, I will adjust, I never said I wouldn't.

First of all, what we have on our hands is a situation, that needs to be solved, preferably quickly.
The situation is basically that 1/3-1/2 of the database entries are dead links, and another 1/4 are made up by games so bad they're not worth downloading.

It seems to me, that dead links aren't an enormous problem. Remove the game (Which Ace Quest has been part of this category for a while). Or put it in a section of dead links (to perhaps keep the voting system intact), and if people want to bring their game back from dead links then they can always do so. Then either contact the author through PM, and tell them if they want to readd their game, their welcome. That's a problem that could be catalogued in a day, and dealt with by a panel, but has little to do with voting.

If 1/4 of the games are really bad, then people will download them and find out for themselves. This in itself isn't a problem. The problem of our voting system isn't the unplayable games, it's the good ones that never got found.

Another part of this situation is that we have a system of rating games now (the users' percentage) that is far from consistent; some games have a hundred votes, some have only one, and people most often just vote 100% for their favourite games and 0% for games they hate, or games whose authors they hate. Furthermore, people don't have any criteria to weigh their votes against.

That's been a problem for a while, and I agree completely that something needs to be done about it.  But to say there is no criteria would be a lie. The voting system does have criteria, it's a question of whether people are sticking to it or not.

Considering that so many members are suddenly very concerned with how the rating is carried out, I find it peculiar that this voting has never been brought to attention. Sure, the verdict of an official panel will weigh more, but the users' percentages have for very long been the only system, and bound to have made huge impact on people's downloading habits.

Um...I find it peculiar that you don't remember this voting system being brought to attention on, I believe, two fairly big threads.

AGSers definitely care how this system is being done with.

We have some 800 titles to wade through. We need to be effective and professional. We're trying a method now, and this method has been approved by CJ. If, in the end, your very own favourite little darling game ends up with one cup less than you had expected, it's not much to do about it. We can't accomodate for all. In return, we might end up with a games database that looks like somebody actually cared about it.

This seems like a very condescending statement to me, if it isn't I apologize. Bit it seems as if you're saying I'm arguing because my games won't get the points I think they deserve, which is far from my mind. I'm not concerned with games I've created. If I was, my games wouldn't have dead links. Now maybe you are talking generaly, but your post is, more or less, in response to mine, so I interpreted as a comment at me.

Not every AGS-member can have their wishes accomodated for, especially when they aren't prepared to take part in the very labour (signing up for the panel) of sorting the database themselves.

Once again, don't know if this is general or not, if it is, I once again apologize. The last thing I want to do is be condescending myself. I for one, am prepared to take part in the very labour, but I don't agree with the system given to me, so I don't feel inclined to do volunteer my work.

It just feels like there's a lot of discussion behind closed doors when this is something for the community. It wasn't really brought forth to the community, but it's more like, this is what we're going to do, deal with it. Well, I for one will deal with it, but I don't want to deal with it.

Once again looking and ProgZmax's post I want to repeat myself. My game has nothing to do with this discussion. I know people think that I always have AQ on my mind 100%, and perhaps two or three years ago, you might have been right. But my game has nothing to do with disliking this voting system. I just don't like this voting system on it's own merits.

Cheer up and don't be so down on a process just because it's new or seems scary.  Many game sites have a site rating and it doesn't hurt them.  DON'T PANIC!

I'm not uncheery. I'm just not going to be silent when I don't particularly like something. I'm not a scared child waiting for the boogey voting sytem to come and get me, I'm an adult, who perceives this idea to need work, and it needs to be discussed on the forums, rather than in some other silly little place where the community can't offer oppinions.

-MillsJROSS

[Nikolas]

I would also argue that dead links are definately not in need of a panel, while bad games, which seem to be in need, are only a matter of common sense... At least, somehow I've never downloaded a "bad" game, only twice to actually see what it was about, but fully aware it was a game worth of the penis award all the way!

What I would suggest maybe, is that the games have necessarily 2 scrennies, and some other info of the game, in order to enter the database. That way you basically get what you get in a store while browsing through the PC games section. You don't necessarily need the review to know if a game will suck, be brilliant, or something in between. At least, not in most cases... I have noticed that a lot of games are lacking most info...

But I do prefer to see 2 screens with graphics, than listen to a panel tell me "this is good". (If that panel had a specific name, which I trust (helm, Andail, loominous), telling me that the game has amazing graphics, then I would trust them...).

Right now the panel, somehow is not filled with experts, is it?

Anyways. I feel that I have little to say really. Since I don't use the rating system anyways, I don't mind, and I'm sure that there has been thought behind the whole panel idea... Anyway you go, will be fine for me

[Snarky]

Oh dear, this is turning into an argument, isn't it? Sorry to contribute to that, if you're looking for the strictly constructive parts of this post you can skip down to under the quotes. But...

It's starting to sound a bit like you don't want input. I thought the point of making the work-in-progress guidelines public was partly to solicit comments and suggestions.  

Some quick responses.

First of all, what we have on our hands is a situation, that needs to be solved, preferably quickly.
The situation is basically that 1/3-1/2 of the database entries are dead links, and another 1/4 are made up by games so bad they're not worth downloading.

Yeah, it is a problem, and it's great that it's being fixed. But it's been like that for years, and I don't see why all of a sudden it's such a great hurry that we can't take a couple of weeks to talk about it and see if we can find a solution most people will be happy with. I don't think we'll have another chance to get it right, unless we want to ask people to go through 800+ games again.

I applaud the job the panel and the organizers are doing, but some public consultation can do wonders for the general acceptance and support for the system.

Another part of this situation is that we have a system of rating games now (the users' percentage) that is far from consistent; some games have a hundred votes, some have only one, and people most often just vote 100% for their favourite games and 0% for games they hate, or games whose authors they hate. Furthermore, people don't have any criteria to weigh their votes against.
Considering that so many members are suddenly very concerned with how the rating is carried out, I find it peculiar that this voting has never been brought to attention. Sure, the verdict of an official panel will weigh more, but the users' percentages have for very long been the only system, and bound to have made huge impact on people's downloading habits.

Well, that goes for all of us, doesn't it? You, me, the people on the panel, CJ... we have all (AFAIK) more or less ignored the games database until relatively recently. I think this current interest expresses people's belief that we can get something that is actually useful, something that works.

PS:
The document I presented first was only to have something to start out from, something to look at. The panel members are presenting their own ideas and we'll try to agree on something asap.
Not every AGS-member can have their wishes accomodated for, especially when they aren't prepared to take part in the very labour (signing up for the panel) of sorting the database themselves.

Seems a bit unfair to chastise people for not signing up when several of the posters have complained that they can't, because of the restrictions (member for more than two years, played most of the games in the database), and when the work is also so demanding. (No, I can't spend "quite a few hours" each week doing this work. I don't have plenty of spare time!)

OK, so those are my objections to the tone of the discussion. Here are my comments and suggestions on the procedures:

I like the idea of a ratings panel, and I agree that having some sort of standard is useful. For comparison, here is the guide to ratings on Adventure Gamers, which in my experience work pretty well. The combination of an overall points-based judgment and a summary of pros/cons gives a pretty good idea of what a game is like. Of course, commercial games tend to have more consistency in production values than our homebrew titles, so some adaptation is probably necessary.

Looking at the draft guidelines, I think they are overall pretty reasonable. What I'm missing is an explanation for what it takes for a game to get a certain rating. In this thread, people seem to assume that they need to fulfill all the criteria of that category. In my opinion, that would be a bad idea. It means that all games would be rated based on their weakest component, and wouldn't at all reward games that excel in one, or a couple of areas. A system like that seems to not evaluate games on their own terms, either. (One game may be all about telling a good story, while another may be all about solving devious puzzles, and a third about the audiovisual experience.)

Instead, I would propose that the bullet points under each category be interpreted as possible reasons to award that rating. So a game could get three blue cups for featuring a "thoughtfully composed plot" and original, consistent graphics, and being bug-free, even though the interface is just a re-skinned version of the default Sierra cursors, and there are no elements that feature "advanced scripting".

Perhaps a rule of thumb for assigning a category is that it fulfills two of the bullet points of that category, or one of the bullet points of the category above, and more or less fulfills the bullet points of the category below (with perhaps one exception). This would seem to strike a balance between emphasizing a game's strengths, and requiring some consistent level of quality of the other aspects. I guess I see it as a formalized version of the "common sense rule" people have mentioned.

Other comments: I would list story and puzzles as separate points, since a game can have a great story with run-of-the-mill puzzles (or deliberately avoid "puzzles" in favor of an "interactive story" approach). Also, I think "gameplay" is better than puzzles, because there are other types of interactivity an adventure game can make use of. I wouldn't imply in the guidelines that only "elaborately conceived puzzles" can reach the top rating, because good gameplay is something that fits the game and is fun, not necessarily something that is twistingly complex.

I don't understand the mentions of "innovative style" with regards to the graphics. Which is to say I don't understand what it means ("innovative" relative to other AGS games? To adventure games? To all computer games? To art and animation in general?) and couldn't really point to a game that I would consider graphically innovative (maybe READY), and that I don't understand why it should be a criterion for rating. If someone made a game in the graphical style of The Last Express, that would be highly unique, very attractive, and I would want to give it 4 Blue Cups for the graphics, even though it's not technically "innovative". Maybe a word like "distinctive" would be better, although I still hesitate about the way it discriminates against games working in established styles.

The requirement for graphics originally made for the game should be loosened ("designed by the creators", maybe) to allow sequels to reuse sprites etc.

In general, I think there's an overemphasis on originality. This is a matter of opinion, I know, but personally I care much more about the result than about the process. If the music is perfect for the game, I don't think it really matters if it was originally made for it or for something else. It's not like we rate Tarantino movies down because the soundtrack features pop tunes rather than an originally composed score. The same with graphics: If the backgrounds look good, what matter that bits are copied from various Sierra games (like in KQ2VGA+)? It's only when it impacts quality that I care: bad paintovers of too-familiar sprites, or a game that takes place completely on backgrounds from other games, or cheesy MIDI tunes that are immediately recognizeable from some other source. If a game feels second-hand (and this goes for plot, too), that is a negative.

However, I know that others (especially the artists in the respective disciplines) feel differently. And it's difficult to find a solution that treats crappy Monkey Island sequels, more respectable games like the Maniac Mansion Mania series, and high-quality but not 100% original titles like KQ2VGA+ and 5DAS all fairly. Maybe a compromise would be to break out originality as its own bullet point, and evaluate it separately from the actual quality and effectiveness of the elements themselves.

Overall, a good start on the ratings system, and I think that with some discussion and common sense, we'll come to a system that highlights good games in a reasonable manner.

[cobra79]

I am new, haven't created a single game and only played a few, but the proposed rating system looks overly complicated.

I would do it this way:
Every panel  member (good idea btw) assesses several aspects of a game (from 0 to 5)
- scripting
- graphics
- audio
- gameplay/fun
- whatever you think is important

Then you just average the panels marks for each category. After that you average the marks for the categories and have a single value for each game between 0 and 5. This would be fairly consistent. Bad audio or graphics alone would not ruin the evaluation of a game (0 or 1 cup) if the other aspects are good and vice versa.

Edit: If you have enough panel members you could also discard the best and worst marks for each category, like in figure skating.

[LimpingFish]

I think this community is too insular. Personally, I would look at a game like, for arguments sake, Richard Longhurst and the Box That Ate Time, a game which this community seems to have a soft spot for or regard as some kind of existential comment on game design (SSH even made it Game of the Month way back when), and all I see is, well...a pile. It's a in-joke that nobody outside the old guard would get, or for that matter, care about. As far as I'm concerned, a game such as this is ripe for evaluation from the point of view of an "outsider", and as such I would rate it 1 out of 5, or 1 cup or whatever. The user percentage may be 80%+, but the "offical" rating would reflect the quality of the game from a general point of view.

As for "Joke" games, I say remove them for the general database and be done with it. A waste of time and resources, imho. I'm sorry if that sounds a little harah, but when good, original games are lost between piles of somebody's ego wankery, it's time for a change.

Rant over.

[Andail]

Snarky, the speed issue isn't primarily because it has to be done before a certain date, it's because the project is more likely to die out if it turns into a very lengthy process.

Also, this current interest is a reaction to my initiative. There have been plenty of discussions in the past, but they never really had any fruitful outcome. Sure, people have done a great job uploading and mirroring various catalogues of games (Scotch among others), but the official AGS database has only slowly deteriorated.
To make things happen you sometimes need more decisive actions and less talk.

I'm not against input (I'm very willing to give up my initial ideas about the rating - and have evidently done so in the designated forum to give room for better ideas) but if every single member of this community should be able to bring the progress to a halt just because they envision how their favourite game will be rated low, nothing will happen. After all, this is CJ's personal site, not the UN.

All that will happen is that the games database will have more working links, better classifications and a rating. People should be very happy that there exist a group who will deal with this.

PS:
What Limping said. There should be a more objective evaluation of the games, without looking at how many fans they gathered in the community at the time it was created.

[Pumaman]

It just feels like there's a lot of discussion behind closed doors when this is something for the community. It wasn't really brought forth to the community, but it's more like, this is what we're going to do, deal with it.

I appreciate this and understand where you're coming from. Basically, we've had several public discussions on how the games database should work, and we usually end up without a consensus and nothing happens. The reason this initiative was discussed behind closed doors was so that we could make a decision and get on with it.

I apologise if it feels like you guys have been left out of the discussion, but there's always room for changes, which is partly what this thread is about.