I'll just leave this here...

The Truth

When I was in primary school we got a gold star if we had manage to do the task with excellence. Hence, 1 star = great, 5 stars = unbelievably fucking awesome.

On the other hand, the tick mark in Swedish schools means "wrong" and an R is "correct" (think "that's Right"), unlike much of the rest of the world where an X is "wrong" and the tick mark is "correct", so I guess my education is just trying to confuse me.

Two people rate a game, one gives it 1/5 another gives it 5/5.
What is the correct score for the game 1 or 5? Or 3 - the average of the two?

I'd say that the correct score for the game is 1 and 5.
And you wont know what score you'll give it until you play it - and, no this isn't some weird Schrodinger's cat stuff.
Sometimes not even then - there are many games I have come back to after just not getting into them first time round and ended up loving later.

Scores, and even detailed wordy reviews, are 100% subjective - provided you reject simply unplayable buggy games (and we don't have any of those here, do we?).

You have to just go on your gut instinct reading other peoples reviews. Does this person sound like they like the sorts of game you like? Do they mention other games you've played and compare against those? Do they sound like a self opinionated git with an axe to grind?

Two good things about GOG in this respect:
1) The games have been around long enough to have a lot written about them to make an educated choice most of the time.
2) Hey! They are cheap - a mistake here and there aint gonna hurt.

For me the above is true no matter which system you have so I don't thinks its really worth the effort to change the system because there is no system that is "better" - it would just be different.

I don't think that would work to GOG's (financial) advantage.. =P (Nor would the ratings be any more 'reliable'..)

I've bought 170+ games here and still haven't voted on a single one of them. Main reason is laziness, closely followed by not wanting to give a good game 3 stars - that is, a medium/average rating - as the current ratings indicate that most people would read 3 stars as bad and not worth buying, which wouldn't be my intention; A mediocre game is still enjoyable - it's just not blowing you away and making you forget how many hours you've been playing. In order to keep my job, I need games I can play for only an hour or two before quitting, without getting nasty withdrawals..

I've enjoyed most of the GOG games I've played (got a rather large backlog so there's plenty left to try), yet I'd only give 5 stars to maybe three or four of them, a dozen or so would get 4 stars, and only a very few would get 2 stars (none would get only 1 star).

i would like separate rating categories, one of them should be "how well has it aged", games grow old too.

Somehow I agree, the user interface for getting access to all reviews is not as nice as that of amazon for example. Nobody reads a review that is on page 6.

Somehow going away from the rating towards better featuring the reviews would be nice.

Actually I like wpeggs approach of creating pros and cons lists, then you could simply agree/disagree by voting on the pros and cons individually.

Even people who don't like a specific game usually accept that it can still have some pros.

I think part of the problem is that people think of ratings like they do of the scores they got in school; roughly, <50% is a fail.

Maybe a rating system that would work would be to select a descriptive word instead of numbers or stars. Thus you'd rate games as one of excellent, good, average, bad, vomit-inducingly horrific

Ok, maybe not that last one but my point stands :)

I chose this post as my favorite solution. Of course other users probably have different favorites. Actually I would also adapt this idead a bit: I would like to have an editable Pro and Cons list (a tagging system with specific tag categories) and then people can vote on the pros and cons. Also a direct comparison to similar games seems useful to me. If this could be additionally incorporated I would be in heaven.

If the current system is to be kept instead, I would strongly vote for:
1. Showing it also in the games catalogue (maybe a bit smaller). Since you can sort for it, it should also be visible.
2. Create a tool tip that appears with the one digit number (eg 4.9) showing the rating more accurately when hovering over the rating.
3. Fixing the review system: deleting nonsense reviews and making them more prominent, maybe devoting a whole page for them.

Now, it's GOG's turn to decide what to do with it. We cannot do more than brainstorming.