Hey so lots of people complaining about the comments and voting system but no one talking about alternatives.
The current star average system favours games with few votes. A game with 10 5-star rating beats a game with 100 ratings with 4.9 average. You can just get 10 friends or 10 alt accounts to win this way (above the median votes threshold). Similarly a great game can get hidden by a few 1 star ratings because of small sample randomness.
Here's a couple ideas for alternatives to the 5 star average system. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
1) Advocacy voting
- Instead of 5 stars system you click on the categories you think this game should win in
- Can vote for multiple games in multiple categories
- Could add more categories for things like best student game or best first game or made me laugh etc.
- Used to select the pope sometimes
2) Bayesian average
- Instead of the current mean-average star rating.
- Weights scores based on the number of votes
- Games with fewer ratings are adjusted toward the global average.
- Add a minimum threshold of votes to get ranked.
- Prevents games with few 5-star votes from topping the chart.
- Doesn't eliminate 1-star bombing
- Used by sites like IMDB for movie rankings.
3. Pairwise (Head-to-Head) Voting
- Voters see two random games (or from the games that they've played) and pick which one is better.
- Repeat many times; ranks are computed via Elo or Bradley-Terry systems.
- Removes rating inflation bias.
- Easier for players, just “which did you prefer?”
- Builds a robust ranking with enough comparisons.
- Used in Ludum Dare’s “smart randomizer” for a while in testing phases.
4. Ranked-Choice / Borda Count
- Each voter ranks their favorite games (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). Points are assigned (e.g., 1st = 5 pts, 2nd = 3 pts, 3rd = 1 pt), and totals determine winners.
- Can't down-vote to boost yourself
I like advocacy voting or pairwise head to head voting best. But option 1, 3 and 4 prevents the 1 star bombing trolls.