Kristen Salvatore | Editor in Chief | PC Gamer (US)
GR: Do you think that a perfect score makes a perfect game? If a game gets a 10, does that mean it’s perfect?
Kristen: I think it depends on what you mean. You know, perfect is such a kinda funny word when it comes to something like a game. Like, does that mean there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a game, we have no complaints?
Our score goes to 100. We don’t do a 1 to 10 score, we do a 100-point scale. I don’t think we’ve ever given any game a 100%. I think the reason is... for us, a perfect 100 would be the perfect game, and I don’t think there’s any such thing.
GR: That gives you a lot more leeway if you just do 1 to 10. Which leads to our next question… Are 10s or 100s dished out too easily, not necessarily at PC Gamer, but just in general, throughout the industry?
Kristen: I think that every outlet should be treating their score scale according to the audience that they’re serving. So if you’re talking about an outlet that is a little more casual and is trying to guide a sort of more middle group of readers - as opposed to a harder-core group - toward how to spend their money, then maybe they do hand out their 10s more liberally, but that’s OK. What they’re trying to say is, if you are not somebody who spends all your money on games, you just want to know the best games, then it’s cool. And I think they’re probably doing a good job.
When it comes to the readers that we’re serving and the harder-core, I think you’re not serving your readers if you’re handing out those scores too liberally. In that case, I think there are certain outlets that are handing out scores, their 10s, too easily. Or their top scores too easily. If the whole idea is to tell people, 'if you are a gamer, you absolutely must spend $60 on this,' I think in some cases, yeah, they are being thrown around a little liberally.
