as far as what I buy the only opinion that matters is my own. Ratings mean nothing to me. I only look at ratings on ipdb for EM machines and then I mostly just read the reviews to see what people say about gameplay.

It seems that it all averages out pretty well though. Yes, there are ratings of pins here that I obviously disagree with, but I actually think that the Top 75 or so pins are a fairly good representation overall.

There are plenty of credible members here who are honest in their ratings.

I would like to see the ratings from people who have reached a certain score , jackpot or wizard mode on a machine. My pet peeve is the rating that states....' this pin did nothing for me. I stopped playing in the middle of my third game. my girlfriend, boyfriend , wife, didnt even finish her first ball. the pin did nothing for me, and oh, the translite was horrible. rating 2.5..... just my 2 cents. play the game to at least go thru all the modes, shots etc and then make a judgment

I try not to rate anything I haven't played at least a dozen times, and at least half of those knowing the rule set. There are too many games that I've played and not liked, only to play them more, and learn it and then I can't get enough of it. I wish others did this. I hate seeing 2 versions of a brand new game in the top 3 until enough people rate it lower.

This is a tough place to rate games because the majority of us are pinball owners. Next to impossible to rate games fairly across the board. Everyone is going to love the games they own. There is natural bias in owning games. I see no problem with it. I read the ratings because frankly sometimes it makes me laugh to read peoples comments, especially the negative ones. Ratings are fun, but I would never give them any weight in my purchasing decisions.

A lot of games are unknown by people or not understood, so the ratings are fun only. That's why we always have the debates on is X game better than Y. If the ratings were everything it would be game X is rated at 20, game Y at 45, game X is better. The ratings are fun and the comments do give you some opinions about a game you may not know. There are so many pinball games out there that everyone can have a special one.

The ratings are too subjective based on personal preferences.Play them and make up your own mind.Don't be a sheep and just follow the herd.....

Agreed with not rating until you've played something quite a lot and understand the machine. It is hard to know much about a machine if you walked away before the first game even ended. I have nothing in the wild to play here and so the only ones I have access to are the ones we own, and I still don't even think about rating them until I understand the machine. Now, there are some machines that I immediately click with, like NGG which I instantly loved, but I still played a few hundred games and did research until I knew what I was doing, and I still haven't rated it. I got a deal on a Spiderman without ever playing it, then didn't like it, then after learning the rules grew to really love it. Ratings are great for a general idea of a machine if you're contemplating something you've never played before, but otherwise I'm going to go with my personal experiences and get what I like.

Ha. Yeah, I don't need reviews from 80% of the reviewers!

Man these threads never get old. I mean they do but younger ones just pop up to replace them.

People being able to bomb a game in the rankings with super low scores and being able to do it in secrecy is my only issue with the Top100.

LOL! Great voting options Family

Ratings....?

The comments are valuable in most cases but the score? Meh

I don't think it's anything to get worked up over... Unless TMNT gets a 10

It may matter to those that have never played the game or are trying to sell the game, but that's about it.

so from ur comment i gather if someone plays a couple of games on a machine and pans it, you think its valuable? is that correct? and by your second comment , i fail to see why you still read the comments. if they are tiresome then just move on. or maybe i am misinterpreting your response, if so my apologies

You are misinterpreting many things because you are assuming many things.

1. scores are completely diff'rent machine to machine and have no point ( ) whatsoever
2. 80% of the people that play these games don't "wizard it" - and more than that don;t have a wizard mode
3. Agree completely with "my girlfriend, boyfriend , wife, didnt even finish her first ball." usually a crappy route machine and not the machines fault.

Cause I've fucking been here a 'long' time, and I read the posts, cause it's a message board I'm on everyday.
But you shouldn't assume so much. we've already had a conversation like this before you & I. EDIT: <-- Maybe it wasn;t you...sorry i assumed it was.

Wow! I leave town for three days and you cross the 100k karma threshold!

I totally agree here. People's personal ratings are the most important from my view. I like looking at what other Pinsiders rate games as a lot of them have similar taste to me.

The ratings I have always found are useless, perhaps especially for me because I tend to not like the same stuff as other people. The comments I find VERY useful when people take the time to really dive into the games, which is done seemingly on every 1 of 100 reviews.

I validate my own flawless judgment by crapping all over those that disagree with me. If it stunk, then I'd be a sucker and that simply will not do..

That's why people harp aboot the "honeymoon phase." Not a huge fan of a few games I own personally...but at first they were the shit.

I certainly agree with this view. Also, people tend to gravitate to games that have themes they like. Every game I have owned I really liked the theme for, this also skews games rankings. If I don't love a theme, I don't get a game. The only exception to this was Party Zone and it didn't stay with me long.

You know, for so many people here who say that the ratings don't matter, there's sure never any shortage of posts by these same people whenever this issue comes up. Maybe the ratings mean more to them than they let on?

The fact that Metallica Premium/LE in it's current state is in the top 10 should be proof enough that the ratings are a joke.

Pinball ratings do matter. It is good to get feedback on what pinball players like an do not like. I do not always agree. The Avengers LE for example. Rated low in the rankings but I think it is one of the BEST. That being said. It is valuable to have some kind of "frame of reference .

I don't think theme alone will skew the overall rating here very much as it's only a small part of the factors that go into the overall rating.

I think X-Men is a damn good theme. I still have it rated pretty low. And it was a pin I owned. My first NIB in fact, so theoretically, I should have loved it. Just because someone owns/owned a pin doesn't mean that they will be biased in a good way towards that pin.

In addition I dislike it when pinsiders do not rate pinball machines. I want to know your opinion.

I like the ratings for what they are. Slicing them up differently probably wouldn't change my mind on them too much.

For me, they are just a place to start if I am looking to find a new pin. It just isn't practical to go and play the pin sometimes. There aren't too many places to do that.

The comments may be more interesting to me than the ratings, but they both matter.

Between the ratings and the comments, I have felt comfortable buying a few pins without really having played them. I have also avoided buying a few pins from the ratings/comments.

My big thought that I have always promoted but has never seemed to gained traction is that if someone hasn't logged on to Pinside in a year their ratings should be deleted. I call old votes "relic" votes and don't think they are necessarily reflective of our current community.

Just think of someone voting in 05/06/07/08 . . . they didn't have color changing LED tied to the code to consider. Many really great games of today like AC/DC and Tron were not available to consider.

Also, for those people that have multiple accounts that vote, many of them don't log into them again after they vote up or down what they wanted. Dispensing with relic voting would wipe out their votes after a year. Just my personal view.

True, and it is just as much of a joke that WOZ is just outside of the Top 25 in light of it's current state.

I think most people who have rated those pins to get them as high in the rankings as they are, are probably basing it on the potential that they have. I think that they would both be rated a lot lower if people were told that there would not be any further code updates.

I don't disagree with you and it goes person by person. While theme itself is, as you say, only one factor of the ratings; I think it leaks into other factors such as artwork, fun, and lastability. I think liking a theme really helps you get into the various modes as well for the mode based games.

Agree 100% with this.

Good points.

Makes me realize just how much I hate the gameplay of X-Men since the factors that you list weren't enough to overcome it.

I will go over 10k karma with this observation on the poll - it was surprising to me how many people found Centerflank sexy. Admittedly, I have never met him.

He apparently really gets around.

Hell Yeah Tiger, Old votes should get bounced...

Rob my man, I think you gave up on Xmen too soon, that game is so fun!

He is a pinball slut !!

Was she real?

"I gave you a thumbs down for using WTF, I dislike profanity"

Sincerely

Pinslut

The ratings only do one thing. Start the Hype wagon. Other than that, they mean dick. Newbs and people that don't go to shows to play nearly every game ever made, don't know the difference and think because something is ranked high, it has to be good. Wrong. Lot of garbage in the top 20 on all lists. Pinsides, Mr.pinball, and wherever else. Only way to make sure a list is 100% accurate is to make your own. My list is the only list out there, that is perfect in every way.

totally agree with you even though i thumbed the original down.

Can I have that cheeseburger now?

Nope. I've played it since the updated code. The code really wasn't the main problem that I had with the pin. It just isn't for me.

Well you are just dumb then LOL! Better than MB

BLASPHEMER!

Damn it feels good to crank some beers down watching week1 of NFL football!!!!

Broncos lookin' good!

Ricoculous!

I hope and pray Manning takes down Bert Perves TD pass record....

I am going to move this thread to the Pinside website sub forum.

But WHY would you ever do this? I don't care if you guys like what I like. If anything, if I like different types of pins than everyone else, I'm going to be able to pick them up cheap. That's a good thing, no?

I dont think rankings have so much effect on price of a machine. If its well liked by owners you wont see them for sale as much. Avengers got beat up in the rankings but will you see one for sub 5K? Who knows...

I rate this thread 7.625