Founded in 1999, GameRankings is a site dedicated to aggregating review scores from both online and offline sources, to give users an overall picture of a game's score.

The requirements for adding a new site are:

• Sites must have at least 300 archived reviews for a multi-system/multi-genre sites, or 100 reviews for single-system or genre sites.
• Sites must publish a minimum of 15 reviews a month.
• Sites must be visually appealing and looks professional.
• Sites must review a variety of titles.
• Sites must have a dedicated domain name with professional hosting.
• Site reviews must be well written.
• Sites must conduct themselves in a professional manner.

If you are the owner/editor of a publication (website/magazine/newspaper) which reviews games and you would like it to be considered for inclusion in the Game Rankings process, please send us an email via the contact below.

Consistency. Sites scores must effect all titles equally. Let's say a source always gives high scores and it's lowest score ever was an 80%. It would be fine if that site reviewed every game, or at least a good number of games, and affected them all by raising their scores. Then when you compare two games, they would both have been affected. However, if it is from a site or magazine that either, we could only get a few reviews from, or only did a few reviews, then it would raise a small number of games causing their scores to be skewed.

Sites with very short reviews, inconsitent scoring, and limited depth are not included in the composite scores.

GamePro requested that the Fun Factor Score be used for the composite.

• A+ = 20/20 = 100%
• A = 19/20 = 95%
• A- = 18/20 = 90%
• B+ = 17/20 = 85%
• B = 16/20 = 80%
• B- = 15/20 = 75%
• C+ = 14/20 = 70%
• C = 13/20 = 65%
• C- = 12/20 = 60%
• D+ = 11/20 = 55%
• D = 10/20 = 50%
• D- = 9/20 = 45%
• F = 1/20 = 5%

Over the years, this has been the most accurate translation of letter scores from most review sites.

When tests were run using a formula to calculate average scores based on a weighting system, it was found that the composite score did not significantly change. Using the average is much more simpler and more easily understood. As long as a site is consistent and gives every good game a 5 out of 5 then it will effect all of them equally.

GameRankings originated on Windows back in 1999, and its basic architecture had hardly changed since. Since GameRankings was purchased by CNET in 2003, and then since the merger with CBS in 2008, fewer and fewer people with the company were able to maintain and update the site.

After a server failure in February 2009, the decision was made to quickly move the site onto the standard CBS Interactive server setup, re-using existing code and templates from other game sites.