Tier grades explained: what F to S means
On Tier, every rating is a whole number from 1 to 10 and every number is displayed as a letter grade: S from 9, A from 8, B from 6.5, C from 5, D from 3, F below that. A game's grade is the letter its average community rating falls into, so the grade is a verdict, not an opinion column.
Last updated by the Tier team. The bands below are the ones the site actually computes; nothing on this page is rounded for the story.
The scale, from F to S
| Grade | Rating | Verdict | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | 9 and up | Masterpiece | Nothing to take off. The narrowest band on the scale, on purpose. |
| A | 8 to 9 | Excellent | A game you recommend without a caveat, short of perfect. |
| B | 6.5 to 8 | Great | Clearly worth the time, with something you would warn about. |
| C | 5 to 6.5 | Mixed | It works, it also disappoints. The honest middle of the scale. |
| D | 3 to 5 | Poor | Finished out of stubbornness rather than pleasure. |
| F | below 3 | Awful | The bottom of the ladder, reserved and rarely handed out. |
Each band is read from its lower bound upwards, so a rating sits in a band as soon as it reaches the number in the second column. A single player's rating is a whole number, which means one review can only ever be an S (9 or 10), an A (8), a B (7), a C (5 or 6), a D (3 or 4) or an F (1 or 2). A game's average is a decimal and can land anywhere, which is why the B band starts at 6.5 rather than at a round number.
How a game's community grade is calculated
A game's grade is not voted on directly. Players rate the game, the site takes the plain average of every published rating, and that average lands in one of the six bands above. An average of 7.4 is a B, an average of 8.2 is an A, and an average of 9.0 or more is an S. There is no weighting: a rating from an account with a thousand entries counts exactly as much as the first rating of a new player.
One player, one rating, one game. The database enforces it, so a grade cannot be pushed up by someone rating the same title twice. Editing your rating replaces it; it never adds a second voice. Ratings that are still drafts do not count, only published ones do.
Below five community ratings, Tier does not claim a community verdict at all. The page still shows what has been posted, but the site will not put the game forward as graded, will not answer "what grade does the community give this game" and will not rank it in a hub. A letter that rests on two votes is a rumour with a badge on it.
Why the top bands are narrow, and meant to be
The bands are not the same width. S and A are one rating point each, B and C are a point and a half, D is two and F is everything below 3. That asymmetry is deliberate: on a ten point scale almost every rating a player actually gives sits in the upper half, so spacing the top bands tightly is the only way the letters keep separating anything. A scale where a quarter of the catalogue is S stops carrying information the day it becomes normal.
The practical consequence is that a game whose community average sits at 8.9 is an A, not an S, and the page says so. The gap between an A and an S is a tenth of a point, which is exactly the distance the top of the scale is meant to measure.
A grade is not a press score
Game pages carry two numbers and they answer different questions. The grade is the Tier community's, computed from the ratings described above. The external score is an aggregate of press and player ratings collected from public databases, shown out of 100, and only displayed above thirty ratings so a single enthusiastic outlet never speaks for a whole audience.
The two disagree often, and that is the useful part. A critically polished game can sit at C with players who found it hollow; a rough, cheap, specific game can hold an A from the people who actually wanted it. Neither number corrects the other. They are printed side by side so you can read the gap instead of averaging it away.
Where grades show up on Tier
- Game pages. The community grade, the average it came from, the number of ratings behind it and the full distribution from S to F.
- Ranked hubs. The best games by genre and platform are ordered on those same grades, with the vote floor applied.
- Series pages. Every entry of a series carries its grade next to its cover, which is the fastest way to see where a saga peaked.
- Collaborative tier lists. A list can be graded by its members, each one voting a game into a band, so the ranking belongs to the group rather than to the author.
- Profiles. Your own distribution, which is usually more revealing than any single rating you have given.
Frequently asked questions
What does S tier mean on Tier?
S is the top grade, labelled Masterpiece, and it starts at 9 out of 10. A game reaches an S grade when its average community rating is 9.0 or above, which is why the band is one of the narrowest on the scale.
Can I rate a game 7.5?
No. Ratings are whole numbers from 1 to 10, with no half points. The letter grades exist precisely so the scale stays coarse enough to mean something: the difference between a 7 and an 8 is a band change, not a rounding detail.
How many ratings does a game need to be graded?
At least five. Under that floor the game page still shows the ratings that exist, but Tier does not present a community grade as an answer and the game is not ranked in the hubs.
Does a bad rating hurt a game permanently?
No. The grade is a live average of the published ratings, so it moves with every new one, in both directions. Early ratings weigh heavily simply because there are few of them, and that effect fades as the count grows.
Is the grade the same thing as a Metacritic score?
No. The grade is the Tier community's average, expressed as a letter. The external score shown next to it is an aggregate of press and player ratings out of 100, collected from public databases and displayed only above thirty ratings. They are two separate numbers and neither is derived from the other.
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Keep reading: what is an S tier game, the ranked hubs or the game catalogue. Version française : les grades Tier expliqués.