As a counter arguement to the one put forward in the blog, it's also ok to care deeply about how journalists in the game industry behave because it's ok to care about stuff, even if it's not politics.
The article doesn't say "Nobody should care deeply about game reviewers"; it says "If a game reviewer gives a game you like a bad score, that's okay; it means that you and the reviewer disagree and you should disregard their opinions on games because you are probably looking for different things than they are".
Because I'm familiar with both the games press and games PR. I understand how those interactions work well enough to be very, very skeptical. There is some minor possibility of good reviews in exchange for advertising--except that sales and content at any outlet significant enough to be called the "games press", from Kotaku to Giant Bomb, has a wall between sales and content and publishers (when they bother to notice the games press at all) know that bad scores are, occasionally, just part of the package. The last major break of that I can think of was Gamespot and Jeff Gerstmann, and the people involved in causing that were so roundly shredded that I don't even think most of them are in the industry anymore. So while vanishingly unlikely, sure, there's a possibility of payola there. But getting paid for bad reviews? Come on. Substantiate--with evidence--those wild claims or don't make them.
If he'd said "games YouTube"--now, that's a different thing, as the interactions between influencers and publishers (in ways that are deleterious to the public, to be honest) are pretty well-documented across the board in ways that are not "some rando with an anime avatar said so". But even they aren't incentivized in any way that I've ever, not once, seen substantiated to give bad reviews. So, again, that's a put-up-or-shut-up.
I found the recent EA Battlefront 2 controversy hugely interesting.
Gamers rebelling against micro-transactions, then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media.
It really brought into picture that various interests of major players in that community are not inline creating a huge amount of tension. The journalists are basically a PR arm of the bigger corporations or a specific political agenda.
This article seems to ignore the fact that often groups or tribes often form to protect their own interests by creating various forms of economic and/or social moats. The various groups are all trying to reduce competition by creating monopolies or gatekeepers, which in turn increases the tension or hostility between gamers and the mainstream journalists.
It's pretty interesting seeing this occur in real-time. I'm still not sure how the "gamers" are organizing or whether its just an emergent reaction.
>Politics (from Greek: Politiká: Politika, definition "affairs of the cities") is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state
It's not a political agenda in the context used by the poster I'm replying to and the original article. Your use of the term would be equally silly (and 'supported' by the same helpful wikipedia article) if you'd said a review of SimCity has a political agenda because it talks about 'the affairs of cities'.
That would be a trenchant point if the opposite of 'apolitical' was 'political' or 'review of a thing' was the same as the thing. Neither are the case.
One might cite news sources which oppose Gamergate as having a political agenda, since Gamergate quickly stopped being about the "five guys" allegations and became about the party lines that both sides drew.
When gamers organize, usually the press will mysteriously start making up a barrel of salacious lies about them. Some subset of the public then gets a nasty impression of them, and life goes on. This time, something of an organized boycott (by way of large numbers of people realizing that to purchase the game or its DLC is to be complicit in EA's merchandising choices) it really hit EA's bottom line, so they'll say whatever they can to discredit and play down the consumer's opinion of their product and practices.
They received so many returns that they removed the return page from their website, to force their customers to request returns over their rather poor telephone call centre. They then went on damage control, disabled (until this cools down) some of the features which were upsetting customers, and made sure everyone knew about it.
Gamers rebelling against micro-transactions, then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media.
Do you have an example of these attacks? Are they representative of the games media? Everything I've read was critical of the approach chosen by the dev/publisher. And there was no shortage of these articles, because I'm sure, like all controversies, this one generated a generous amount of clicks.
So in otherwords, everything "Gamergate" said was true years ago while the MSM painted them as all virgin basement trolls. It's almost like the MSM will smear people and groups to protect their cash streams...
"Cuphead Reignites the “Game Journalists Should Be Good at Games” Debate"
How was this ever a debate? Would you buy a car from the review of someone who can't drive? Would you buy a gun from a review by someone who can't shoot? Would you fly on an airline from the review of someone who is afraid of flying? Would you use a product/programming language/service in your business on the recommendation from someone who doesn't even use the service? Let's all switch to VB .NET guys, this rep with a high school degree and no technical background recommends it.
I sincerely miss Computer Gaming World. You can read any of their issues online in PDF format. Check them out and dare to compare their objectivity to today's sellouts. Back then people reviewed games because they loved the art form. Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al. Which is, surprise surprise, the very reason everyone has given up on traditional media.
[edit] Mmmm, butthurt engage. I must have hit the nail on the head. =D You know you've made a sound argument when all they can do is downvote you instead of make a rebuttle.
Gamergate used the consumer issues as a smokescreen for the hate campaign; one of their first campaigns was getting advertisers including Intel to exert pressure on the press to pull advertising from Gamasutra because they didn't like an article by Leigh Alexander.
Alexander attacks gamers and asks that developers cease to consider them as their core demographic.
From the article:
> It’s young men queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that marketers want them to see. To find out whether they should buy things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
I’d be mad too if she bashed my culture like that.
Taking offense to that article is the peak of sensitivity. What exactly do you see those quoted lines as justification for? Surely not the internet hate mob that followed.
It’s ok to say people don’t know how to dress or act? That they don’t know why they’re attending a conference? Maybe switch “men” with another demographic and see if it reads the same.
No, it's not okay but the correct response is to get over it or write some critical words on another publication, not start a harassment campaign against the author.
> Maybe switch “men” with another demographic and see if it reads the same.
Okay.
> It’s young women queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that marketers want them to see. To find out whether they should buy things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
Sounds fine to me. You see, the "men" in the quote is not "men" in general, but the "young men" that make up the particular slice of "gamers" (which Alexander argues is over catered to by brands and not representative of the larger set of "people who play video games"). This is the type of sensitivity I'm talking about.
Whatever you think, I hope we can agree that the reaction that followed Alexander's article was completely disproportionate and should be discouraged.
EDIT:
TFA said it best
> For a games web site, there's a huge advantage to having reviews written by inexperienced, eager people who try to stir up arguments instead of calming them. Those people work cheaper, and their work tends to stir up anger which gets more clicks. Sure, these poor writers/targets get screamed at, but that's what they were hired for. Their employers don't care as long as the clicks keep coming.
> In the end, however, we’re talking about video game reviews. In the global scheme of things, game reviews are REALLY unimportant.
No I think the reaction was appropriate. It’s great that we live in a world where consumers can actually have a voice and organize. The media never had those checks in place, now they do.
> You see, the "men" in the quote is not "men" in general, but the "young men" that make up the particular slice of "gamers"
This is the great flaw at the core of modern PC culture. Only some groups matter.
If this were about the "young men" that make up the particular slice of "Muslims" or "Jews", would you feel differently?
This would obviously cause outrage:
> It’s young men queuing with yamakas and shawls and jutting teffilin. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that rabbis want them to see. To find out whether they should do things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
> ‘Jewish culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct religious ‘wars’ about 'God's chosen people' or '613 commandments', straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of a book.
> Lately, I often find myself wondering what I’m even doing here. And I know I’m not alone.
> All of us should be better than this. You should be deeply questioning your life choices if this and this and this are the prominent public face your country presents to the rest of the world.
> This is what the rest of the world knows about your country -- this, and headlines about billion-dollar wars or those settlers with the razor wire fences. That’s it. You should absolutely be better than this.
> You don’t want to ‘be divisive?’ Who’s being divided, except for people who are okay with an occupied political desert of shitty behavior and people who aren’t? What is there to ‘debate’?
If you still struggle to empathize with either gamers or Jews, perhaps substitute some group you do empathize with.
> > It’s young men queuing with yamakas and shawls and jutting teffilin. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that rabbis want them to see. To find out whether they should do things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
I'm not familiar with all the terms you're using (not sure what jutting teffilin is) but if this was describing a situation in reality I'm not sure I would get my pitchfork out.
Also I know this is HN, but in the real world you get laughed at for substituting a race or religion with "gamers" or "sports fans." You might find that unfair or another "great flaw at the core of modern PC culture" but no one has ever genocided gamers, so...
Also, gamer and nerd self-criticism and mockery is nothing new. Remember the guy who got famous on Reddit for taking pictures at magic the gathering tournaments, posing behind overweight people whose asses were falling out of their pants? Or all the jokes about how bad conferences smell?
Gamers were fine with making fun of themselves. But now that some feel that the criticism is coming from "the cool kids" when often those "cool kids" are just as every bit deserving of the title of "nerd" or "gamer", it's time to get sensitive and play identity politics! Give me a break. Get over yourself. I say this as a hobby video game dev, lifelong gamer, 10-year wow subscriber, DND player... get over it. It's just games.
I’m not saying that fat shaming is good, I’m saying that it is tolerated by gamers when you are not percieved to be part of some feminist media conspiracy and the reaction to journalists who are percieved to be “not real gamers” is disproportionate.
> So maybe that article was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Yes, I wonder why it was THIS particular straw that broke the camel's back. Gamergate was the video-game version of "wake up sheeple, the feminazi jews are running the media!." It's not meaningfully different from the rest of the culture wars.
> The very fact that you compared that article to fat shaming should show you that the article was "gamer shaming".
I didn't disagree, and tbh, neither does TFA. I'm not here to defend anything anyone has ever said in the media. In fewer words: ignoring the sexist dimension of gamergate is inappropriate revisionism. You're trying to say that there is something SO offensive about that article that it justifies what happened to Alexander afterwards. You also want to twist anything I say into some "example" of how "hosite" I am and how I'm everything wrong with PC culture or something. I'm not interested in continuing to discuss if you don't want to assume my good faith when I haven't questioned yours.
I think that, in general, all people are deserving of respect. Of course there are a few exceptions, like murderers, but liking plush mushroom hats or "not knowing how to dress" is certainly not sufficient reason to exclude a group of people from deserving respect.
Many of them are social outcasts, naturally they're sensitive. Then someone's attacking them in the one place they find comfort, simply because they aren't popular. For not fitting in and not knowing "the right way to dress or act", as if such a thing existed.
Of course they were angry.
It was high school all over again. The popular kids attacking the outcasts. Only this time the outcasts fought back and for the first time the popular kids got a taste of bullying.
I'm not saying it's right. Bullying is never good. But GamerGate is a drop in the ocean of bullying. Why does it get so much attention? Could it be because it's a rare case of the outcasts fighting back? Or because it's a rare case of the media being bullied?
They didn’t send death or rape threats. They did exactly what you originally said: email Intel and get them to pull their ads from Gamasutra since the articles their ads were running on we’re attacking the target demographic.
Nobody. The FBI even investigated and found no credible threats. Just because you hear something from the very outlets being called into question, it doesn’t make it true.
Oh, come on. "Not credible" does not mean "nonexistent." We all know that the majority of Internet Tough Guys have no intention of following through on their threats, but that doesn't make it okay.
Are you really going to argue that everyone whose experience doesn't fit your worldview is a liar? If you want to say that the threateners are just a few bad apples who don't represent the rest, that's at least coherent, but this denialist approach destroys any credibility.
It was a really well written example of gamerphobia. If this were written about any group progressives care about it would have caused outrage from the very people who support it.
> Mmmm, butthurt engage. I must have hit the nail on the head.
The classic "everyone disagrees with me, this means I'm right for some reason" argument. Kinda nostalgic--it was very popular in the Usenet days, but you don't see it as much anymore.
The sticker price for games has stayed rock steady for decades now while budgets have only exploded (not to mention inflation). AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario, and will continue to be.
That completely ignores the fact that audience and number of sold copies had grown as well. Games that have once sold 1 million copoies now sell in 5-10x as much. If anything the profits are now higher than ever.
And budgets have exploded 200x from the 1-3M N64 game days. It's utterly disproportionate. If you look at the most profitable games (Blizzard, Valve, Riot) they're moving away from sticker prices altogether.
I'm not talking N64 days, e.g. typical EA example is Dead Space - the first one sold 1 million copies and was considered a huge success. Such a success that they bootstrapped a whole franchise. And that's not a N64 type game.
It's third installment, Dead Space 3, was slated to sell minimum of 5 million copies. With less than 5 million, EA decided that it's not going to be profitable enough. It also had microtransactions and DLCs on top of those required 5 million copies sold.
This is not really true. This is easy for us to check since many of these companies are publicly traded and are required to report their financials.
As one example, EA claims in their public filings that EA's cost for AAA game development has decreased over the last ten years (roughly $300 million less dev costs per year today, inflation adjusted, than they spent in 2009).
> AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario.
It's not -- and again, we can know this for a fact from their public financials. EA claims their traditional AAA games (sales only, explicitly excluding any microtransactions or lootboxes) carry roughly 60% profit margin all on their own.
They definitely don't need the extra gambling revenue, but it's obvious why they want it.
> The sticker price for games has stayed rock steady for decades
Where I am, AAA games used to cost €40 at the top end. Then €50. Then €60 and now I see them for €70 (more if you buy bullshit deluxe editions that give you extra skins or somesuch; more still for collectors editions, but they've always existed).
So, at least where I am, I'm not seeing it staying "rock steady for decades".
I don't think I saw a single article about EA that painted them in a favorable light over this one. "You paid like $60 for this game and would have to spend like $90 on average to unlock Darth Vader, or grind for [some large number of hours]" is not a good look.
This isn't the first thing EA's fucked up by being greedy for microtransactions, and it won't be the last time they roll it back after their customers reacting loudly enough that someone who doesn't give a damn about whatever franchise they're running into the ground by doing this hears about it - I mean, I don't give a shit about SW, much less SW:BF2, and I'm aware of this, and my entire mental picture of the story is "EA is a bunch of greedheads as usual".
> then being attacked for being greedy or selfish by the games media.
By who? I saw plenty of games media joining the EA-bashing, and none opposing it.
EA deserves the pummeling they're getting. I'm just annoyed because I wish we could get people to devote half the energy to serious issues that they'll spend on getting angry about video games.
Interesting - I've never cared for professional reviewers or anything of the sort - instead I just look for the biggest user review site around, which is currently probably Steam and read the comments a bit and then if I'm on the borderline I'll watch a YouTube video of actual gameplay. I can understand why they existed before, but what's the benefit of professional reviewers in this day and age, when it's far easier to determine what the common opinion of something will be?
Depending on reviewer, the review could be equal to a recommendation by a friend or colleague. This can give you more insight into the reason for a particular review.
Video game reviews usually have opposing goals: journalists want to elevate video games to an art and to elevate their criticism to art criticism, but users want them to quickly provide a helpful recommendation (which is represented by a number score).
Steam reviews are concise by design and give you a better idea of whether you'll have the same kind of positive opinion (for example, if all the positive reviews are memey, that says something significant). So I'd say they're definitely better.
I think some people who were video game reviewers will go on to become popular youtube "video essay" producers like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/user/Matthewmatosis and the rest will get new jobs.
The games press doesn't "want to elevate video games to an art". Games are art. And there are both game reviewers and game critics and the distinction is pretty clear once you've spent a few minutes figuring out if that particular person's thinking matches your own enough to be worth considering.
> users want them to quickly provide a helpful recommendation (which is represented by a number score)
Speak for yourself. I'm a "user". I also appreciate criticism that places a game in a historical, textual, and social context and that often tells me more about whether I'll like the game than "oh yeah, it runs at 60fps solid on my 1080Ti". A game reviewer might have put me off of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus or NieR: Automata because of gameplay ephemera they didn't like; game critics turned me onto both games because they were must-play experiments in how we tell stories.
Videogames use art but its not art. Or more specifically, its not created for their artistic value. Videogames are a amusement product over an artistic product.
For example, a stunning artistic videogame but boring versus a ugly game but funny.
There are many types of videogames with many different audiences, similar to movies. You can argue that videogames aren't art by pointing to Call of Duty, just as I can argue that movies aren't art by pointing to Suicide Squad. If you argue that movies are art by pointing to Citizen Kane, I'll point to Spec Ops: The Line or the Stanley Parable.
I also think you're conflating "art" and "visual design".
Even within Call of Duty, I would certainly call the single-player campaigns, from the original game up through today, successive iterations on a presentation of a narrative message even completely divorced from the ephemera of play (which is itself artistic in nature, though less universally obviously so).
Quake would be a better example, but I'd hold, too, that the decisions and the ephemera of that are art as well. Nothing says you can't play art.
This argument has been used against many media now very readily accepted as art: that they're just amusements, they're not art. They frequently come from critics of other media that don't want to expand the club, and they are invariably demonstrated to be incorrect over even the short term.
As for your example, there are boring but beautifully shot films--2001: A Space Odyssey certainly fits that bill for me. There are engaging films with crude cinematography--the original Clerks comes to mind, for a certain time and audience. You are drawing a distinction without a difference.
> Games are art.
This is really off topic but simply put, not all games are art. And I don't mean that in the way you might guess. Soccer is a game, it is not art. And games in general are not going towards a future where they are considered closer to art. The most popular game in the world is League of Legends, which people would think of as closer to an esport than art.
There's a small section of games which try to be pieces of art. Maybe they are. But most people playing games don't think of them as art, they think of them as games.
Appeals to "most people" are ugly. Most people reading books and watching films don't think of them as art, either. What they think their nature is and what their nature is wonderfully different things.
The only reason to sniff at any game, even something like League of Legends, and declare it to Not Be Art is to deny the active artistic intent of the creators involved. It is exclusionary for no good reason.
I don't care about "critics'" reviews or most media reviews for that matter. To evaluate something, I prefer to ask those who like given genre and can express an educated opinion.
How is that different from what a no-airquotes-needed,-thank-you critic does when it comes to media?
Find ones who like the genre and can express what you consider to be "an educated opinion" (and that one does get the airquotes). They're probably out there.
The difference is, I can get way more valuable input about games from some gaming forum, than from a media site. That was my experience at least. May be I was just lucky and found interesting communities.
You don't care about critics, you care about critics. I understand what you're trying to say, but I think you're dismissing criticism at the same time.
You want a critic who has a familiarity with the genre that is beyond superficial, and preferably on a deeper level. You want that critic to express an educated opinion, which should be a minimum for any form of criticism.
There are some critics who take a larger frame of reference, who might try to represent general audiences who are less familiar with a genre. Some critics can shift in an out of different perspectives. A good movie critic can talk about the merits of an over-the-top action movie without dismissing it.
It is perfectly reasonable to find the general critic less useful than the niche critic, both forms are still valid criticism.
What I meant is that I don't care about "professional critics" most of the time, unless they are well informed. I'm more interested in informal reviews coming from actual gamers.
I think professional critics are more useful in fields with a longer traditional of quality criticism. I haven't really found a set that are useful when it comes to video games for myself, and rarely even touch a game anymore.
Part of the problem might be that the time required to become fully versed in video games is immense, if finishing the games are required. One can get up to speed on the history of multiple film genres in less time than it would take to play through the genre of RPGs. Some games are meant to be disposable rehashes (e.g. modern war FPS) that just push the edge of graphics tech (which is OK), so it's easy to judge if the graphics suck or not.
I think another issue is that some people want the experience of the critic to match their own. A kid growing up will find a lot of ideas to be fresh that are tired and cliche to anyone with a childhood of [gaming,movies,etc.] experience. The drawback is that though peer reviews are useful, they don't always challenge you to think critically beyond what your peers think.
I agree, games are a more complicated medium to review because they require more time. That's why opinions of those who actually play them make more sense. They can evaluate game approach and highlight strong and weak aspects of it, in game design, story branching, writing and etc. I suppose technical aspects are easier to review for those who don't invest that much time in it.
It's for sure difficult for RPGs, but even for FPS, take something like Shadow Warrior (remake). Without finishing the game, one can't know the story twist and full evolution of the main character which kind of puts the whole game in a different light. It's just a work of art IMHO. For any critic to adequately review it, they need to finish the game.
Many times I've read a game review by someone who has no interest or experience in the genre. While a different point of view is always interesting, I personally enjoy reviews and writing by someone at least knowledgeable about the subject matter and its context.
An example was a review for the Crash Bandicoot remakes by someone who has never played or been into classic platformers. Therefore, the review was mostly complaining about how you go back to the beginning if you lose all your lives (!?).
--
Personally, like others have said, I rely on friends and communities devoted to a few specific genres I like (turn based JRPGs make up 80% of my game library).
Similar to what seems to constantly happen on AV Club with their TV reviews. A reviewer who has no interest in the material is assigned and their reviews are awful.
The saving grace, though, is that the comment threads on those shows are often wonderful anyway. They somehow have a solid community despite their terrible review strategy.
Possible something like that could happen with a game review site.
See, that Crash Bandicoot review sounds useful to me. I also did not play the originals, and vaguely wondered if I should play the remakes to see what I missed out on. Knowing that it is a frustrating experience without the nostalgia factor is quite valuable to me.
Going back to the beginning isn't necessarily a frustrating experience though. It depends on other factors such as how far back you go and how frequently it happens. I personally don't find Crash frustrating or particularly hard.
If you don't play platformers (I do), then perhaps it would be frustrating for you. But.. yes, games have become more accessible than they were in the 90's when Crash was created.
One thing I still try to understand is the anger flared when a game/movie sucks. I think the only thing anyone should do when a game sucks is not buy it, and not watch it anymore. But for some reason some people make it their mission to make it a vendetta against the developer.
It makes a ton of sense when you think about all the hype, preorders, franchises, exclusive IP grants, etc. that go into these events.
Battlefront 2 (2) is a great example. AAA game, so people felt comfortable preordering. Has the Star Wars IP, one of the most famous universes there is. Is continuing the old Battlefront 2, an insanely popular game and likely a cherished childhood memory of a large part of the now adult population making the purchases and complaining. And despite all the bad press, it is generally considered a good game, it's just that greedy policies ruin it for a lot of people.
The problem is you usually don't know if a game sucks until you spend $60 on it. The younger gamers who are more likely to participate in mob action can't afford to waste $60 on a shitty game. If someone takes your money for a product that is obviously broken and shouldn't have made it past QA, it's hard not to feel burned.
If this was genuinely the case, wouldn't documenting ways to get a refund be more worthwhile? I believe in the UK you can return anything bought online within 2 weeks. There's plenty of other large stores that pride themselves on no quibble refunds.
I've never felt money was a key driver here.
(Unlike say, platform rivalry, which I've often put down to the fact that it's a massive investment for young kids when they choose to buy one platform and a bunch of games and peripherals, so hearing they've made a bad choice may inflame emotions)
In the US, you essentially can't return games if bought physically, you can only exchange it for the same product if it's broken physically (i.e., not just buggy). Steam has a 24 hour return policy? I haven't used Steam in a while.
I tried to return a game I bought on playstation network and Sony flat out refused because I had played it (how else would I have known it wasn't good? If reviews etc had helped, I wouldn't have bought it to begin with). They told me to direct any further complaints about it to their legal department. I didn't bother.
This article reflects an opinion I've long held about game reviews - it's okay for other people to have different opinions. All a review can be is one person's opinion. It might be insightful, helpful, great, terrible, but it's all just an opinion.
There should be room within artistic criticism for critics to have different opinions. If Polygon wants to analyze games through the lens of left-leaning politics, that's fine! Readers who want games examined in that way will find that useful. If Totalbiscuit wants to rate games based on their PC ports and framerate, that's also fine! He has an audience that enjoys that.
It is acceptable and even valuable for there to be a wide variety of opinions and criticism for an art form. Forget Metacritic bonuses. It's not our job to worry about that. When you read criticism you disagree with, have the confidence to say, "I understand why you didn't like that game, but I did and that's okay."
Jeff's article is spot-on as always. I'm a bit surprised that any of this still has to be mentioned, but I guess people forget. It's the same reason why I would never go to Roger Ebert for a movie review: he and I like drastically different things.
That said, please allow me to make two suggestions to anyone reading this:
1) Check out more of Jeff's blog. His writing is fun, excellent and educational. Even if you only care about tech it will be interesting for you to read Jeff's frank discussion of his game sales numbers and the challenges he has overcome almost single-handedly coding and writing his many games.
2) Give Jeff some of your money. His games are unapologetically targeted at people who enjoy rpg elements, turn based combat and an interesting story. If that sounds like your cup of tea then buy one of his games if you like the gameplay video.
Jeff's blog has been amazing for as long as I can remember. I've been reading his stuff on a regular basis since I was in college and I've been playing his games since I was seven, downloading them off of AOL and getting mad at the Shareware Demon who told me I couldn't go any further.
Exile II remains the only game I ever cracked (I don't mean with-a-keygen, I mean with-a-hex-editor; I never got into games pirating from other people), because I was like nine years old and hex editors were easier to come by than credit cards, but I'm pretty sure I've made up for that by buying everything he's released since. Blades of Exile was the first game I ever bought through the mail, Geneforge was never my jam but I bought them all anyway on principle, and I still want a Nethergate 2.
You should send Jeff a quick email explaining how you became a life long customer. I am sure he would get a kick out of it! Jeff wouldn't be writing games after all these years if he was in this strictly for the money.
We've corresponded before. ;) I tried to get him on a podcast once, but he's not big on them. Maybe someday!
(This is unrelated, but loads of people find it very difficult/intimidating to reach out to people who do interesting stuff. I love shooting emails to people who've done stuff that I find awesome and just about everyone is responsive and extremely gracious.)
I agree strongly with (1). Jeff is brilliant, and wise, and his writing is terrific. I wish him success.
(And yeah, this article is spot-on, as always.)
But there's a problem with (2): his games are fucking terrible (for context, I've played 3 of his games, for a total of perhaps 50 hours, because I was really trying to like them). I mean, I'm super glad that someone that I admire so much has an audience, and I hope that some people continue to give him some money, but I could never recommend any of his games to anyone.
Then again, the things I think are terrible about his games, perhaps lots of people won't mind.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, just because Jeff Vogel is a wise dedicated respect-worthy guy, doesn't mean his niche will work for you. But then again, maybe you should give him some money anyway, and then just burn the game.
I did encourage folks to watch some gameplay videos (there are plenty of streamers, "Let's Play" bloggers for folks to choose from) before making up their mind.
I'm genuinely curious: what makes you say Jeff's games are terrible? Honest question. Personally I played Geneforge and Avadon series and enjoyed both.
Coming at it from the other end, I'm pretty sure that if my experience with Jeff's games was Geneforge and Avadon, I'd think they were terrible. I don't enjoy the gameplay pretty much across-the-board and while Jeff can tell a good story I don't like having to chew my way to it.
On the other hand, I literally grew up with Exile, Nethergate, and Avernum (1-3, I'm not as hot on 4-6), and I will give that guy money for all his stuff (I will buy the Avernum 3 remake day-and-date, and it'd have been the only game I've preordered this year if I could) just because those work for me so well.
If you really think about it game reviews are outdated. This isn't the 90s anymore.
Go to YouTube and search for the title of the game followed by gameplay. Example: "cold steel gameplay". Now go to page 3 of the search results to make sure you're NOT getting advertising or ecelebs. You're looking for that random guy who is just recording the game. And doesn't talk. Very important detail. You want that video with sub 100k views. And now you can see for yourself exactly what you will get and can make an informed purchase.
But I suppose its just one of those things people want to do that has nothing to do with practicality.
Reviews consider the game in its entirety, not any single X-minute segment. It would be incorrect to assess MGS5 on base-management sections of gameplay, for example.
I watched some random streamer with 3 viewers play Skyrim an hour or so a day for several days, asking him what he liked/disliked about it, before purchasing it.
Often, a good reviewer will give a good description of gameplay, and a good idea of how steep the difficulty curve is, how the game changes, whether it gets repetitive later on, etc.
These things are really hard to get from someone doing a several minute video. That said, I do pretty much what you said (although I just pick one of the first page results, since I don't seem to get the 'ecelebs' (?) you get.)
Although, once I read a review of Jak and Daxter II, and the reviewer said it was fantastic up to a particular point, which was impossible to get through, and thus it ruined the game for him. So when I played it, I kept waiting for this unbearably difficult bit... and made it all the way through the game! I went back to the review, and (having played the game) recognized the area he was talking about. It was slightly difficult, in that it might have taken me three tries to get through... :-)
There's a lot you don't learn from watching gameplay videos. You don't learn what the controls feel like, how responsive it is. Many games look like a confusing mess if you haven't played through the tutorial stages yourself to understand what the player is doing and what drives the decisions they make. And unless it's a first-time playthrough, you don't learn what it's like for a new player. There's a great big pile of streamers who've been playing Dark Souls for thousands of hours, and you will get a very very wrong impression of the game's difficulty if you just watch them.
A good review gives an accurate impression of a game's strengths and weaknesses in 5 minutes of reading. I've bought games based on overall negative reviews before, because the writer was even-handed enough for me to judge exactly how my tastes differed from his, and see that I could live with the bits he hated and love the bits he thought were just decent.
I agree with this. The Dark Souls reference is so true (but applies to every game)
> here's a great big pile of streamers who've been playing Dark Souls for thousands of hours, and you will get a very very wrong impression of the game's difficulty if you just watch them.
Hell, when I play dark souls now, I just kinda ignore all the enemies. They're like flies that get swatted if they get too close, but that's it. This is NOT the experience a first time player will have. Instead of flies, each enemy is an angry bear with a time bomb strapped to its back, with robot claws. Every enemy strikes them with fear and apprehension. All of this goes away as you become accustomed to the game.
When you watch an experienced player play, you obviously see the former and not the latter and what you see is NOT the experience you will have. (Although, you can of course watch a video where someone new to the series is playing... but the majority of videos are by existing fans)
I really like ACG's "Buy, Wait for Sale, Rent, Never Touch?" review videos. He talks about graphics, sound, gameplay etc separately and then rates the game as either "buy", "wait for sale", "rent" or "never touch".
My process is typically to look at a gameplay video (as you suggest) first. If the game looks like something I might like, then I check if ACG did a review. Gameplay videos alone aren't enough. They show you a quick snapshot of the action, but it can be super hard to see how much fun it actually is, how good the design is, how well it plays out throughout the course of the game, if there are any bugs, glitches or gotchas, what the overall writing is like, if the graphics or sound are consistently as they are in the gameplay video, etc etc.
Its a good starting point, but its not enough on its own.
Having said that, I have not made a purchasing decision based on more traditional reviews in a long long time and don't personally find "magazine-style" reviews (or their video counterparts) to be useful at all.
I thought an important part of this article was to avoid sites where a different reviewer reviews games chosen seemingly at random (like the mainstream IGN, Gamespot, Polygon). Just because you agree with/like John's IGN review of game A doesn't mean you'll agree with Mark's IGN review of game B. Instead find a review site with consistent reviewers whom you like or agree with and read them.
For me, I like RockPaperShotgun and Destructoid. Both of those sites seem like they are written by gamers who love gaming, not paid critics. I'd be interested in hearing about other high quality game review sites.
"Look, I love laughing at game professionals flailing at games as much as anyone. Remember when that unnamed Polygon writer tried Doom and showed no signs of ever having played it (or any video game) ever before? That was a hoot.
(My favorite bit is when the player unloads a full shotgun blast into a health pack resting on the ground, in what I can only assume is a post-modern deconstruction of late-stage capitalism.)
But some people watched that video and said, "Wow, I should never buy this game," and were right to say it. So the video was useful after all."
I feel like he brushes this criticism off without really confronting it.
A reviewer who's experienced with gaming and good at it can gauge difficulty, one who's inexperienced and terrible can't reliably. Reviewers shouldn't be perfect mirror images of the people they represent. They need to be above average to have cogent criticism and to communicate that to gamers effectively. Terrible analogy: No one is arguing that war correspondents don't need to know anything about geopolitics because "most people who read about geopolitics don't understand it, and they deserve correspondents who advocate for them."
Yeah, that part seemed particularly bizarre. I would never accept a gig writing reviews for Jazz performances -- I don't know anything about Jazz and I can't fathom why anyone would care about what I have to say.
A journalist is like a Lawyer, they think that they are good at everything but they should be specialized, for example, a business lawyer trying to act in a criminal case.
In this case, a game journalist should be specialized in some kind of games. Its not as simple as "i play xbox" or "playstation". For example Flight Simulation games or Wargaming. All of them are niche, and if you don't get it, you could considers it as a boring game, and yes, they are bore if you aren't part of the target market.
Cuphead is an example, a apparently good journalist trying to play a game where hes clueless. IT WAS PATHETIC.
The author(Shaun) is very reasonable, as are the SJWs who expand on the vid in response to 'secretagentlucario'. But even after that user's efforts to discover what the problem in problematic is, they fail to make it clear. Everyone ends at "it's worth talking about", everyone denies wanting anything loony like inserting PSAs before videogames that want to use a 30s american animation aesthetic. What is there to talk about? I don't blame gamers for concluding those tweets were an attack on Cuphead; that's what 'problematic' is, an airheaded attack.
I can't speak for the people having the discussion, but if I were to put a "game critic" hat on I would say that Cuphead seems to have missed an opportunity to borrow an art style but subvert the racism of the genre, but instead chose to sweet it under the rug. That's a shame, it could've made a great game even greater to smartly acknowledge the fire it was playing with.
I agree that "problematic" should be retired because it's lazy shorthand that has gotten out of control. But to "academic" types saying something is "problematic" is really banal: literally everything is problematic, in some way or another to a critic. That's okay though, and it's true of all other forms of art that are criticized and theorized. So I agree that the language and jargon of academia is, well... problematic :)
> I don't blame gamers for concluding those tweets were an attack on Cuphead; that's what 'problematic' is, an airheaded attack.
I blame the people like the youtuber in at the beginning of Shaun's video, which I think is the point: there are people out there stoking the flames of outrage for profit based on misreading (on purpose or otherwise) of fairly banal things said by academics and critics.
Thanks for the response, I posted to a non-front-page thread knowing you specifically (if no one else) might see it.
I would like to know what you mean by subverting the racism / acknowledgeing it, without tinkering with the developer's vision. I believe the video that the plot (which brings with it the dice character) was inspired by racist cartoons, but I don't think the art style alone should have to excuse itself.
I don’t think the developer of cuphead should HAVE to do anything. They made a really good game, which I paid for because I loved the art style. And honestly they’ve been very straightforward about saying “yes we were aware that the cartoons were drawing from were very racist but we loved the style so much we wanted to seperate it from the racism.” But once the audience is aware of where the tropes come from it’s hard to look at the games features and not think about where it came from.
To borrow a review on cupheads Wikipedia page:
> Brandon Orselli of Niche Gamer defended the game as a tribute to that art style, writing that it was not meant to deliver narratives, or "go anywhere beyond where it needs to go in terms of its basic and child-like storytelling"
That is a perfectly fine defense of cuphead IMO. But personally I like games that go a little bit beyond “child like storytelling.”
I’m having trouble thinking of an a way that the tropes could’ve been subverted or a game that does this really well. But ultimately what it comes down to is that, personally, I think great games go beyond simple stories and simple pastiche of art styles. Copying the style is and creating all of this art is a marvelous technical achievement. But if you just swap out the racist characters for cups and dice, have you not missed an opportunity to also write a story that borrows from the past while also subverting or otherwise questioning its tropes?
And I acknowledge that plenty of people will read this and think “who cares, it’s just a game?” And I will admit that if it’s all “just games” then my thoughts will seem pretty irrelevant. That’s okay. But I’m going to keep taking about games as if they were any other form of art, because that’s how I see them.
Here's the thing: Game journalism corruption has been a thing for decades now. When Bubsy first came out, there was a media blitz in magazines like GamePro, who had fulsome praise and promoted Bubsy as the next Sonic. Of course anyone who's played the game knows it's rather terrible. So I think when we see outrage against games journalists, what we are really seeing is a skeptical audience and that's a sign of health in the community. Games journalists who praise a bad game as good because they were paid to, or who criticize a good game as bad because they can't be arsed to learn to play it and somehow, to them, it's the game's fault, are not fulfilling their ostensible function of informing the potential audience for these games.
That said if you're going to call out a games journalist, it's important to be gentlemanly and civilized and not act like a rabid chimp.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadAnd a good score could be paid for, too.
And I think it's OK to care about who is being paid to say what.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Until then, this is static.
If he'd said "games YouTube"--now, that's a different thing, as the interactions between influencers and publishers (in ways that are deleterious to the public, to be honest) are pretty well-documented across the board in ways that are not "some rando with an anime avatar said so". But even they aren't incentivized in any way that I've ever, not once, seen substantiated to give bad reviews. So, again, that's a put-up-or-shut-up.
Credible allegations that bad scores are paid for are very rare.
It really brought into picture that various interests of major players in that community are not inline creating a huge amount of tension. The journalists are basically a PR arm of the bigger corporations or a specific political agenda.
This article seems to ignore the fact that often groups or tribes often form to protect their own interests by creating various forms of economic and/or social moats. The various groups are all trying to reduce competition by creating monopolies or gatekeepers, which in turn increases the tension or hostility between gamers and the mainstream journalists.
It's pretty interesting seeing this occur in real-time. I'm still not sure how the "gamers" are organizing or whether its just an emergent reaction.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
In the first instance, all of the coverage at sites like Waypoint, Polygon, RPS and so on has been critical of EA's choices vis-á-vis Battlefront II.
In the second, how can the press make up "salacious lies" about a demographic as varied and numerous as gamers?
Do you have an example of these attacks? Are they representative of the games media? Everything I've read was critical of the approach chosen by the dev/publisher. And there was no shortage of these articles, because I'm sure, like all controversies, this one generated a generous amount of clicks.
Applicable image:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPJ_4f7V4AEmnZt.jpg:large
There have literally been "journalists" who guested as voice actors in games they reviewed. Yeah.
Or the time Microsoft gave everyone in the audience an Xbox One. People who would then go on to "review" their games. No bias there.
And this one is pretty hilarious:
http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/347103-cuphead-reigni...
"Cuphead Reignites the “Game Journalists Should Be Good at Games” Debate"
How was this ever a debate? Would you buy a car from the review of someone who can't drive? Would you buy a gun from a review by someone who can't shoot? Would you fly on an airline from the review of someone who is afraid of flying? Would you use a product/programming language/service in your business on the recommendation from someone who doesn't even use the service? Let's all switch to VB .NET guys, this rep with a high school degree and no technical background recommends it.
I sincerely miss Computer Gaming World. You can read any of their issues online in PDF format. Check them out and dare to compare their objectivity to today's sellouts. Back then people reviewed games because they loved the art form. Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al. Which is, surprise surprise, the very reason everyone has given up on traditional media.
[edit] Mmmm, butthurt engage. I must have hit the nail on the head. =D You know you've made a sound argument when all they can do is downvote you instead of make a rebuttle.
Citation needed.
>Nowadays, you have to go to truly independent people on YouTube et al.
Truly independent people who may or may not have a direct relationship with the publisher or developer whose games they're playing?
Alexander attacks gamers and asks that developers cease to consider them as their core demographic.
From the article:
> It’s young men queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that marketers want them to see. To find out whether they should buy things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
I’d be mad too if she bashed my culture like that.
> Maybe switch “men” with another demographic and see if it reads the same.
Okay.
> It’s young women queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that marketers want them to see. To find out whether they should buy things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
Sounds fine to me. You see, the "men" in the quote is not "men" in general, but the "young men" that make up the particular slice of "gamers" (which Alexander argues is over catered to by brands and not representative of the larger set of "people who play video games"). This is the type of sensitivity I'm talking about.
Whatever you think, I hope we can agree that the reaction that followed Alexander's article was completely disproportionate and should be discouraged.
EDIT:
TFA said it best
> For a games web site, there's a huge advantage to having reviews written by inexperienced, eager people who try to stir up arguments instead of calming them. Those people work cheaper, and their work tends to stir up anger which gets more clicks. Sure, these poor writers/targets get screamed at, but that's what they were hired for. Their employers don't care as long as the clicks keep coming.
> In the end, however, we’re talking about video game reviews. In the global scheme of things, game reviews are REALLY unimportant.
This is the great flaw at the core of modern PC culture. Only some groups matter.
If this were about the "young men" that make up the particular slice of "Muslims" or "Jews", would you feel differently?
This would obviously cause outrage:
> It’s young men queuing with yamakas and shawls and jutting teffilin. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that rabbis want them to see. To find out whether they should do things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don’t quite know why they themselves are standing there.
> ‘Jewish culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct religious ‘wars’ about 'God's chosen people' or '613 commandments', straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of a book.
> Lately, I often find myself wondering what I’m even doing here. And I know I’m not alone.
> All of us should be better than this. You should be deeply questioning your life choices if this and this and this are the prominent public face your country presents to the rest of the world.
> This is what the rest of the world knows about your country -- this, and headlines about billion-dollar wars or those settlers with the razor wire fences. That’s it. You should absolutely be better than this.
> You don’t want to ‘be divisive?’ Who’s being divided, except for people who are okay with an occupied political desert of shitty behavior and people who aren’t? What is there to ‘debate’?
If you still struggle to empathize with either gamers or Jews, perhaps substitute some group you do empathize with.
I'm not familiar with all the terms you're using (not sure what jutting teffilin is) but if this was describing a situation in reality I'm not sure I would get my pitchfork out.
Also I know this is HN, but in the real world you get laughed at for substituting a race or religion with "gamers" or "sports fans." You might find that unfair or another "great flaw at the core of modern PC culture" but no one has ever genocided gamers, so...
Also, gamer and nerd self-criticism and mockery is nothing new. Remember the guy who got famous on Reddit for taking pictures at magic the gathering tournaments, posing behind overweight people whose asses were falling out of their pants? Or all the jokes about how bad conferences smell?
Gamers were fine with making fun of themselves. But now that some feel that the criticism is coming from "the cool kids" when often those "cool kids" are just as every bit deserving of the title of "nerd" or "gamer", it's time to get sensitive and play identity politics! Give me a break. Get over yourself. I say this as a hobby video game dev, lifelong gamer, 10-year wow subscriber, DND player... get over it. It's just games.
Your own words are a better proof of the hypocrisy than anything I could write.
When you use fat shaming to support your argument, you've leapt off the high ground.
The very fact that you compared that article to fat shaming should show you that the article was "gamer shaming".
Yes, I wonder why it was THIS particular straw that broke the camel's back. Gamergate was the video-game version of "wake up sheeple, the feminazi jews are running the media!." It's not meaningfully different from the rest of the culture wars.
> The very fact that you compared that article to fat shaming should show you that the article was "gamer shaming".
I didn't disagree, and tbh, neither does TFA. I'm not here to defend anything anyone has ever said in the media. In fewer words: ignoring the sexist dimension of gamergate is inappropriate revisionism. You're trying to say that there is something SO offensive about that article that it justifies what happened to Alexander afterwards. You also want to twist anything I say into some "example" of how "hosite" I am and how I'm everything wrong with PC culture or something. I'm not interested in continuing to discuss if you don't want to assume my good faith when I haven't questioned yours.
Of course they were angry.
It was high school all over again. The popular kids attacking the outcasts. Only this time the outcasts fought back and for the first time the popular kids got a taste of bullying.
I'm not saying it's right. Bullying is never good. But GamerGate is a drop in the ocean of bullying. Why does it get so much attention? Could it be because it's a rare case of the outcasts fighting back? Or because it's a rare case of the media being bullied?
Basically every youth culture and music subculture since WW2 has had this kind of article written about it. Sometimes daily.
The outpouring of death and rape threats against female journalists isn't exactly helping the "know how to behave" angle either.
I don't know who you think sent all those death and rape threats, then.
Are you really going to argue that everyone whose experience doesn't fit your worldview is a liar? If you want to say that the threateners are just a few bad apples who don't represent the rest, that's at least coherent, but this denialist approach destroys any credibility.
The classic "everyone disagrees with me, this means I'm right for some reason" argument. Kinda nostalgic--it was very popular in the Usenet days, but you don't see it as much anymore.
It's third installment, Dead Space 3, was slated to sell minimum of 5 million copies. With less than 5 million, EA decided that it's not going to be profitable enough. It also had microtransactions and DLCs on top of those required 5 million copies sold.
Who's greedy here?
This is not really true. This is easy for us to check since many of these companies are publicly traded and are required to report their financials.
As one example, EA claims in their public filings that EA's cost for AAA game development has decreased over the last ten years (roughly $300 million less dev costs per year today, inflation adjusted, than they spent in 2009).
> AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario.
It's not -- and again, we can know this for a fact from their public financials. EA claims their traditional AAA games (sales only, explicitly excluding any microtransactions or lootboxes) carry roughly 60% profit margin all on their own.
They definitely don't need the extra gambling revenue, but it's obvious why they want it.
Where I am, AAA games used to cost €40 at the top end. Then €50. Then €60 and now I see them for €70 (more if you buy bullshit deluxe editions that give you extra skins or somesuch; more still for collectors editions, but they've always existed).
So, at least where I am, I'm not seeing it staying "rock steady for decades".
This is called the "Hostile Media Effect" [1]
All I saw was the press uniformly calling EA out for their monumentally stupid mistakes and disregard for customers.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect
This isn't the first thing EA's fucked up by being greedy for microtransactions, and it won't be the last time they roll it back after their customers reacting loudly enough that someone who doesn't give a damn about whatever franchise they're running into the ground by doing this hears about it - I mean, I don't give a shit about SW, much less SW:BF2, and I'm aware of this, and my entire mental picture of the story is "EA is a bunch of greedheads as usual".
By who? I saw plenty of games media joining the EA-bashing, and none opposing it.
EA deserves the pummeling they're getting. I'm just annoyed because I wish we could get people to devote half the energy to serious issues that they'll spend on getting angry about video games.
Steam reviews are concise by design and give you a better idea of whether you'll have the same kind of positive opinion (for example, if all the positive reviews are memey, that says something significant). So I'd say they're definitely better.
I think some people who were video game reviewers will go on to become popular youtube "video essay" producers like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/user/Matthewmatosis and the rest will get new jobs.
> users want them to quickly provide a helpful recommendation (which is represented by a number score)
Speak for yourself. I'm a "user". I also appreciate criticism that places a game in a historical, textual, and social context and that often tells me more about whether I'll like the game than "oh yeah, it runs at 60fps solid on my 1080Ti". A game reviewer might have put me off of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus or NieR: Automata because of gameplay ephemera they didn't like; game critics turned me onto both games because they were must-play experiments in how we tell stories.
For example, a stunning artistic videogame but boring versus a ugly game but funny.
I also think you're conflating "art" and "visual design".
Quake would be a better example, but I'd hold, too, that the decisions and the ephemera of that are art as well. Nothing says you can't play art.
As for your example, there are boring but beautifully shot films--2001: A Space Odyssey certainly fits that bill for me. There are engaging films with crude cinematography--the original Clerks comes to mind, for a certain time and audience. You are drawing a distinction without a difference.
There's a small section of games which try to be pieces of art. Maybe they are. But most people playing games don't think of them as art, they think of them as games.
The only reason to sniff at any game, even something like League of Legends, and declare it to Not Be Art is to deny the active artistic intent of the creators involved. It is exclusionary for no good reason.
Find ones who like the genre and can express what you consider to be "an educated opinion" (and that one does get the airquotes). They're probably out there.
You want a critic who has a familiarity with the genre that is beyond superficial, and preferably on a deeper level. You want that critic to express an educated opinion, which should be a minimum for any form of criticism.
There are some critics who take a larger frame of reference, who might try to represent general audiences who are less familiar with a genre. Some critics can shift in an out of different perspectives. A good movie critic can talk about the merits of an over-the-top action movie without dismissing it.
It is perfectly reasonable to find the general critic less useful than the niche critic, both forms are still valid criticism.
Part of the problem might be that the time required to become fully versed in video games is immense, if finishing the games are required. One can get up to speed on the history of multiple film genres in less time than it would take to play through the genre of RPGs. Some games are meant to be disposable rehashes (e.g. modern war FPS) that just push the edge of graphics tech (which is OK), so it's easy to judge if the graphics suck or not.
I think another issue is that some people want the experience of the critic to match their own. A kid growing up will find a lot of ideas to be fresh that are tired and cliche to anyone with a childhood of [gaming,movies,etc.] experience. The drawback is that though peer reviews are useful, they don't always challenge you to think critically beyond what your peers think.
It's for sure difficult for RPGs, but even for FPS, take something like Shadow Warrior (remake). Without finishing the game, one can't know the story twist and full evolution of the main character which kind of puts the whole game in a different light. It's just a work of art IMHO. For any critic to adequately review it, they need to finish the game.
An example was a review for the Crash Bandicoot remakes by someone who has never played or been into classic platformers. Therefore, the review was mostly complaining about how you go back to the beginning if you lose all your lives (!?).
--
Personally, like others have said, I rely on friends and communities devoted to a few specific genres I like (turn based JRPGs make up 80% of my game library).
The saving grace, though, is that the comment threads on those shows are often wonderful anyway. They somehow have a solid community despite their terrible review strategy.
Possible something like that could happen with a game review site.
If you don't play platformers (I do), then perhaps it would be frustrating for you. But.. yes, games have become more accessible than they were in the 90's when Crash was created.
Battlefront 2 (2) is a great example. AAA game, so people felt comfortable preordering. Has the Star Wars IP, one of the most famous universes there is. Is continuing the old Battlefront 2, an insanely popular game and likely a cherished childhood memory of a large part of the now adult population making the purchases and complaining. And despite all the bad press, it is generally considered a good game, it's just that greedy policies ruin it for a lot of people.
I've never felt money was a key driver here.
(Unlike say, platform rivalry, which I've often put down to the fact that it's a massive investment for young kids when they choose to buy one platform and a bunch of games and peripherals, so hearing they've made a bad choice may inflame emotions)
There should be room within artistic criticism for critics to have different opinions. If Polygon wants to analyze games through the lens of left-leaning politics, that's fine! Readers who want games examined in that way will find that useful. If Totalbiscuit wants to rate games based on their PC ports and framerate, that's also fine! He has an audience that enjoys that.
It is acceptable and even valuable for there to be a wide variety of opinions and criticism for an art form. Forget Metacritic bonuses. It's not our job to worry about that. When you read criticism you disagree with, have the confidence to say, "I understand why you didn't like that game, but I did and that's okay."
That said, please allow me to make two suggestions to anyone reading this:
1) Check out more of Jeff's blog. His writing is fun, excellent and educational. Even if you only care about tech it will be interesting for you to read Jeff's frank discussion of his game sales numbers and the challenges he has overcome almost single-handedly coding and writing his many games.
2) Give Jeff some of your money. His games are unapologetically targeted at people who enjoy rpg elements, turn based combat and an interesting story. If that sounds like your cup of tea then buy one of his games if you like the gameplay video.
Exile II remains the only game I ever cracked (I don't mean with-a-keygen, I mean with-a-hex-editor; I never got into games pirating from other people), because I was like nine years old and hex editors were easier to come by than credit cards, but I'm pretty sure I've made up for that by buying everything he's released since. Blades of Exile was the first game I ever bought through the mail, Geneforge was never my jam but I bought them all anyway on principle, and I still want a Nethergate 2.
(This is unrelated, but loads of people find it very difficult/intimidating to reach out to people who do interesting stuff. I love shooting emails to people who've done stuff that I find awesome and just about everyone is responsive and extremely gracious.)
(And yeah, this article is spot-on, as always.)
But there's a problem with (2): his games are fucking terrible (for context, I've played 3 of his games, for a total of perhaps 50 hours, because I was really trying to like them). I mean, I'm super glad that someone that I admire so much has an audience, and I hope that some people continue to give him some money, but I could never recommend any of his games to anyone.
Then again, the things I think are terrible about his games, perhaps lots of people won't mind.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, just because Jeff Vogel is a wise dedicated respect-worthy guy, doesn't mean his niche will work for you. But then again, maybe you should give him some money anyway, and then just burn the game.
I'm genuinely curious: what makes you say Jeff's games are terrible? Honest question. Personally I played Geneforge and Avadon series and enjoyed both.
On the other hand, I literally grew up with Exile, Nethergate, and Avernum (1-3, I'm not as hot on 4-6), and I will give that guy money for all his stuff (I will buy the Avernum 3 remake day-and-date, and it'd have been the only game I've preordered this year if I could) just because those work for me so well.
Go to YouTube and search for the title of the game followed by gameplay. Example: "cold steel gameplay". Now go to page 3 of the search results to make sure you're NOT getting advertising or ecelebs. You're looking for that random guy who is just recording the game. And doesn't talk. Very important detail. You want that video with sub 100k views. And now you can see for yourself exactly what you will get and can make an informed purchase.
But I suppose its just one of those things people want to do that has nothing to do with practicality.
I watched some random streamer with 3 viewers play Skyrim an hour or so a day for several days, asking him what he liked/disliked about it, before purchasing it.
These things are really hard to get from someone doing a several minute video. That said, I do pretty much what you said (although I just pick one of the first page results, since I don't seem to get the 'ecelebs' (?) you get.)
Although, once I read a review of Jak and Daxter II, and the reviewer said it was fantastic up to a particular point, which was impossible to get through, and thus it ruined the game for him. So when I played it, I kept waiting for this unbearably difficult bit... and made it all the way through the game! I went back to the review, and (having played the game) recognized the area he was talking about. It was slightly difficult, in that it might have taken me three tries to get through... :-)
A good review gives an accurate impression of a game's strengths and weaknesses in 5 minutes of reading. I've bought games based on overall negative reviews before, because the writer was even-handed enough for me to judge exactly how my tastes differed from his, and see that I could live with the bits he hated and love the bits he thought were just decent.
> here's a great big pile of streamers who've been playing Dark Souls for thousands of hours, and you will get a very very wrong impression of the game's difficulty if you just watch them.
Hell, when I play dark souls now, I just kinda ignore all the enemies. They're like flies that get swatted if they get too close, but that's it. This is NOT the experience a first time player will have. Instead of flies, each enemy is an angry bear with a time bomb strapped to its back, with robot claws. Every enemy strikes them with fear and apprehension. All of this goes away as you become accustomed to the game.
When you watch an experienced player play, you obviously see the former and not the latter and what you see is NOT the experience you will have. (Although, you can of course watch a video where someone new to the series is playing... but the majority of videos are by existing fans)
My process is typically to look at a gameplay video (as you suggest) first. If the game looks like something I might like, then I check if ACG did a review. Gameplay videos alone aren't enough. They show you a quick snapshot of the action, but it can be super hard to see how much fun it actually is, how good the design is, how well it plays out throughout the course of the game, if there are any bugs, glitches or gotchas, what the overall writing is like, if the graphics or sound are consistently as they are in the gameplay video, etc etc.
Its a good starting point, but its not enough on its own.
Having said that, I have not made a purchasing decision based on more traditional reviews in a long long time and don't personally find "magazine-style" reviews (or their video counterparts) to be useful at all.
(My favorite bit is when the player unloads a full shotgun blast into a health pack resting on the ground, in what I can only assume is a post-modern deconstruction of late-stage capitalism.)
But some people watched that video and said, "Wow, I should never buy this game," and were right to say it. So the video was useful after all."
I feel like he brushes this criticism off without really confronting it.
A reviewer who's experienced with gaming and good at it can gauge difficulty, one who's inexperienced and terrible can't reliably. Reviewers shouldn't be perfect mirror images of the people they represent. They need to be above average to have cogent criticism and to communicate that to gamers effectively. Terrible analogy: No one is arguing that war correspondents don't need to know anything about geopolitics because "most people who read about geopolitics don't understand it, and they deserve correspondents who advocate for them."
In this case, a game journalist should be specialized in some kind of games. Its not as simple as "i play xbox" or "playstation". For example Flight Simulation games or Wargaming. All of them are niche, and if you don't get it, you could considers it as a boring game, and yes, they are bore if you aren't part of the target market.
Cuphead is an example, a apparently good journalist trying to play a game where hes clueless. IT WAS PATHETIC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-P9_oUV9Gw
I agree that "problematic" should be retired because it's lazy shorthand that has gotten out of control. But to "academic" types saying something is "problematic" is really banal: literally everything is problematic, in some way or another to a critic. That's okay though, and it's true of all other forms of art that are criticized and theorized. So I agree that the language and jargon of academia is, well... problematic :)
> I don't blame gamers for concluding those tweets were an attack on Cuphead; that's what 'problematic' is, an airheaded attack.
I blame the people like the youtuber in at the beginning of Shaun's video, which I think is the point: there are people out there stoking the flames of outrage for profit based on misreading (on purpose or otherwise) of fairly banal things said by academics and critics.
I would like to know what you mean by subverting the racism / acknowledgeing it, without tinkering with the developer's vision. I believe the video that the plot (which brings with it the dice character) was inspired by racist cartoons, but I don't think the art style alone should have to excuse itself.
To borrow a review on cupheads Wikipedia page:
> Brandon Orselli of Niche Gamer defended the game as a tribute to that art style, writing that it was not meant to deliver narratives, or "go anywhere beyond where it needs to go in terms of its basic and child-like storytelling"
That is a perfectly fine defense of cuphead IMO. But personally I like games that go a little bit beyond “child like storytelling.”
I’m having trouble thinking of an a way that the tropes could’ve been subverted or a game that does this really well. But ultimately what it comes down to is that, personally, I think great games go beyond simple stories and simple pastiche of art styles. Copying the style is and creating all of this art is a marvelous technical achievement. But if you just swap out the racist characters for cups and dice, have you not missed an opportunity to also write a story that borrows from the past while also subverting or otherwise questioning its tropes?
And I acknowledge that plenty of people will read this and think “who cares, it’s just a game?” And I will admit that if it’s all “just games” then my thoughts will seem pretty irrelevant. That’s okay. But I’m going to keep taking about games as if they were any other form of art, because that’s how I see them.
That said if you're going to call out a games journalist, it's important to be gentlemanly and civilized and not act like a rabid chimp.