Comments on: Reviewing, Criticizing and Games Media

By: Shaquil R. Hansford

Shaquil R. Hansford — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:51:22 +0000

Wow, late to the party yet again. This was almost a year ago. Guess I’ll have to read more stuff from you guys to see what’s happening now. I’ve seen you on the videogamesjournos network, Troy. I thought I’d seen your name elsewhere… guess it’s time I read up on your stuff. Hopefully something more recent.

By: The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:25:40 +0000

[...] This is more WARNING OF IMMINENT AWESOME than PRESENT AWESOME, but Shawn Elliott is arranging an e-mail Symposium on games journalism. Got an interesting selection of writers, critics and journalists from across the field, and we’re going to hack around the big questions. I’d pretty much retired from games journalism journalism – no, really – but this strikes me as something that may actually be useful. Its from the ashes of a previous project, which he’s shown here. Oh – and some people have already answered them. Here’s Troy’s. [...]

By: The Convergence of Everything « Game Reader

The Convergence of Everything « Game Reader — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:11:23 +0000

[...] Convergence of Everything In Uncategorized on December 4, 2008 at 2:41 pm An essay on the state of video game reviewing and criticism. Keith Stuart on gaming’s relationship to rock ‘n’ roll. Has Nintendo betrayed [...]

By: Troy

Troy — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:20:10 +0000

New address shows up fine.

Looking forward to reading the rest of the pseudo-Symposium.

By: Shawn Elliott

Shawn Elliott — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:27:47 +0000

Hello again, Troy. I appreciate the response (and am promoting it on my various web 2.0 pages). I hope to write back at better length later, but wanted to explain now that categories in the symposium itself were to include:

Review Scores
Reader Backlash
Reviews in the Age of Social Media
Reviews in the Mainstream Media
Casual, Indie, and User-Generated Games
Review Ethics
Reviews vs. Criticism
Evolving the Review

Most questions on my blog come specifically from the Scores section, hence the apparent over-emphasis.

PS, my new email address should appear for you, yeah?

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:54:40 +0000

I think one of the enduring challenges about game criticism is that, perhaps inescapably, *most games suck*.

And unlike a movie, where even a bad movie is usually watched until the end (and can thus be evaluated fairly), many bad games are nearly impossible to finish– either technically so, or simply from a perspective of “I don’t want to play this any longer.”

A bad videogame, especially a *technically* bad videogame, can’t be evaluated on its merits because whatever the designer was trying to achieve, they clearly failed– and not in a narrative sense (“George Lucas wanted The Phantom Menace to be epic, but he was a lousy writer”) but in a basic competency sense (Plan 9 From Outer Space).

It’s like asking a movie critic to tell us whether the plot of the film is exciting, interesting, engaging– any good at all, really– when the *movie itself* is out of focus, out of frame, with no sound editing, or actors unable to read their lines.

I think that this difference goes far to explain the “7 to 10″ grade inflation we see in reviews. We’re still at the point that most reviewers– indeed, most *gamers*– score a game highly *simply because it is playable*. You can’t even get into a question of whether a game is good or bad unless you can successfully navigate the controls, menus, rules, logic, etc.

Unfortunately, this pattern is unlikely to change as long as the highest-profile games continue to seek out and exploit new technical advancements. The lower-profile games (the iPhone apps, the Desktop Tower Defenses of the world, etc.) will get a fairer shake than most because their simplicity (and thus playability) allows for a balanced review. Alas, the very thing that enables such a review– their simplicity– also reduces the requirements for a review to generic “Is it any fun?” pronouncements. . . or, if you want to stretch the word count, a little contextualization (“This game clearly evolved from Tetris. . . “).

Good game writing requires good writing, but it’s always going to be different than movie writing, book review writing, or writing about any other form of media.