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Totally agree with this blog, Liz. Video game reviews often get attacked for the reviewer having an opinion at all (well, when the reader disagrees) and I don't get it. Even the ones defending reviews seem to miss the point sometimes. They'll say, "it's his opinion; no one has to agree" which is true, but I think reviews should be more. Any good review isn't just an opinion but an argument. The reviews I dislike the most aren't ones I disagree with, but bland thoughts that give me no real sense of why the writer feels the way he or she does about whatever they are reviewing. This is tricky with games because they're just as much a piece of tech (or maybe more so) as they are a piece of art, so having a meaningful discussion on them can be hard. I'd like to see more writers examine the characters, narratives and major themes of games more often in reviews as opposed to simply saying whether the story is good or not. The good thing is we get a lot of that here at Dtoid, especially in the C-blogs, which is why I like it here so much!
Right, and I don't think that anything I'm saying up there is necessarily new ideas for the Dtoid community. And a lot more could be said I'm sure. I just thought it would be fun to enter the discussion!
I want to propose a bold idea here: In the future, people will only care for criticism if it offers its own intrinsic entertainment value. More and more, I think people are keying in to the fact that critics, while very well informed, are not really that great at judging "value" because "value" with art and entertainment is fundamentally subjective. People will make their purchasing decisions by other means, such as social media (even metacritic itself is a form of social media). So I think that the most important thing these days for video game "critics" is to be ENTERTAINING. Zero Punctuation, Angry Video Game Nerd, Jimquisition, etc. etc. etc.
Hey, it's that Rugg woman I know. Take her to your hearts, Dtoid community: she writes awesome articles like this one, and has boobs and everything. It's win-win!
@stevesan Haha, yeah, that's a possibility ... People always love to be entertained, that's for sure.
And Xandy, you're too kind! Plus I have boobs and everything!
And Xandy, you're too kind! Plus I have boobs and everything!
@stevesan
More and more, I think people are keying in to the fact that critics, while very well informed, are not really that great at judging "value" because "value" with art and entertainment is fundamentally subjective.
Subjectivity isn't the issue. It's a given that everyone's opinion is subjective including your own on the the value of critics opinions. The fact that you may disagree doesn't automatically devalue the opinions of others; it simply means you have a different viewpoint. It isn't a critic's job to tell you what to think, just what he/she thinks and why. That's where the value is in a review: how well someone can explain what they believe.
More and more, I think people are keying in to the fact that critics, while very well informed, are not really that great at judging "value" because "value" with art and entertainment is fundamentally subjective.
Subjectivity isn't the issue. It's a given that everyone's opinion is subjective including your own on the the value of critics opinions. The fact that you may disagree doesn't automatically devalue the opinions of others; it simply means you have a different viewpoint. It isn't a critic's job to tell you what to think, just what he/she thinks and why. That's where the value is in a review: how well someone can explain what they believe.
Personally, I think that all four of those criteria are fairly necessary for any piece of critical writing to be worth reading. Without description, the audience won't have a basis for understanding your other statements. Without interpretation, you have nothing but a list of features. Without judgement, you're not a review. And you might escape without theorizing, but to me the mark of successful writing is when it makes me think, or offers a perspective I hadn't considered - presenting a theory.
However, I think there is a certain large segment of the review audience that has an extreme antipathy for interpretation and theorizing. They want a targeted consumer review featuring a formulaic iteration of a game's features, and a comparative ranking of that game as it compares to other extremely similar games, and that is absolutely all. They believe that a game's quality is a thing that can be measured in an utterly objective, concrete way - and get offended if you should suggest otherwise.
For me, it's just pointless to look at a game without the context of player experience. I don't care nearly as much about a game's frame rate or audio fidelity, as I do about how it makes people feel when they play - and by extension, a person who writes intelligently about their experience is more enjoyable for me to read. I wonder how long it took literary and film critical writing to approach really thought-provoking levels? I'd put money down that critical writing about games is developing at a rapid pace, comparatively - which is good news.
However, I think there is a certain large segment of the review audience that has an extreme antipathy for interpretation and theorizing. They want a targeted consumer review featuring a formulaic iteration of a game's features, and a comparative ranking of that game as it compares to other extremely similar games, and that is absolutely all. They believe that a game's quality is a thing that can be measured in an utterly objective, concrete way - and get offended if you should suggest otherwise.
For me, it's just pointless to look at a game without the context of player experience. I don't care nearly as much about a game's frame rate or audio fidelity, as I do about how it makes people feel when they play - and by extension, a person who writes intelligently about their experience is more enjoyable for me to read. I wonder how long it took literary and film critical writing to approach really thought-provoking levels? I'd put money down that critical writing about games is developing at a rapid pace, comparatively - which is good news.
@fulldamage
Yes, player experience is a huge part of gauging a game. Which is really interesting to me, since personal experience is not specific to games and is a part of other art forms as well - like movies for example. However, individual experience is much more heavily relied upon in game talk versus other art criticisms, I think.
Something about the way that games interact with so many of our senses, including our sense of story and narrative development, as well as our sense of interactivity, be it socially or fictionally, can make games so entirely personal. And there's nothing wrong with that! I think personal experience is entirely intrinsic to the medium, and in a much more impactful way than lot of other art forms.
Like, if you go to an art museum and you look at a piece of let's say, a Donald Judd Minimalist sculpture, you can walk around it and think about how it looks and maybe think about how it makes you feel in relation to space and to the space it's located in, but for the most part, you're supposed to meditate on the ideas that Minimalist sculpture and Judd want you to think about. This sort of aforementioned knowledge and Judd assumes you have, in a way. It is not really based on your interaction with it, it's about what it's about, which is Minimalism.
Long story short, perhaps this has something to do with why gamers are often thought of as a passionate and loud audience, games all too easily become incredibly personal experiences, whether they be individual sojourns or social exercises. Longer story shorter, maybe I should write another blog about this idea......................... HMM.
Yes, player experience is a huge part of gauging a game. Which is really interesting to me, since personal experience is not specific to games and is a part of other art forms as well - like movies for example. However, individual experience is much more heavily relied upon in game talk versus other art criticisms, I think.
Something about the way that games interact with so many of our senses, including our sense of story and narrative development, as well as our sense of interactivity, be it socially or fictionally, can make games so entirely personal. And there's nothing wrong with that! I think personal experience is entirely intrinsic to the medium, and in a much more impactful way than lot of other art forms.
Like, if you go to an art museum and you look at a piece of let's say, a Donald Judd Minimalist sculpture, you can walk around it and think about how it looks and maybe think about how it makes you feel in relation to space and to the space it's located in, but for the most part, you're supposed to meditate on the ideas that Minimalist sculpture and Judd want you to think about. This sort of aforementioned knowledge and Judd assumes you have, in a way. It is not really based on your interaction with it, it's about what it's about, which is Minimalism.
Long story short, perhaps this has something to do with why gamers are often thought of as a passionate and loud audience, games all too easily become incredibly personal experiences, whether they be individual sojourns or social exercises. Longer story shorter, maybe I should write another blog about this idea......................... HMM.
@LizRugg
Well, I think that with games, the participant's relationship with the object is measurably different. You interact. You PLAY. Play is a different experience than observing or reading - you participate not just in the act of interpretation, but in a direct and active way - and you can be successful or unsuccessful in that interaction. You can fail at a game, but you can't fail at a painting. This aspect is unique to games - they demand a high level of personal investment for you to experience them. And so the player's experience - how they faced the challenges within the game, and how the challenges affected them - becomes a more important aspect of the interpretation.
Looking forward to that next blog when you get around to it!
Well, I think that with games, the participant's relationship with the object is measurably different. You interact. You PLAY. Play is a different experience than observing or reading - you participate not just in the act of interpretation, but in a direct and active way - and you can be successful or unsuccessful in that interaction. You can fail at a game, but you can't fail at a painting. This aspect is unique to games - they demand a high level of personal investment for you to experience them. And so the player's experience - how they faced the challenges within the game, and how the challenges affected them - becomes a more important aspect of the interpretation.
Looking forward to that next blog when you get around to it!
