A review can be objective and still be entertaining and interesting. One of my fav Youtubers ModernWarNegro does this perfectly. He gives you the jist of the game’s story, gameplay/mechanics, Tells you what he liked/disliked about the game then recommends either buying it at full price, waiting for the price to drop or passing all together. And he adds in that black/urban flava to the review to catch your attention and stand out. Not once does he ever dismiss a game for it’s choice in aesthetics or anything superficial like that. He might not like that aspect of the gamem ,but he wont shit on those who do or say a game’s not worth buying because of that. Cough a certain Dragon’s Crown review Cough
The whole objectivity argument is BS. People want subjectivity- They want a reviewers that cares about the same aspects they care about, and delivers the information that is interesting to them.
So if I care about KOF 13’s mechanics and not about its arcade mode dialogue, I’d want to read a review by a reviewer who cares about the same thing. I’d not even want him to try to cover EVERYTHING equally including the arcade mode dialogue, since I don’t see this as important in this game.
So it’s not about “objectivity” but about like minded standards. And currently most gamers do not share the same standards to judge a game by as the journalists, and the journalists don’t even defer from each other.
But even if you are “subjective”, you still have to be “informative”, which means you need to provide some minimal amount of information about the game. If you are reviewing DOA for example you should at least briefly explain about the hold system since it’s the series’ unique mechanical feature.
“Informative” means you provide the raw details, “subjective” means you then state your opinion about the raw details. Journalists are hacks so they don’t even have informed opinions about the games’ mechanics.
The whole point of “review” is to provide a personal opinion, and the raw information provides the context for the delivery of the opinion. If the person is not an expert in the subject matter then his opinion will be uninformed and the review not useful and that’s basically the problem, and not anything related to “objectivity”.
The problem is there is no boundary between games journalism and games criticism.
THIS! That simple statement perfectly sums up the issue! I knew there was something that was really off about reviews from the likes of Polygon, Kotaku and that infamous Dragon’s Crown or KOFXIII one. Looking over those reviews again, yeah these guys critique and review a game at the same time, with most of it being critique.
If they want to gripe about sexualization of a character, or racism in stages go right ahead. Just make a seperate video/article dedicated to critiqing the aesthetics of a game. But when it comes to people wanting to make an informed decision on a potential game purchase, actually discuss gameplay, mechanics, controls etc. You know the things that make a game function and playable. This is why we needed something like #GG to give these guys a kick in the butt so they’ll get their shit together and set some standards for their journalist.
Except that a videogame ‘review’ is never a wholly objective experience - you can talk about how well a game utilizes it’s platform or whatever but at the end of the day the reader wants to know if the game is an experience worth having, and that is going to differ from person to person.
What I mean, is I want to see critics appear, or develop - I want long conversations about the aesthetic split in FPS design, with the oppositional Valve and Bungee schools in the post id era, the reasons for success in the esports realm of Starcraft over other RTS games, and so on and so forth.
I personally don’t want ‘HEY GUYS IM HERE AT E3 WITH THE LATEST PRODUCTS FOR YOU TO BUY HERES KEVIN JONESON FROM ACTIVISION TO TELL US ABOUT THE NEW COVER SHOOTER’, I couldn’t give a damn about that stuff, or the drama that comes with it
Following on from that
good job game’s journo
The interesting thing about #letmarkspeak is that even when someone tries to extend an olive branch they refuse to change. I will continue not visiting game review sites, and will likely just use SRK PC gaming thread for my gaming news from now on. I’d recommend everyone else do the same. Just let the sites collapse, it will be for the best. You can play a demo of nearly any game now, no reason to look at reviews from bogus sites.
It took awhile but hit pieces on the Escapist are pouring in
https://archive.today/BiRxc
This a blog post from the guy who runs “I Hit It With My Axe” on what’s going on in the Escapist
https://archive.today/wVg4k
games journalism sucks mostly, but have any of you considered the political intention behind it?
The politial intention behind it is part of why it sucks so bad, motherfuckers need to stop trying to turn hobbies into political soap boxes, we’ve all seen how toxic it gets.
Politics are in everything, whether you pretend they are or not
The tragedy of our predicament, when we are within ideology, is that when we think we escape from it into our dreams, at that point, we are within ideology.
Politics is in everything, but in the USA everything has become more politicised in recent years.
It may well be the natural end state of a system where the gaming of people’s beliefs and perceptions is the key to gaining power.
Kotaku stealing Smash content from VideoGameBootCamp, gets blown up lol
https://archive.today/7TpRw
Call Kot I guess in this case we call Reggie to ready his body? Fuk it, call EventHubs they have plenty experience in this regard.
Man Patricia does that shit all the time. I remember when the infamous Sonic Boom Knuckles glitch went viral Kotaku decided to link to a video of some guy talking OVER the original video of the dude who found it instead of linking to the dude who found it, even though in the video they used the guy lists the name and youtube channel of the original discoverer. What a piece of shit website.
Politics or not. There is no place in gaming let alone ANY industry for slimeball shit like that. Like WTF Kotaku?! Inject your politics and agendas into your gaming journalism all ya want. We can just avoid your site. But flat out stealing other’s work? This cannot be ignored, and I don’t see how anyone could attempt to damage control this unless they’re just as low.
The funny thing is that eventhubs doesnt do that anymore.
Because they kept getting their shit pushed in because of it. Call out the fuck ups enough times, and they’ll eventually get sick of it and change or they’ll forever wallow in mediocrity.
EDIT:
Anyway Mark Kern now reaching out to Pakman and TotalBiscuit to get heard
Because y’know game journo’s do such a great job
What else did you expect from Kotaku?
Obligatory:
https://twitter.com/penguinman2/status/571253047713607680