Worth Reading: 10/18/2013

@ax23000: @weaponboy: I was ready to carefully address your well-made points, but I'm sorry, I'm just sick of it. I can see that it's futile, especially because I think we all probably agree. But that makes your defense of this 'article' so much worse to me.

The points the author is trying to make (about game reviews) are good ones, and I mostly agree with him. He's also flagrantly generalizing and, to me at least, being needlessly offensive to a group based on their gender, race, and sexual orientation. So what pains me so much is that prominent games journalists (and apparently Giant Bomb members) give that a pass when it's a point that falls on their "side".

Well, believe it or not, I'm on that "side" too. And every time I see things like this being spread around I know that however important the ideas in question are, we've all taken one step backwards. Every article that makes these generalizations is just fuel on the bonfire of intolerance.

I desperately want more diversity in games and in games criticism, but endlessly supporting articles like this will only ensure that it will never happen.

Several thoughts.

One, I wasn't speaking for some hypothetical 'reader'. I was referring to myself and the experience that I had with the editorial. It was MY kneejerk reaction that was MY problem.

Two, I'm sorry, but a straight white male (in the US at least) has about the LEAST to worry about in the world when it comes to bigotry. I agree those statements are bizarre and wrong, but it's hard for me to be offended when I'm a part of one of the most privileged groups of people in the world. Obviously you're different and I guess that's fair.

Three, I would argue there are more than 'a few pearls of wisdom' to be found in his editorial.

Four, the vast majority of his points do not revolve around his views of white males so I don't agree that discussing his piece is validating his hate. I'd also say that the word 'hate' is an exaggeration. Believing in a stereotype is not the same as hate (although it can certainly lead to it)--odds are there are stereotypes that you believe and espouse without even thinking about it. He's a flawed human being like the rest of us. It's cool to call him on his bias, but it's not cool to argue that we should ignore everything he has to say because he has it.

Five, in at least one sense he is correct on the 'straight white male' subject. Having almost the entire pool of reviewers fit into this one category certainly DOES mean that you end up with less diversity of opinion. His specific opinions about the traits of this group are wrong, but make no mistake about the fact that those of us in this group are seeing the world from a very specific and limited pov. Only by including as many possible points of view as possible can we hope to get a well-rounded idea of a game--as with anything in life.

my buddy's sister-in-law makes $71/hour on the laptop. She has been without work for 5 months but last month her paycheck was $12996 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read Full Article-----> www.Rush64.com

That's ridiculous though because you're basically saying that trends don't exist in groups. I'm not saying that this is an absolute truth, that because someone is simultaneously white, male and straight that they automatically are X. I'm saying that these things exist and we have to acknowledge that they are real problems.

Nothing in these types of discussions is an absolute blanket statement, it's why I don't believe that most people who do racist or sexist things are racists or sexists it's that they're doing racist or sexist shit. It's not about what a person is it's about what they're doing and it's important to make a distinction between those two.

It's also just lazy argument construction. You can create all sorts of untruthful narratives when you discuss a group of people and it just becomes sophistry.

You have one angle and one story, Patrick. We. Get . It.

We get it, Tevis, you don't value objective analysis.

But then you kept writing for another ten pages, and what started as an opinion descended into the halls of idiocy.

What a waste of time.

Yep, that's about right.

Generalizing about any group of people is fundamentally meaningless and unproductive. Theories of "privilege" are fine, if that's what you're into. But when you tie it to any group, and find the inevitable sub-group that it doesn't apply to, your theory is nullified.

This is precisely the root of the never-ending semantic battle happening in games now. Discussion about narrowly focused mainstream games is productive. Discussion about while male power fantasies is divisive and false.

And until we can agree on the fundamental truth that generalizing about any race is, in fact, racist, we'll just be getting further and further away from the equality that I believe we both seek.

@joshwent said:

Oh, how silly of me. I guess we can never ever talk about a group of people based on any distinct identifiers because that would be a type of -ism.

Are you seriously trying to argue that pointing out that groups of people, not just men, straight people or white people, have different inherent levels of societal privilege that they may or may not be aware of and as such do not actively consider is racist? That's completely absurd.

To quote someone else,

pointing out problems is not the same as perpetuating them. It is not a “victimizing” position to acknowledge that injustice exists; on the contrary, without that acknowledgment it isn’t possible to fight injustice.

@zalrus9: I hang out with friends and do some get-togethers from time to time, but I've never been about that party life. I can't go out every weekend cuz I work Sundays. I got stuff to do :P

And I'm perfectly okay with that because honestly? I hate bars and drinking in general.

Don't worry about it, guys! I didn't start going to parties until I was a sophomore, and honestly, I preferred just hanging out with friends. As for dating in college, take it from me; dating in college is not all it's cracked up to be...

Same. I'm too busy studying, hunting down internships, and working a part-time job to put some kinda dent in my absurd college bills. Never could relate to the people who go out drinking every night.

Yay! I thought that making generalized statements about a group based on their race was the exact definition of racism, but obviously I was wrong, so... racism doesn't exist anymore? Hurray!

I don't agree with Errant Signal this time. It's different from game to game. With GTA V it makes sense, but what's the point in analyzing the political implications of Super Street Fighter 4? And the same people who want games to be taken seriously as an art form or whatever are not necessarily the same people who want politics out of reviews. Reminded me of "Make up your mind, imaginary man".

On another note, this is the first time I heard about the new objects that refill your life and the life bar in Dark Souls 2 permanently lowering each time you died. Man, that's harsh. I thought Dark Souls was difficult enough. But that's typical of that developer, I guess. They give you a room full of treasure chests and throw in a mimic that's 3 meters tall.

Saw your Tedx talk just now. I liked it! Thought you did a good job, especially considering how nervous you were.

And he criticises BioShock Infinite for not allowing the player to interact with the world in more meaningful ways... but could the same be said of ANY video game? At some point developers have to draw a line in the sand and say "this is out game". His issue with reviewers were they were not harsher on parts of the game HE didn't like. But I, and MANY others, did not care that our interactions in that world weren't as deeps as they could have been. Give the developers some credit, he talks about games like there's infinite time and money to make immersive worlds but fails to acknowledge the time and effort to create such a world in the first place.

"A good reviewer knows that none of our values are settled, that the game community is actually in thrilling flux, despite the placid surface of its reviews. The only way to change how we talk about games is to encourage a plurality of voices, revel in their diversity, and be honest about our own subjectivity among them." - Thompson

I'd say the MAJORITY of the reviews on Metacritic that he dislikes to so much ARE in fact subjective. They have bylines, they use words like "I felt" and are personal accounts. He's not a bad writer actually, but even his own review here is filled with "you will" and the like... so strive for subjectiveness but tell people what there experience will be? Like I said, he's a good writer, but I disagree with him.

Also, enough Simon Parkin shit. That guy is a plagiarising hack with his pretentious head shoved way up his ass.

> #rysefacts FACT: Crunch is necessary to make good video games. FACT: If you don't like it, there are a hundred 19yos q-ing up for your job.

FACT: Attitudes like this are why industrialized labor became unionized at the turn of the 20th century.

Pointing out that straight white male gamers in the western world have an incredible amount of privelege that they are often completely unaware of does not constitute racism.

Also, look up what a tone argument is (that goes for Patrick, too).

Reading @patrickklepek talking about his college years just makes me sad. But I sure am happy that he had a great time and ended up how he ended up. Living the dream, Kleptok!

I find the "serious criticism vs product reviews" distinction to be an annoyingly relaxed and relativistic interpretation of Tevis Thompson's arguments. What he's really saying is that Bioshock Infinite is so flawed - as a product/thing you buy in a store - that it's downright disturbing that more reviewers didn't recognize its fundamental problems at the time of the game's release. I sort of agree, and think it's important that the down-to-Earth review-ness of his supposed "rant" isn't lost in an all too abstract discussion of "games as art".

@brodehouse said:

I concur. I'm basically fine with the idea that game reviews are more diplomatic and less scathing generally, because you're talking about a product that has to be functional, and you've got to account for the idea that somebody is investing however long it takes to complete into the game. I don't think it's a problem when most critics agree that a game is above a certain threshold of quality, it's more a problem when readers take issue with a review and then assume ulterior motives because there's no way a reviewer might have such a strong opposing view...

But that's the internet, right? I mean, everything is black and white for most people. It's great or it's shit. There's no room for anything in between. No room for "merely okay" or "not quite as good as the last one". If it misses a certain level of expectation, even if it's only in one very specific area or moment, the reaction becomes "FUCK YOU YOU WASTED MY TIME YOU FUCKING CAPITALIST SCUMBAG ASSHOLES!"

I think professional reviewers have a duty, to some extent, to be above such hyperbolic knee-jerk reactions to things, because they're providing purchasing advice.

But at the same time, if they don't like something, they should say why, and they should justify it, even if their opinion is not shared by the majority.

I would've agreed but in the next section, he freaks out about the dehumanization of minorities and laborers. He won't accept the idea that the vox are based on historical events, instead saying reviewers are dumb lol for not seeing this blatant insult to humanity. Upon third and fourth reading, he destroys his own argument (we need more diverse opinions) with his own article because he/she can't describe the need for diverse opinions other than "i have opinions".

For example, what does " Many of the best reviewers I read have clearly been educated in the human world, and they bring to their evaluations an eye unsullied by the ingrained assumptions of videogameland," even mean?

@patrickklepek Did they rename the Sears Tower after the late great Wesley Willis?

Nailed it. I don't think most sites have the time or are even interested in including both. Better labeling certainly can't hurt though.

I would love to read a review of Madden by someone who hates football. If they are a talented reviewer, they will write about what their experiences with this football game were. Perhaps the layer of abstraction granted by it being a video game allowed them to access some part of football that had always remained locked away behind football culture, or the whole concussions thing. That's always been my experience with football games--when I'm not in a bar full of screaming assholes or worrying about the massive cranial damage these players are suffering, I can enjoy the strategy and craft that goes into football. Maybe some other person's review would be totally different, finding football to be a game that is overburdened by rules and procedure, both in digital and physical forms. Either way the conversation around Madden is immeasurably richer after we write our respective pieces than before, when the reviews amount to not much more than cataloging the graphical and interface updates for this year.

I really enjoyed these articles, thanks Patrick

@banefirelord: look at the bright side man, at least you are still in college and made it that far! Because I chose a shitty remote college with little parties(and a small amount of people in general) I started to lose my mind and only last a full year before I dropped out.

The fact that youve made it 2 years with very little partying/shenanigans and still can keep going is amazing. As the cheese33 said as long as your happy thats all that matters. If youre not branch out a bit, and if you go to a large college take advantage of all the different types of people you have! At my old college there were only a couple different type of people, which got old pretty fast. I wasnt ready for college and rushed into it, but it inspired me to study what I do now back home at a local community college.....

Alex May's tweet is exactly why I got out of software development. a 3 year old crunch on several projects at once, with no end in sight and unsympathetic bosses and an industry that creates a culture where if you don't like working a 80-100 a week salary job (so no overtime), there are plenty of kids or people overseas who are willing to do it for less pay.

Not that drive and competition is a bad thing. However that attitude seems like a race to the bottom where some people are making a LOT of money by treating workers like crap, and once they burn out replace them with people even more desperate to make a mark for themselves.

When someone says that Bioshock Infinite is one of the worst games of this gen that person's credibility is immediately flushed down the shitter.

Nah, everyone has a different college experience. As long as you're happy, it's no big deal.

As such, the fact that Merchant Hag Melentia, the first shopkeeper encountered in the beta test for Dark Souls 2 (playable for a lucky few during a short two-hour window on a suitably bleak and rainy Saturday evening this October) appears to be invulnerable is important.

It would be important if it was true. However, there is adequate (NDA breaking) video footage on youtube of players killing this NPC.

Man, now I feel like I'm fundamentally fucking my college experience up. Two years in, haven't gone to any parties I wasn't working security for, haven't done any drinking, haven't dated, haven't gone out and made dumb decisions just for the hell of it.

@patrickklepek, I haven't really paid attention much, but what is your TedTalkx about? Also, will it be recorded and something that we can watch on the interwebs at some point? I'd like to see it. Good luck and have Batman, bro.

I can't say I agree with the complaints the guy that wrote the Beyond article had about player-protagonist sync. In fact, I think one of the strengths of the game is how it obscures obvious choice by making it feel like you can go about things how you want. There were plenty of times the game suggested I do something "bad" and I was able to go about things another way. Maybe I only went against the grain when it was actually possible because I don't recall having been forced to do anything I didn't want to.

I read all of "On Videogame Reviews" by Tevis Thompson, in fact I read some part of it a few times. There are a few point I agree whole heartily about, but I think he starts to rant too much. Is the game Limbo really the seeming number of the beast 666 he makes it out to be?

What I agree with his we are dishonest about how poorly developed and logically inconsistent a lot of narratives in stories are, yet we keep giving the excuse of "Well, Its a game story". I think it is fairly clear that the stories of Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, GTA V, and many others would be considered the fodder of extremely bad novels. Think the only thing games can be excused for is plotting. Plot as defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence from one event to the next is not in the control of any one person. It is teh game and teh player, plot in games is hard to match up because depending on how well you play, how few times you get stuck can determine if the way events line makes sense in some cases. The themes, ideas, and story are under control of teh developer so that can be criticized and should be criticized thoroughly.

If your game is a narrative based, but your narrative stinks, then your game isn't in the range of 8-10. If a game has a story, that if it were in a novel you would put it down, than your score should reflects that. I happen to think mechanically GTA V is wonderful in many ways, but the story is so poor written and the themes/ideas that are presented are so inconsistent as to make it junk. I wish I could remember the quote, but there is a quote about what IS and what ISN'T a story. A story is a series of events in a sequence that when finished changes that character or characters. Its is possible to break that rule? Probably, but you have to be better than most of the gifted story tellers in history...so good luck with that.

There are only seven stories that can be told, or so they say, but what is GTA V story? If you want to get very analytically you could say Rock Star takes it cynicism to new heights. It a Quest story where the characters all fail, its a Rags to Riches story (of emotions) where the characters stay in (emotional) rags, it is a Tragedy (like riches to rags), where the villain does not get it in the end, it is a Rebirth story where instead of hero realizing his error before it’s too late he just continues in error. GTA V is very cynical on matter what you think the story is, because nothing changes enough to give any characters any resolution.

I could not agree more with this. Plainly bigoted statements like that wouldn't fly against any other group, and would incur all sorts of wrath from people like Patrick, but since it bitches about straight, white, well-off people it's totes cool. (I say this, for the record, since apparently we have to define ourselves by demographics these days, as someone who is neither straight nor well-off.)

There are decent points buried in that article, but it is surrounded by condescension, bigotry, and hypocrisy.

I always got a kick out of that, because the fast-moving, always changing, fickle nature of that market is precisely why it will never replace the traditional video game market and was never going to. Nintendo can be rightly accused of being old, out of touch farts sometimes, but they were right about that from Day 1, and nobody ever stopped to seriously consider if they had a point or not, preferring to throw it in with the larger narrative of Nintendo just not "getting it." Nintendo knows better than anyone at this point about the boom and busts of casual gaming.

What a load of shit that Beyond: Two Souls criticism is. Completely rejects any kind of story telling that isn't absolutely linear as well as morally shaped around a white middle class 30 something dude. I urge everyone to read the rest of the NeoGaf forum the writer linked to in his article as it sums up a far more round point of view on linear storytelling in games in my opinion.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=697204&page=2

Dammit, I can't stop watching that Smash Bros. documentary.

I think his point is that that is exactly Irrational's aim in Bioshock Infinite, but they didn't give enough context to make it any more meaningful. What it might imply does not really make it meaningful in itself. I don't really know if he's right or not because I haven't finished the game, but anyway I think he just means to say that he thinks many reviewers are over-analyzing that particular part of the game to its benefit. It's a "good idea, bad execution" kind of situation, it seems.

The problem with the Thompson screed is that everything he sad was hashed out upon release of Bioshock:Infinite. It isn't like there wasn't issues raised at the time of release about how the game drops a lot of the historical criticism to focus more on its story than its social commentary. The basic issue is with Metacritic. But that is because its is a review aggregator. You see the same thing at Rotten Tomatoes. Lots of people had real issues with big movies like Iron Man 3 and especially Star Trek:Into Darkness but they are really highly rated.

I feel the same way. I really feel like there have been so few games that really qualify as high art that its kind of silly to get holier than thou when something like Bioshock Infinate isn't perfect. When people dismiss a Hollywood action movie as "stupid" it makes sense to me because there's a whole world of "smart" movies you could be watching instead, but when people call an FPS "stupid" I'm not exactly sure what they're comparing it to because a lot of the indie games these people champion are slight and when compared to a book or movie they're not really all that smart either.

That Tevis guy is right about one thing: people do have lowered expectations for games, and frankly as far as I'm concerned they're correct to. Until there are a lot more games that actually deserve to be called art I think it's kind of stupid to hold them to the higher standard that he seems to think they've earned.