Criticisms of opinions can be valid

Your point is valid, but things get a bit tricky when comparing one human experience to another. That's partially why I don't like giving scores or star ratings to games. Anyways, Brad has a habit of getting caught up in the hype of a game, and the GOTY discussions are usually pretty illuminating of that (check out the ones for 2011).

I agree. Also, I think most of the people here feel that way. I read through some of the comments section and there wasn't any real criticism of review or anything of value to be gained from those comments from either side. Dismissing anothers opinion because it disagrees with yours isn't a good thing. I'm happy to read a comments section of people defending and attacking the arguments for and against something, it makes for an interesting discussion, so I agree completely. That comments section on the DmC review wasn't that though

I don't think, or at least I hope, that people are arguing with you. GB, despite being the internet, mostly has reasonable people that will debate so long as people present information intelligently. Take into account that a lot of this argument stems from unreasonable people, then posts like @Ghost_of_Denis_Dyack's get overlooked. It's sort of circular, since the crazy people are louder, and more numerous, than the more reasonable people.

The internet doesn't understand escalation, so the piling on turns into a magnet for unreasonable people.

I agree. While I have done litereally everything in my power to stay away from that review, (I have never played a DMC game and really don't want to see the apparent war going on there), this can go both ways. For how many people who go crazy mad in the sections when a score doesn't go there way, there is also a bunch of people crazy happy about it. Either way, you should say something like "I do not agree with this review really" or "I had a different experience." rather than ragging on someone just because their experience was better or worse than what you experienced.

Either way this is the internet filled with spoiled children and asshole adults and sometimes they just happen to leak into the best of places.

Absolutely true. However that's rarely the case and 90% of the time it is people just complaining that the reviewer got paid off or just pointless bitching. I welcome that 10% who try to validate their criticism but it just don't happen that much

I think that, too often, people read someone's opinion or statements as pieces of fact. That often leads to some . . . heat. For example, if I say something seems like shit or it sounds like the dumbest thing ever, I shouldn't have to clarify that "I think/feel that this is...". Opinion (even strong and unwavering) would seem to be a-given when reading a comment, except when specifically called out by the writer of it to be factual information.

People often also take criticism too personally. There are a lot of people on GB that I've head heated discussions with and with very few exceptions, it has no bearing on my opinion of them as an individual. Unfortunately, this is sometimes hard to make clear unless you go out of your way to flower everything with something that stresses every single statement you're making "isn't intended as a personal attack" or something.

Anyway, this is the internet. Meaningful discussion does not scale very well. You can only do your best and hope for the most out of it.

The question, of course, is if such meaningful criticisms are drawing any attention in these discussions, or if they're there at all. I can't say if it's there or not, largely because I'm trying to remain at least somewhat detached from this.

Very well said and I definitely agree. To give my two cents on the matter though, it's all really a language battle if we look at comments sections and reviews as semantic objects constructed from lines of statements. Context and content both play into how a review is framed and interpreted but that only really means the intent has to go through a process of interpretation and then reproduced by the interpreter. Translation: opinions as expressions of personal experience (which is valuable because we are ourselves in so many ways through the things we do, say, consume, etc.) are subject to variable interpretation precisely because they're communicated in a certain way. It is within that realm that one has to execute some semantic skill in order to effectively isolate the components of the review and how to simultaneous address your own views while avoiding a future semantic failing for someone else to come in and do the same. As you can see, the DmC review is evidence that a lot of people aren't good enough at communication (or interpretation but let's limit it to communication) that they can do both. What I just said is a bit of a Frankenstein monster of communication theories (which isn't even my strong suit) but it gets the point across.

I agree, as a person who took issue with several of Brad's assertions regarding Far Cry 3 and its granting of a five star rating despite opinions expressed on podcasts by him I felt contrasted sharply with what a 5/5 seems to represent to many people. In this case, I'm much less invested in the franchise and genre so its not my fight, but challenging a person's opinions is absolutely valid and shouldn't be summarily dismissed as one, narrow-minded type of rebuttal as seems to be happening here.

I would take people's complaints more seriously if this whole DmC grudge didn't originate over petty shit. Seriously, people shot DmC in the legs as soon as they saw the first image of Dante with a different hair-do without seeing a glimpse of game play. So to me it just looks like people desperately trying to justify their grudge.

I'm no DMC fan, I wouldn't be able to tell one hack-n-slash game from another in terms of gameplay. So maybe people do have valid reasons for hating the new DmC. But whatever valid reasons you have for not liking it and for thinking it betrays the past games, that doesn't mean that anyone who likes the game is wrong.

No shit.

@YOU_DIED said:

Your point is valid, but things get a bit tricky when comparing one human experience to another. That's partially why I don't like giving scores or star ratings to games. Anyways, Brad has a habit of getting caught up in the hype of a game, and the GOTY discussions are usually pretty illuminating of that (check out the ones for 2011).

If this was the case, wouldn't this be one of his most accurate reviews, seeing as this game had a lot of negative hype?

Also, just speaking about reviews in general, it's odd how strong of a disconnect a review can have with talk on the bombcast. The guys are so busy playing armchair game designer and nitpicking a game to death that when the review comes out it just seems weird. Take Halo 4 for example - they spend about 45 minutes shit talking the game on the bombcast (it's just more of the same, story wasn't that great, didn't lean hard enough into the Cortana story line, same old enemies, etc) then the review comes out at 4/5. Just seems like sometimes their reviews don't match what they're saying about a game elsewhere on the site.

@Grimluck343 said:

@YOU_DIED said:

Your point is valid, but things get a bit tricky when comparing one human experience to another. That's partially why I don't like giving scores or star ratings to games. Anyways, Brad has a habit of getting caught up in the hype of a game, and the GOTY discussions are usually pretty illuminating of that (check out the ones for 2011).

If this was the case, wouldn't this be one of his most accurate reviews, seeing as this game had a lot of negative hype?

Also, just speaking about reviews in general, it's odd how strong of a disconnect a review can have with talk on the bombcast. The guys are so busy playing armchair game designer and nitpicking a game to death that when the review comes out it just seems weird. Take Halo 4 for example - they spend about 45 minutes shit talking the game on the bombcast (it's just more of the same, story wasn't that great, didn't lean hard enough into the Cortana story line, same old enemies, etc) then the review comes out at 4/5. Just seems like sometimes their reviews don't match what they're saying about a game elsewhere on the site.

I mean hype in terms of his own excitement towards a game, not necessarily marketing hype or general population hype. Sorry for the confusion there, I should have specified.

One can only criticize an opinion if the opinion itself lacks internal validity and/or has flawed internal logic. Unfortunately, most of the time it's just "YOUR OPINION IS WRONG BECAUSE YOU'RE WRONG AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD!" type people being dicks and delusional self-absorbed hypocrites who can't take the slightest of criticism going at one another.

Honestly, whatever.

And also, I think video game reviews are conceptually beyond stupid.

I've always conducted myself with regards of opinions based on a threefold distinction of them.

• Type 1 Opinions: "I don't like Dante's new hairstyle. I think the original white hair suited him best." - Personal opinion based on personal preference. No problem here. Agree or not, that's your decision, but there's nothing wrong with these opinions.
• Type 2 Opinions: "I don't like Dante's new hairstyle because it's purple. I think the original white hair suited him best." - Personal opinion again, but based on wrong premises. Dante's new hair is not purple, so the opinion is, in fact, wrong. I will try to correct the wrong assumption and move on, regardless of whether the poster realizes their mistake or not.
• Type 3 Opinions: "This game is terrible and Brad is a sellout for liking it." - Anything that contains an ad hominem fallacy or claims that something has X quality just because, without giving any reasoning for that claim. I usually try to not bother with these statements, since they are clearly not meant for discussion, but to attack whoever doesn't agree with the poster. That being said, I do give them a lot more attention than they deserve...

The whole DmC thing was (and is) terrible to watch. Those who have decided months ago that they don't want to like the game will not like it, no matter what Brad (or anyone else) says. Period. Sure, people who like the game fire back at them, but all in all, I guess the most harmful attacks have come from the "DMC purists", or however you want to call them. It's a pity that such a vocal minority can smear shit all over the place simply because other people like what they don't.

@GrantHeaslip said:

I hate to start another meta-discussion about the DmC review, but there's something that I think needs to be said: criticisms of opinions can be valid. While most of the criticisms of Brad's review were misguided, some constructive and interesting posts were painted with the same "LEAVE BRAD ALONE AND CRY MORE YOU DESPERATE DMC FAN!" brush. Obviously "fuck you CBS sellout, I'm leaving forever!" isn't adding anything to a discussion, but meaningful criticisms of a game or the things said in a review are perfectly valid uses of the comment section — certainly more-so than making fun of someone for having a strong opinion. I may have missed a lot of moderated posts, but that thread seemed dominated by reflexive piling on, not unreasonable DMC 1-4 fans. At the very least, the piling on just made things worse.

I've been seeing this kind of no-criticism-allowed mentality in comment threads a lot lately, and it's getting tiresome. Reviews (and for better or worse, a lot of the news articles here) are opinion pieces, and it's perfectly natural for people to disagree with them. I have no stake in the DmC drama — I've never played a DMC game — but I do want this to be a place where meaningful debate is encouraged, not shouted down.

I have no love for Devil May Cry one way or the other, but I feel like every gamer should understand and be able to sympathize with developers taking a person's game away from them. That, honestly, is how I feel like beloved franchises of my own like Zelda and Final Fantasy. Sure, everyone came on board with games like Zelda 64 and Final Fantasy 7, but those games drastically and, in my opinion, grossly changed the fundamental elements that made those series what they were.

So, no amount of praise, or 10's could ever get me to think that either of those games were good.

I get what the people complaining about DMC are on about.

I've always conducted myself with regards of opinions based on a threefold distinction of them.

• Type 1 Opinions: "I don't like Dante's new hairstyle. I think the original white hair suited him best." - Personal opinion based on personal preference. No problem here. Agree or not, that's your decision, but there's nothing wrong with these opinions.
• Type 2 Opinions: "I don't like Dante's new hairstyle because it's purple. I think the original white hair suited him best." - Personal opinion again, but based on wrong premises. Dante's new hair is not purple, so the opinion is, in fact, wrong. I will try to correct the wrong assumption and move on, regardless of whether the poster realizes their mistake or not.
• Type 3 Opinions: "This game is terrible and Brad is a sellout for liking it." - Anything that contains an ad hominem fallacy or claims that something has X quality just because, without giving any reasoning for that claim. I usually try to not bother with these statements, since they are clearly not meant for discussion, but to attack whoever doesn't agree with the poster. That being said, I do give them a lot more attention than they deserve...

The whole DmC thing was (and is) terrible to watch. Those who have decided months ago that they don't want to like the game will not like it, no matter what Brad (or anyone else) says. Period. Sure, people who like the game fire back at them, but all in all, I guess the most harmful attacks have come from the "DMC purists", or however you want to call them. It's a pity that such a vocal minority can smear shit all over the place simply because other people like what they don't.

But why even bother doing so?

@YOU_DIED said:

@Grimluck343 said:

@YOU_DIED said:

Your point is valid, but things get a bit tricky when comparing one human experience to another. That's partially why I don't like giving scores or star ratings to games. Anyways, Brad has a habit of getting caught up in the hype of a game, and the GOTY discussions are usually pretty illuminating of that (check out the ones for 2011).

If this was the case, wouldn't this be one of his most accurate reviews, seeing as this game had a lot of negative hype?

Also, just speaking about reviews in general, it's odd how strong of a disconnect a review can have with talk on the bombcast. The guys are so busy playing armchair game designer and nitpicking a game to death that when the review comes out it just seems weird. Take Halo 4 for example - they spend about 45 minutes shit talking the game on the bombcast (it's just more of the same, story wasn't that great, didn't lean hard enough into the Cortana story line, same old enemies, etc) then the review comes out at 4/5. Just seems like sometimes their reviews don't match what they're saying about a game elsewhere on the site.

I mean hype in terms of his own excitement towards a game, not necessarily marketing hype or general population hype. Sorry for the confusion there, I should have specified.

If you read the review, you'd see there was zero hype going into it. And for a while, he outright did not like many things people complained about. The game grew on Brad, and thus his final score.

@GrantHeaslip: Unfortunately, it's those 90% flipping out and acting like someone punched their mother which makes the 10% with reasonable disagreement look bad. As you did, I also saw some okay criticism of the game and disagreement with the review, but the majority was just overblown nonsense that made it hard for anyone to really focus on quality disagreement.

@GreggD said:

@YOU_DIED said:

@Grimluck343 said:

@YOU_DIED said:

Your point is valid, but things get a bit tricky when comparing one human experience to another. That's partially why I don't like giving scores or star ratings to games. Anyways, Brad has a habit of getting caught up in the hype of a game, and the GOTY discussions are usually pretty illuminating of that (check out the ones for 2011).

If this was the case, wouldn't this be one of his most accurate reviews, seeing as this game had a lot of negative hype?

Also, just speaking about reviews in general, it's odd how strong of a disconnect a review can have with talk on the bombcast. The guys are so busy playing armchair game designer and nitpicking a game to death that when the review comes out it just seems weird. Take Halo 4 for example - they spend about 45 minutes shit talking the game on the bombcast (it's just more of the same, story wasn't that great, didn't lean hard enough into the Cortana story line, same old enemies, etc) then the review comes out at 4/5. Just seems like sometimes their reviews don't match what they're saying about a game elsewhere on the site.

I mean hype in terms of his own excitement towards a game, not necessarily marketing hype or general population hype. Sorry for the confusion there, I should have specified.

If you read the review, you'd see there was zero hype going into it. And for a while, he outright did not like many things people complained about. The game grew on Brad, and thus his final score.

His hype is generally only apparent when he starts talking about a game in videos and on the podcast (like I mentioned in my first post) which I stopped listening to a while ago. I'm not gonna waste time picking sentences out of the review and arguing with you over whether they are hype or legitimate. Honestly, I don't care all that much about reviews in general, I usually talk to friends that have similar tastes to mine before buying a game, or I just get a demo/pirate it.

The internet + a positive/negative review of an installment of a beloved franchise + fans of said franchise (+ fans of reviewer) = shitstorm. Basically, abandon hope all ye who enter here in search of intelligent, reasonable and civilized discussion. It's the internet.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

Basically, abandon hope all ye who enter here in search of intelligent, reasonable and civilized discussion. It's the internet.

Is not such an apathetic attitude one of the reasons why this state of affairs persists?

I've been seeing this kind of no-criticism-allowed mentality in comment threads a lot lately, and it's getting tiresome. Reviews (and for better or worse, a lot of the news articles here) are opinion pieces, and it's perfectly natural for people to disagree with them. I have no stake in the DmC drama — I've never played a DMC game — but I do want this to be a place where meaningful debate is encouraged, not shouted down.

That's just, like, your opinion man.

Totes agree with OP here. If there's any value to be gained from reviews in this age, it's the discussions they can spur. Provided that they're civil.

They will always fall back on the "im just a critic, this is just my opinion, if you don't like it you can go elsewhere" response to any sort of criticism. Its typical and something along the lines of The Daily Show. They will never take a stance, or offer an actual solution to the current problems. Don't ever expect them to, they are here to make money from viewers and entertain those viewers.

'Criticisms of opinions' might be a weird way to put it, but disagreements can definitely be valid. I think we would be in a really weird (and potentially scary) place if people didn't disagree with reviews.

@Video_Game_King said:

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

Basically, abandon hope all ye who enter here in search of intelligent, reasonable and civilized discussion. It's the internet.

Is not such an apathetic attitude one of the reasons why this state of affairs persists?

Word. The last time someone was yelling nonsense at me on the internet, I tried being reasonable and explained that I didn't understand what they were saying or where they were coming from. They took a step back, cooled down, and explained their thoughts more clearly. It's definitely not hopeless.

@Vampir said:

'Criticisms of opinions' might be a weird way to put it, but disagreements can definitely be valid. I think we would be in a really weird (and potentially scary) place if people didn't disagree with reviews.

@Video_Game_King said:

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

Basically, abandon hope all ye who enter here in search of intelligent, reasonable and civilized discussion. It's the internet.

Is not such an apathetic attitude one of the reasons why this state of affairs persists?

Word. The last time someone was yelling nonsense at me on the internet, I tried being reasonable and explained that I didn't understand what they were saying or where they were coming from. They took a step back, cooled down, and explained their thoughts more clearly. It's definitely not hopeless.

And what kind of internet would that be, where everyone is courteous, polite and reasonable? A boring internet. Leave that shit for the real world. Giantbomb at least, for the most part seems to be reasonable and calm...minus the few yearly incidents that come up. And when they do, I'm making popcorn.

Not just criticism of opinions, but criticism of reviews as the most effective delivery mechanisms for those opinions, which is more where I've come down on all of this. The game may be good, and it may be bad, I don't know because I haven't played it. But what I do believe, is that reviews on this site and elsewhere are increasingly anachronistic and plainly dumbed-down page view bait, and each year that goes by that this site in particular still uses review scores, or even reviews at all, the talk about this site "doing things differently" gets a little harder to swallow. 

Criticism of someone's opinion is fine and should be welcomed but, only when the person doing the criticizing has an equally informed opinion. How many of the people raging over the review when it went up had played the game? How many of them will never play the game yet still go on about how terrible it is?

@TheDudeOfGaming: We're at two incidents already this year. I'm not saying the internet should be some kind of Emily Post-inspired politeness utopia, but that describing the degree to which people are being ridiculous as ridiculous is accurate, and that such a devolution of the discussion is not some sort of inevitability. It also seems like those incidents cloud over what could have been some of the most interesting discussions on the site.

@YOU_DIED said:

@GreggD said:

@YOU_DIED said:

@Grimluck343 said:

@YOU_DIED said:

Your point is valid, but things get a bit tricky when comparing one human experience to another. That's partially why I don't like giving scores or star ratings to games. Anyways, Brad has a habit of getting caught up in the hype of a game, and the GOTY discussions are usually pretty illuminating of that (check out the ones for 2011).

If this was the case, wouldn't this be one of his most accurate reviews, seeing as this game had a lot of negative hype?

Also, just speaking about reviews in general, it's odd how strong of a disconnect a review can have with talk on the bombcast. The guys are so busy playing armchair game designer and nitpicking a game to death that when the review comes out it just seems weird. Take Halo 4 for example - they spend about 45 minutes shit talking the game on the bombcast (it's just more of the same, story wasn't that great, didn't lean hard enough into the Cortana story line, same old enemies, etc) then the review comes out at 4/5. Just seems like sometimes their reviews don't match what they're saying about a game elsewhere on the site.

I mean hype in terms of his own excitement towards a game, not necessarily marketing hype or general population hype. Sorry for the confusion there, I should have specified.

If you read the review, you'd see there was zero hype going into it. And for a while, he outright did not like many things people complained about. The game grew on Brad, and thus his final score.

His hype is generally only apparent when he starts talking about a game in videos and on the podcast (like I mentioned in my first post) which I stopped listening to a while ago. I'm not gonna waste time picking sentences out of the review and arguing with you over whether they are hype or legitimate. Honestly, I don't care all that much about reviews in general, I usually talk to friends that have similar tastes to mine before buying a game, or I just get a demo/pirate it.

Then why are you even in this thread?

Usually it is not worth criticizing another opinion. They feel that way for any number of reason which are no more valid or invalid than what anyone else feels.

Is Brad sexist? A new study may surprise you!

The problem with the premise of "criticisms of opinions can be valid" is that the majority of the comments I read from DMC faithful about why they hate this new game came off as completely crazy.

I'm someone who likes the character action genre, have played most all of them and when I do I opt for the hardest difficulty. The closer these games get to the fluidity and simplicity of a fighting game but variety of approach the more I gravitate towards them. Nothing I've read from reviews, or watched in gameplay footage would lead me to believe that isn't here with this Devil May Cry. End of story.

They write these novel length long bullet points for shit that is so superfluous.

@GreggD said:

Then why are you even in this thread?

I'm interested to hear what other people think about reviews and games. Why else would someone be on Giant Bomb?

Anyone seen the ridiculous metacritic attacks? They've voted it down to 2.8 now. So when these people aren't even ready to properly try to discuss the game in a sensible manner all you can do is just point and laugh at their impotent rage.

There is definitely something to be said about constructive criticism, but at some point it's just opinion vs opinion that will never go anywhere.

If you don't like the game, don't play it.

If you enjoy the game, continue enjoying the game.

What anyone else says about said game doesn't matter (whether in a review or not) besides what you think of it.

So once again, it's really just another case of internet bitching about something that doesn't really matter and no one will care about a week from now.....

@ajamafalous said:

@GrantHeaslip said:

I've been seeing this kind of no-criticism-allowed mentality in comment threads a lot lately, and it's getting tiresome. Reviews (and for better or worse, a lot of the news articles here) are opinion pieces, and it's perfectly natural for people to disagree with them. I have no stake in the DmC drama — I've never played a DMC game — but I do want this to be a place where meaningful debate is encouraged, not shouted down.

Yep.

Agreed.

And I have no investment in DmC, but Brad is almost always over enthusiastic about games that turn out to be mediocre on closer inspection. I expect people will get more out of the comments than they will his review.