On Games, Reviews, And Criticism -- Part 2

Good 2nd part Patrick, I'm looking forward to more.

Reviews are a tricky, I use them to steer away from the worst games, but if the game gets a lukewarm review but I'm still interested I might wait for the price of the game to go down. For me a review is the perfect place to criticize a game or a franchise. This also means that readers have to discern whether they think those criticisms are a big enough problem for themselves. The score the reviewer gives can help the consumer figure out how much the problems a game has will likely affect their own enjoyment of the game.

Forums are another area where game criticisms abounds and it is another place where you can look to judge a game. Game critiques can be found in pretty much any video game oriented forum, unfortunately these are less trustworthy because in many cases the purposes of the author behind the critiques are unknown, and easily break down into mindless fights.

What has been far more useful to me are the Quick Looks from this site, let's plays, and even podcasts to an extent. These offer great previews of games while also providing a venue for people to critique and discuss games as well. However these formats are some of the most time consuming and the depth of discussions vary wildly.

You want a real solution?

Schools should start grading students on a 5 star scale. Maybe that would stop people from equating every scale to the relationship between percentages and the "A-F" grade scale.

To Manveer a review score is a metric that determines a portion of his compensation, as has become the standard across the industry. Of course this is his position, its only rational for him to argue like this. I would too in his position.

@SuperCycle: I don't agree with this, b/c if Parkin felt that Uncharted 3 was representative of what's wrong with the genre, then that's a legit criticism. I would have no problem w/ seeing more game reviews that looked at the wider picture when reviewing an individual title, b/c in this environment we have so many sequels and so many 'me-too' efforts where games just copy one another w/o bringing anything new to the table. In these cases "criticism" of a genre as a whole is very much worthy of discussion. Bring it on, says I.

@Pezen: "Patronizing" would be if he was blowing smoke up your ass-- telling you that what you want is always the right decision.

What he was doing was belittling, or deprecating us.

The idea that people would've happily gobbled up more WW2 shooters because that's what we "want" is pretty insulting. I found that about as easy to swallow as the suggestion that Infinity Ward were being "ballsy" by following up an arcadey war game with another arcadey war game, regardless of the setting. Does that make Dice uber-ballsy for having moved to "modern warfare" 2 years earlier than IW?

Now, I'm left to wonder what brave hero developer will part the clouds revealing a fresh new type of enemy to shoot in the face, effectively removing the zombie-game feeding tube that I'm so voraciously slurping from. When will someone tell me what to want, next? When will you free me from the prison of my own vapid complacency?!

I would prefer scoreless reviews to be honest. I like to be able to form my own opinion based on what the reviewer likes and dislikes in the game. I also think there is a clear place for criticism in game reviews as a discussion of the medium at large gives your points more context in the grand scheme of things. It also takes the game in question out of the "bubble" it exists in so you can say, for example, "this game's combat is clearly not broken, but it lacks in some of the innovation present in these other games, which makes it inferior".

I really think the only way to get rid of metacritic is to move away from scores. It helps the consumer because they form an opinion based on the actual content of the review rather than just the number. Otherwise a person might see an 8/10 review score, buy it and then realize its just not fun for them.

@stryker1121: I agree that a larger discussion can and should be had as to whether certain genre tropes are overused and whether or not they are hurting progress and overall quality of games. I just don't care for them in reviews which is why Manveer suggests that those larger criticisms be in a different, possibly larger, in depth articles. Review Uncharted 3 or any other game for that matter as it is, then have an article meant for discussion that touches on the larger issues of why certain games fall into the pitfalls of their own genre.

I don't see why having a rating system out of five stars necessarily means it has to be 1 star = 20%

Why couldn't you have a more exponentially graded system that gets tougher to get the 5th star.

Ie.

0 stars = 0

1 star = 1-35

2 stars = 35-65

3 stars = 65-85

4 stars = 85-95

5 stars = 95-100

You could even shift the scale if you wanted to, or fit it towards a bell curve so its harder to get a 1 or a 5, than it is to get a 3.

All I mean is that if you predetermined your grading and made it transparent to your users - values don't have to directly correlate to 4 stars = 8/10

I disagree with everyone that says we have to get rid of metacritic and review scores.

Metacritic is actually a good way to ensure the developer get good bonuses if the game does not sell well (assuming the game is being made for audience cares about video game review and if its weight properly in the bonus calculation).

For metacritic to work both the reviewer and the developer must take emotion away from the rating syste. The reviewer must have ethics and must understand that the review is for the consumer and not to get paid off by the developer/publisher. Developers have to understand the review is for the consumer and respect the reviewer opinion of their game .

Also for reviewers that don't want to be on metacritic think about this. The more reviews that are on metacritic the less your review will effect the aggregate review score

@Pezen said:

@Brendan: Alright, enlighten me?

@SaturdayNightSpecials: I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking that.

If he was saying that gamers totally do know what they want, and that they do have a vision of what they want from future games, rather than only knowing what they want at the moment, but it was implied that he didn't believe what he was saying, then that would be closer to patronizing.

It's like in movies when the bad guy fucks up, and his minion goes "Oh your soo smart, my liege! You couldn't have known anything was going to go wrong!" And the bad guy says "Don't patronize me, fool!"

@Qwinn said:

Best gaming website ever! Thanks to Patrick for bringing something different to the table. Never been so happy to part with $50 each year. Love you guys!

IGN is a shit site, but their running a story very similar to this. http://games.ign.com/articles/121/1215728p1.html

I figured this was unique, apparently not. I also dont like the idea of paying for Ryans arcade machines either. You gotta admit, not much gets done on this site.

Manveer is calling for critiscim from an academic perspective. I support this idea on the basis of opening up language to the majority of unknowingly underprivileged consumers and players who have yet to realise their potential. I am currently working on a film to promote this idea. Much love

I base all my opinions on preconceived notions and that works wonderfully.

I've felt the same thing this year that I've heard in reviews and podcasts, that the games are good, but there's something not quite as good somehow as the last iteration. Maybe if you just pop in every few years and buy a sequel you love it, but if you're buying every game in a series current sequels seem to stumble lately. There isn't anything necessarily bad about the games, but after paying $60 for a game we aren't feeling like we get as much enjoyment as we did a year or two ago. And deciding to give 10 or more hours to something we're not quite into isn't the same as putting 90 to 120 minutes into a movie that we don't have to put effort into finishing. Reviews are made by people who play games all the time, like most of their readers, and I think the feeling of ennui (or whatever it is I've been hearing throughout 2011) is reasonable enough to point out as criticism in enthusiast site reviews.

I rate almost every movie on Netflix 3 stars, it's rare I feel that a movie is as high as 4, certainly not 5. But I'd go for more 6's or 7's in a ten point scale, and I feel like the five point scale restricts me too much.

I feel more comfortable buying lower rated games when the price drops, usually, and they aren't always the games that I have less fun with than the games I buy for $60 on day one, with good reviews, that don't quite hold me as well as the games that I have lower expectations of. A decent game, with a decent score, at a decent price, can give a better experience than a high rated game that you just don't quite agree with.

One of the problems I have with Manveer is his view on saying that "Readers, like players, don't know what they want." I do not think that is entirely accurate, and it is a over generalization about the intelligence of gamers/readers everywhere. I know what I want from certain genres of games, and I know what I would like to see in those genres as well. I do not want more of the same every year. The same can be applied to gaming journalism. This article in fact is more of what I want to see, not just review after review.

This is even more intriguing a read than the first part. Good work on both parties

Anyone have a list of the sites that do scoreless reviews? The only ones I'm familiar with are arstechnica and shacknews, and shack's reviews have gone a bit downhill since the crew that was there when Remo was head editor is gone. They don't do a lot of reviews either.

@sanchopanza: That definitely makes sense, thanks for the info! I wonder if review writers from the UK hesitate to a lesser extent to give lower scores on the 10 or 100 scales, since they are also used to those wider distributions from school/uni - maybe even subconsciously.

The real problem isn't with readers but rather the publisher to journalist relationship. I don't know how he jumps to the conclusion that as a reader I don't know there could e something better so I'm complacent reading what already exists - rather than the fact that I read what is made available to me by the gaming press. If reviewers weren't scared of getting blacklisted by top publishers I'm sure we would have a more varied and interesting spectrum of work to choose from. Scores need to exist because were not in kindergarten anymore and you can't just give a gold star to everyone for participating regardless of merit. The 5 point scale works great if you're absolutely honest about it. We are all familiar with it and it was always easily understood as 3-Average, 4-Good, 5-Great.

I think the criticism needs to be justified within the review and not as a separate article for every release. How many times could we sit and have a companion article talking about the state of the FPS as a whole some 40 times a year when an FPS is released without getting incredibly annoyed by it? You justify your reasons within the review itself and make a coherent rationale for why it was scored as it is. If you want to make a critique piece for a genre or a series you do it as a separate article addressing the genre or franchise as a whole, not on a per game basis. I still feel it is on the readers behest to actually look at the reasons provided and not just at the score and actually read the reviews instead of having the guttural reaction they do from looking at the score or Metacritic. Fuck Metacritic.

Thing is If you were doing an academic literature review you would still include critique added to that this seems more of a semantic discussion of the differance between review and critique, which is a moot point a review is simply either an undiciplined critique or a critique with included overriding value judgments of the object of critique. The discussion here especially as it pertains to Parkin's review is less about critique and review and more about whether games should be reviewed in a vacuum. If we take it that as a given that some of the kinda odd ideas as to what critique is in this discourse are correct, then you are still left with the fact that what Heir seems to be objecting to is critiques that are concerned with meta analysis of videogames. Which still leaves a whole universe of critique pertaining to any number of issues in a game that a subjective reviewer might love or hate.

I hope the rating system never goes away. It works. I think a 5 or a 10 points scale is just fine. If anything we should just have every site use one universal scoring system so then Metacritic is a true average and not a calculated average. Metacritic isn't this evil entity Adam makes it out to be. The difference between a 73 and a 74 is that the 74 got slightly better reviews. It's an average that's it. Overall it means nothing. What's the different between a 3.80 GPA and 3.85? Or a 78% vs. 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not much. For someone that thinks we should abolish the point scale he sure focuses a lot of attention on the details of the numbers.

Also, I really don't want developers to make the games that they want to make. I want them to make the games that I want to play. Most of the time it's one in the same. I'd never go to a restaurant and tell the chef to make me his favorite dish. For all I know it's liver and onions. So I'm suppose to appreciate that he has bad taste? Eff that. You know who creates things that he really likes, Uwe Boll.

Can't wait for part 3!

Well, for me, I need to know the history of the reviewer and what they like. For instance, a 5/5 for Patrick on this site for an action adventure game usually means I wouldn't like it as much as he did. A 5/5 for a racing game from Jeff, however, means I will usually love it. Same thing goes for other reviewers on this site. That's why I only stick with one site for reviews, and if they don't review a game I'm interested in, they usually at least do a quick look for so I can get their opinions from there. The problem is that each person has a different definition of what each score means and unless you know the likes/dislikes of that person there is no way to properly judge how a review fits for you personally.

Really interesting stuff once more. Hmmmmmmm... *ponders*

Every once in a while I forget that Adam Sessler is one of my favorite people. This article reminded me!

@Law313 said:

@Qwinn said:

Best gaming website ever! Thanks to Patrick for bringing something different to the table. Never been so happy to part with $50 each year. Love you guys!

IGN is a shit site, but their running a story very similar to this. http://games.ign.com/articles/121/1215728p1.html

I figured this was unique, apparently not. I also dont like the idea of paying for Ryans arcade machines either. You gotta admit, not much gets done on this site.

Almost everyone in the Giant Bomb office has an arcade cabinet of some sort, they've all talked about it. What does that matter what they spend their money on? It's their money. And you think that a Whiskey subscription fee directly affects how much money Giant Bomb gets paid? Are you serious? If I get my paycheck from my workplace, and go buy 100 cheeseburgers with it, nobody should care. It's officially my money, and my choice to purchase 100 cheeseburgers.

Another fantastic article. Patrick is a valuable source of journalism for this site, it's just nobody knew it until he did something a little different. Kind of like game reviews need to do. I appreciate the format of the Quick Look, it's entertaining and far more informative than a few paragraphs about whether a game is good or not. I get to see the product in action, and I think the QL format needs to be more popular in the gaming press.

This is why we come to GiantBomb, talk about different! And Patrick is practicing what he is preaching, offering a new approach and a different style into the game world. His writing somewhat brings the industry into a more sophisticated light. I would love to read pieces by him on the social implications of video games. His "vision" of game writing will bring Giantbomb to the top, popularity wise.

@lordofultima said:

@Law313 said:

@Qwinn said:

Best gaming website ever! Thanks to Patrick for bringing something different to the table. Never been so happy to part with $50 each year. Love you guys!

IGN is a shit site, but their running a story very similar to this. http://games.ign.com/articles/121/1215728p1.html

I figured this was unique, apparently not. I also dont like the idea of paying for Ryans arcade machines either. You gotta admit, not much gets done on this site.

Almost everyone in the Giant Bomb office has an arcade cabinet of some sort, they've all talked about it. What does that matter what they spend their money on? It's their money. And you think that a Whiskey subscription fee directly affects how much money Giant Bomb gets paid? Are you serious? If I get my paycheck from my workplace, and go buy 100 cheeseburgers with it, nobody should care. It's officially my money, and my choice to purchase 100 cheeseburgers.

Look, the fact of the matter is that I dont see any features that warrant dropping dough for a premium membership. This site rarely gets updated, the quick looks and the games they showcase are ones I'm NOT interested in. Do you think I care what they spend their money on? I would if I subscribed, since my money would be going other places than the site obviously.

@Law313 said:

Do you think I care what they spend their money on? I would if I subscribed, since my money would be going other places than the site obviously.

Your money would be going to whatever makes this site tick. This includes salaries paid to staff members.

Of course, if you feel that the site doesn't offer anything worthy of your dollars, that's totally fine.

That said, the point made by @lordofultima still stands: what does it matter on what a staff member spends his salary?

@RVonE said:

@Law313 said:

Do you think I care what they spend their money on? I would if I subscribed, since my money would be going other places than the site obviously.

Your money would be going to whatever makes this site tick. This includes salaries paid to staff members.

Of course, if you feel that the site doesn't offer anything worthy of your dollars, that's totally fine.

That said, the point made by @lordofultima still stands: what does it matter on what a staff member spends his salary?

Again, if I'm paying for a service and they aren't delivering content, why am I paying for said service? Besides keeping their pockets lined, what else is it doing? Dont get me wrong, I love those guys, and I've been following Jeff for over 10 years, but truth be told, the premium membership isn't worth it.

I plan on getting a yearly membership soon. I would be devastated if this site were to cease to exist. I just expect more content. This isnt really aimed at the money, or the membership, its really that this site(compared to other similar sites) isn't supported as much, and it shows when you can see the same headline story for days on end here.

@Law313 said:

@RVonE said:

@Law313 said:

Do you think I care what they spend their money on? I would if I subscribed, since my money would be going other places than the site obviously.

Your money would be going to whatever makes this site tick. This includes salaries paid to staff members.

Of course, if you feel that the site doesn't offer anything worthy of your dollars, that's totally fine.

That said, the point made by @lordofultima still stands: what does it matter on what a staff member spends his salary?

Again, if I'm paying for a service and they aren't delivering content, why am I paying for said service? Besides keeping their pockets lined, what else is it doing? Dont get me wrong, I love those guys, and I've been following Jeff for over 10 years, but truth be told, the premium membership isn't worth it.

I plan on getting a yearly membership soon. I would be devastated if this site were to cease to exist. I just expect more content. This isnt really aimed at the money, or the membership, its really that this site(compared to other similar sites) isn't supported as much, and it shows when you can see the same headline story for days on end here.

Well, I think your concern for a lack of content is reasonable to a degree (GB's video content is mostly a lot longer than that on competing sites) but I feel your discontent with Ryan buying an arcade cabinet is a separate issue from not finding any content to justify the price of a premium membership. That said, my motives of buying a premium membership are similar to yours; I do it to support the existence of this site instead of to buy into specific premium features.

As to seeing the same headline for days on end, I think this problem is most apparent over the weekend and on monday (when they record the bombcast). I feel they could do a better job of spacing their content evenly throughout the week and have some more stuff go up on saturday and sunday.

@RVonE said:

@Law313 said:

@RVonE said:

@Law313 said:

Do you think I care what they spend their money on? I would if I subscribed, since my money would be going other places than the site obviously.

Your money would be going to whatever makes this site tick. This includes salaries paid to staff members.

Of course, if you feel that the site doesn't offer anything worthy of your dollars, that's totally fine.

That said, the point made by @lordofultima still stands: what does it matter on what a staff member spends his salary?

Again, if I'm paying for a service and they aren't delivering content, why am I paying for said service? Besides keeping their pockets lined, what else is it doing? Dont get me wrong, I love those guys, and I've been following Jeff for over 10 years, but truth be told, the premium membership isn't worth it.

I plan on getting a yearly membership soon. I would be devastated if this site were to cease to exist. I just expect more content. This isnt really aimed at the money, or the membership, its really that this site(compared to other similar sites) isn't supported as much, and it shows when you can see the same headline story for days on end here.

Well, I think your concern for a lack of content is reasonable to a degree (GB's video content is mostly a lot longer than that on competing sites) but I feel your discontent with Ryan buying an arcade cabinet is a separate issue from not finding any content to justify the price of a premium membership. That said, my motives of buying a premium membership are similar to yours; I do it to support the existence of this site instead of to buy into specific premium features.

As to seeing the same headline for days on end, I think this problem is most apparent over the weekend and on monday (when they record the bombcast). I feel they could do a better job of spacing their content evenly throughout the week and have some more stuff go up on saturday and sunday.

I have nothing more to say, I agree with this completely. The arcade cabinet thing was out of bad taste and I didn't think anyone would even notice my comment in the first place.lol.

Part 2 was a better read than the first. I'm used to seeing the gaming press kneeling infront of the devs/pubs, not so in this article. You challenged him in debate, which surprised me, and said reaction speaks volumes for how seldom that actually happens.

I don't understand... What's wrong with breaking down a game into categories like story (if they have one), gameplay, presentation and so on? I mean, I did it for all MY reviews, and nobody yelled into my ear, saying that I am a complete noob in the business and I am straying down a wrong path. I thought I made my arguments clear with some specific examples, and people in fact AGREED with my assessments. Can someone please explain why breaking the game down in those categories is like a crime or something... or something that is like IGN or Gametrailers and it should not happen? 
 
Thank you,  
RayCarter

I'm not sure if I'm like other people, but my guess is I'm not odd because teh wya I look at reviews is as follows. I look at Giant Bombs review because it is my site of choice. I then head over to Metacritic (hey I admit it) where I look at three things the avaerage score, they hightest score from a publication I like/know, and the lowest score on teh chart. I probably spend more time read the higest score and the lowest score theh I do looking at Giant Bomb's score...sorry guys.

So, right off the bat from me Ginat Bomb gets a page view, the site giving the highest score gets a page view, and the site giving the lowest score gets a page view. I cannot be alone in doing that, and at the very least people do some of that. Being the lowest or hightest is just as good as being the most respected. Hell, if you piss people off it migtt be even more useful then being good. Making a fair review might get pages views, comments and more page views; but it sure as heck won't get more then being the outlier who causes a stir.

I'm sorry but if you think NOBODY is playing that video game scoring system you are wrong. We all know there have been and are magazines and webistes either in the past or curently KNOWN as being tough scorers or easy scoroes. That is not an accidntal repuation...those were cultivated repuations...the vetrans of the games media can all proabaly name of the tough scorors and the easy scoers. Yet, we say there is no FUNNY business? Bull!!! Bull, bullocks, and more bull. Magazines and websites play the system, it is just they play they system within rules we are willing as a community to accept. They play the system with a cultivated a repuation for being tough or easy ...thet we just call 'the tone' of that site. And nodody can prove it fishy because people will just say, "Hey OF COURSE they review lower or higher...duh don't you know ___________ does that newbie?

Hmm... this shit is getting good.

I think they should just get read of scores, and say if the game is worth playing or not... All people do is look at the score. Back in hte day it wasn't like this or as badd. Heck I'll admit I haven't read a review since Gta Vice City I think.

Sites like metacritic is awesome because they provide a quick consensus, if you don't agree or if the result is devastating to you (as a fan), you can probe deeper into whichever review you want. I personally don't know a lot of the sites polled on Metacritic, so it is a way for me to discover gaming related websites too. Obviously, people have subjective tastes, what everyone likes, you may not and vice versa, but if majority of reviewers say a game is boring, then it most likely is. The point I think is to know that people have different tastes and if 7 reviewers say a game is good and 3 say its bad, I'll read the bad ones first, but usually end up siding with the majority.

@Patrick On the difference between 73 and 74, you really should know how reviewers end up with that score. Another point is, "transitional"? You are trying too hard to be nice to Manveer regarding their 8/10 score at Eurogamer, but at the same time you are insulting the guy who gave that 8/10. Was your 8/10 for Skyward Sword "transitional"? That is your opinion, that is your conclusion, or was it "transitional" because you didn't know what you were doing?

"This means, if a site disagrees with its reviews being used on Metacritic, it should get them pulled from the site or make changes to how its scores are interpreted"

When it comes to Metacritic this is the long and short of it as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of hearing game reviewers complain about how Metacritic's purely mathematically calculation is "misinterpreting how our scores work".

Metacritic isn't misinterpreting anything, they're simply re-formatting and showing the numbers that you willingly provide them. I mean when you give something a 3/5 you really can't be all that perplexed as to how that became an 60/100 can you?

I realise the main issue is that publishers are ridiculous enough to use Metacritic but if you're a site feeding numbers to them I don't want to hear you talk about what bullshit Metacritic is because without you, and sites like you, Metacritic is nothing.

Even a 5 point scale is inflation: who wants to play a 1 or 2 star game? What's the difference between 1 and 2 stars anyway? A 5 star system ends up being a 3 star system whereby 1 is good, 2 is very good and 3 is excellent. What 2/5, 4/10, 40% etc. game ever made it to the hall of fame?

Scores are not stupid. The are time saving. Especially when you start adding the vegetables of criticism to the meat and potatoes of review, readers will extract even more value from a summary score. Not that I dont want criticism. I do. But readers ask many different questions of reviews, only some of which are answered by reflective philosophical criticism. The point of reviews/criticism is to be helpful and enriching. How that's accomplished depends on the person being helped/enriched. Gamers are maturing, so intelligent discussion is more in demand. As gaming ages, it will develop a full complement of cultural methods useful to all gaming generations. Are we not supposed to say "gamers" anymore? Is this why M calls us "players"?

Dropping review scores defeats the whole point of reviewing. Anyone can list a bunch of facts and/or feelings about something. The whole point of the craft is to pass singular judgment on how good something is or is not.

If you give me a review with no review score, that says to me that you don't have any strong feeling about this game; in fact, it says to me you are so confused about your opinion of this game that you can't even be sure you don't have a strong feeling about this game.

So I'll grant you, the jump from 72 to 75 is a weird call to make, but it's not cardinal. It's ordinal. The gaps are small between 62 and 63; the "error," if you like, is huge relative to the "precision" of the review. But when you get to 9.0+, now those 0.1s are a big deal. That five star system works great up until you hit that five star point, and then it's a giant sack of crap (with apologies to Jeff G and co.: you guys were the heart and soul of Gamespot, and I get that you wanted to start fresh, but that is one thing you probably should've kept).

For instance, I agree that Uncharted 3 is a five star game, and that Uncharted 2 is as well, but I think that Uncharted 2 is IMMENSELY superior to its comparatively extremely shitty sequel (that is nevertheless excellent measured on its own terms). You need to capture that difference somehow. Calling Dead Space 2 or Super Mario Galaxy the equivalent of some pretender like AC:Brotherhood or Kirby's Epic Yarn is a joke.

I fell when you are a looking at a star review you can't think of the number stars as a percentage, in doing so you are actually adhering to a 100 point scale, and not a five star scale. You need to excise any idea that those stars have a specific numerical value associated with them. Instead they need to be looked at as a group of words, one star stands for these words, three stars stands for these words... etc.

How about a 2 star system: "Yup" or in the case of some tragedy of a game (Amy), "Nope."

Yay @ Adam Sessler.