Can opinions be wrong?

Have you ever had a conversation with someone about a video game, comic, or movie and your listening to it and you know there wrong, but when you bring up why there wrong and you get this dreaded response. Well, that's just your opinion man. I get that people can have different opinions from mine it's one of the reasons I like talking about games and nerd culture for those reasons. There comes a point though when even if it's there opinion it can still be wrong.

I was having a conversation with a friend about Fallout 4. My friend said it was a bad game and I simply replied with no it isn't. What went on for 25 minutes was a discussion, well more so it was him trying to convince me that Fallout 4 is a bad game. I told him I have been playing games for most of my life I know what a bad game is. He said that it went away from what makes Fallout "Fallout" so that makes it a bad game. Another thing that boggles me was he said he played the game for 50 hours and came to that conclusion. Baring the fact that you don't put that much time in a game if it's bad it's ludicrous to say a game is bad if you dislike it. You see it on the internet all the time in the comments of IGN, GameSpot, Kotaku, or even youtube videos. There was a comment that I read that said The Last of Us is a garbage game. I didn't respond as to not get into a comment war with a random person because it's a waste of time. There are games out there that are good no matter how you feel about it and there are unequivocally bad games out there without a shadow of a doubt. Amy is a bad game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is a bad game, Superman 64 is a bad game, E.T. on Atari 2600 is a bad game so on and so forth you get what I'm saying. You could be the biggest Superman 64 fan on the planet, if there are any, doesn't change the fact that the game is bad. You can overlook it's flaws, but those flaws still exist anyway and the same can be said for good games.

The same can be said for other means of entertainment as well. One comedy movie I like is Norbit. Now, as much as I like the movie and find it to be somewhat funny I will tell anyone the movie is absolutely garbage. It perpetuates stereotypes and at times it can be cringy as hell, but it doesn't stop me from liking the movie overall knowing it's a bad movie. What I think the problem is some people are so don't like to admit that they are wrong. They would rather keep arguing a fact because they are embarrassed to admit when they are wrong and that boggles me. When I am wrong about something I am wrong and want to be told that so I can be more knowledgeable. Also some people could be ignorant to what makes a game a good game or what makes a good movie good. I'm no trying to change any person opinion about anything I'm just trying to change the way they present it.

With anything involving subjectivity there is going to people claiming one thing or another. So I'm want to ask what do you think about this and how do you feel about opinions? Do you think they can be wrong or maybe, I'm wrong about all this and opinions are just that opinions and I'm looking to deep into it. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful night.

P.S. I'm going to be writing my first game review and it's for Batman Arkham Knight. I should have it up by the end of the week at the latest. I'll want some feedback when it's up so I can refine why writing skills.

Opinions can be wrong.

Like everyone loves Resident Evil 4, but it's clunky and way too long and drab with a dumb story and crappy characters. I'm right about all of this.

Opinions can't be wrong but they can be poorly researched, poorly reasoned and not useful for other people to know.

Objective things go into the pot when brewing an opinion and THOSE can be wrong.

Everything is either the best thing ever or total garbage. FACT.

Nah, opinions can't be wrong. It's all a matter of perspective and priorities.

I mean, by definition an opinion can't be wrong. That being said, the statement 'X is bad' isn't stated in the form of an opinion and can thus be wrong.

An opinion can be flawed. If i never press the sprint button and then call the game bad for being so slow, my opinion is flawed. The experience you had might be shitty and that's what your opinion reflects, but with a bit more investigation you would have found the sprint button.

Exactly, facts go into the making of an opinion.

Of course opinions can be wrong, it just comes down to how much you should care. For example:

Someone doesn't like your favorite video game: may be wrong, but does it really matter?

Someone believes racist things: definitely wrong and screw their perspective.

Yeah opinions can be wrong, but only in the narrow sense. You'd have to pick the metric of comparison, and then decide if that way matters at all.

• Do you care about community consensus? Then there are "wrong" opinions and "right" opinions based on what the community as a whole goes with
• Do you care about hard evidence to back a view? If it's insufficient, then the opinion is poorly informed and "wrong" in that sense. If you've enough a lot to support it, it can be "right"
• Do you care about an arbitrary set of technical, artistic, social, or other requirements? Then you yourself decide which opinions match these or don't and thus become wrong/right

But that's all in the narrow sense of the word. I don't think opinions really count in a broad way, except maybe as a general combination of the metrics above; that's Gamespot's angle, I imagine

Maybe what was what you were getting at originally

Subject A : "I don't think I like [Videogame Y]"

plays more

Subject A : "After playing more of [Videgoame Y] I think the game is pretty good and the earlier game is better than I gave it credit for."

Is subject A's initial opinion wrong? Is wrongness/rightness instantaneous in time? Is it absolute? Is it valid in some window? Are these toes on my feet? If i said they didn't look like toes would that be wrong? What am I doing with my life? I'm so confused!

I think we focus too much on being right and telling others their wrong. Maybe watch him play for an hour or 2 and have him commentate and point out all the things that add up to his conclusion. I'm sure his only arguement is not just "because it's not Fallout." People are so hell bend on trying to convert others' opinion which very rarely work. 99% of the time, I can totally see where others are coming from even if I completely disagree. Just don't be so stubborn and put yourself in a corner, that's not a conversation.

Maybe start with what you 2 agree about/ I'm sure he likes something about the game and I'm sure you don't think the game is perfect. I understand that he's the one trying to convince you but if he sees that you're really listening and respecting his pov, it'll be easier get your perspective across to him as well. Sometimes it's astounding and unbelievable how different opinions can be and it can be really distressing these days w/ politics but generally with most other things, it's amazing people can see the same thing so different. I've learn to embrace that. For example, I think MGS2 is prehaps the greatest game of all time but some people really think it's a POS. I can't get mad it that, that's no bad, that's awesome.

Also, I put like 80 hours into FF8 couple years ago and while I don't hate it, I can't help but be so disappointed in it 'cause I wanted to like it so much. People put ungodly amount of hours into stuff the don't enjoy all the time.

Well, there's three important points here.

1. I only know that I exist; every other position is a belief with varying degrees of evidence supporting them, and I could be wrong about all of them.
2. Objective knowledge doesn't exist. I've no way of knowing anything that isn't derived via my senses, and my sense are innately biased beyond my control. I cannot perceive what I think is outside world, without engaging my fallible, tainted human lens.
3. How you choose to define wrong will drastically alter your answer. It's important to clearly define your terms before you attempt to measure with them.

Fallout 4 was pretty shit. I played over 80 hours.

I don't think opinions can be wrong especially not concerning media.

Absolutely.

There are people that think Rise is best girl.

Piggypacking/rewording: Opinions can't be wrong but they can be flawed, by being unsupported. Unsupported does not mean their facts are interpreted wrong, but that their facts are either false or factually irrelevant.

Opinions aren't classified as wrong or right, that's reserved for facts. Opinions are bad or good.

I don't understand what your second sentence has to do with opinions being wrong?

As others have said, the facts that support an opinion may be incorrect, but an opinion can't be wrong or right. Unless you're severely lacking in self-awareness and an opinion you share, "I think X is pretty good," is, in fact, not what you really think. Then it's wrong not because of some objective measure, but simply because it isn't yours.

I assume that by posting a correct opinion, you mean to imply that there is also an incorrect (i.e. wrong) opinion?

...OK, more serious answer.

There's no such thing as a right or wrong opinion. Opinions are subjective, not objective. They are personal. They are informed by tastes, experience, circumstances, and more factors than you can possibly list. There are a myriad of reasons to call Fallout 4 bad, and they're all pretty damn good reasons.

This is, for some reason, a hard concept for people to grasp. Even otherwise very intelligent people will say something along the lines of "x is objectively good, no matter what you think of it." But the reality is, it's way more complex than that. No one participates in art in a vacuum - everyone goes into every movie, every book, every game, every painting, every piece of music with years of thought and experience under their belt.

I have a hard time grasping it, too. Surely, I cannot be saying that some Kenny G album is equivalent in value to, say, Bitches Brew, right? To the entirety of jazz, no, not really. I'm not saying that. But to a single individual? Yeah, you could definitely find someone who turns their nose up at Miles Davis and would rather just listen to Kenny G, as painful as that may be to a person who has spent a lifetime studying and performing jazz.

These are all fair answers and it's giving some thought on how I look at other peoples opinion in the future.

I tried to listen to his point of view and hear him out. Everybody has opinions and I'm always willing to hear something that can possibly change my mind and see a different point of view. He more so was so reliant on changing my mind on the game that he wasn't hearing none of what I had to say though. Every point I brought up it was just well this game did it better. I also during the conversation wanted to agree to disagree which didn't work at all. At that point I knew nothing was gonna change his mind. I also get how gameplay can change a persons opinion on something and didn't really think of that.

Opinons can't be wrong, unless people think Mass Effect 3 is a good sequel.

Something else to consider is that, when the premises of the opinion are based on facts, or even implied facts, and the facts are wrong, then the opinion can also be flawed, or wrong, however you want to put it. This actually happens quite a bit. You could say some like, "Kim Jong Un is a great guy, because he never threatens other countries." You can think Kim Jong Un is a great guy all you want, and we can debate that, but you absolutely CANNOT think he is a great guy because he never threatens other countries, because he DOES threaten other countries. The premise of the opinion are flawed here, which makes the opinion flawed.

I could go on and on about this. Another example is linearity vs open world. Someone could say, "[Insert game here] is a bad game, because it's linear." This implies that it's an objective fact that linearity is bad, which immediately makes the opinion flawed. You could say, "I don't like the game, because I don't like linear games." That's perfectly fine, but saying it the other way would be like saying that you think Doom is a bad game because it's a shooter.

In subjective matters all opinions are equaly valid. On objective matters this is not the case. However when a sujective opinion is based on morality things can get in a grey area where things get more difficult to judge.

@wynnduffy: You're right. It's not good. It's great!

Opinions can't be wrong, but a lot of the time opinion isn't properly used or understood. Making qualitative or factual statements as opinion doesn't really fly, and you can get called out on that.

It's the difference between:

• I didn't really like how the movie felt so short.
• The movie was bad because it was short.
• My opinion is that the movie cut content to sell the sequel.

Dunno if this example is good enough, but I kinda winged it.

EDIT: @liquiddragon MGS2 is Schrödingers video game. It's both amazing and a piece of shit at the same time. And I love that. ~

Perception is flawed. Opinions can't be wrong because none of them are right in the first place.

Depends on your axioms.

@d-man123: Everyone has the right to an opinion. By its definition, I supposed it can't be wrong...however, Yes you can be wrong especially if you're trying to convey your opinion as fact.

My man.

Fallout 4 kind of stinks.

I never look at opinions in a binary right/wrong perspective, I don't even understand why someone would do that in the first place. It's like saying "No man, you don't get it, eating a bag of shit is delicious" because your tastebuds somehow makes shit taste like strawberries. I look at it as perspectives within a spectrum that you can discuss but it's not about convincing someone they're wrong, it's about listening and sharing experiencing and finding out how other people look at life.

Yes, they can be wrong, particularly when they are not informed. For example, I might be of the opinion that Mario Party 9 is the worst game in the series, but if I only know a handful of them, my opinion is invalid.

Another problem I have with that is that people are using "opinions" as a defense for being wrong. If often goes like this:

• A: I think the earth is flat
• B: You are wrong
• A: Well, that is like, my opinion.

Not everything is an opinion, and being an opinion doesn't rule out the fact your opinion might be wrong. Opinions apply to personal issues like taste in clothing, food or hairstyle preferences. Opinions do not apply to the state of the world.

@hermes: Agreed. But your example is not proving opinions can be wrong. That wasn't an opinion to begin with and the part of it being 'wrong' is the fact that the person perceives it as an opinion when it isn't. There was no opinion to be wrong.

@zevvion: That is the point. A lot of people seem to think everything is, in some way, an opinion, and also think opinions are inmune to scrutiny. So, if I state something that is wrong, I can defend it by claiming it is a personal opinion.

Can an opinion be wrong? Well, no. Because an opinion is subjective, so the meaning and intent behind it is personal. Can a person's approach to expressing an opinion be wrong? Yes.

Here's the definition of an "Opinion" - a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

There's a difference between whether an opinion is wrong and whether a person is wrong. We're talking about the difference between something that is proven (Like the existence of an atmosphere and the elements within that allow us to exist) and whether someone thinks something is good or bad, right or wrong, or whatever other ying/yang dynamic there is (Consumable media, political ideology, etc.)

We're on the same page on that, but I was referring to the part where you argue an opinion that we establish as an opinion (not fact) can also be wrong. You example doesn't really tackle that issue. It's also rather hard to validate because an opinion can be rooted in misinformation or a lack of knowledge. But is that equivalent to 'wrong'? You can argue that it is, but maybe it's just misinformed and not necessarily wrong. In the long run this could sprawl into an in depth conversation of morality, I'm sure. A vegan might call your opinion wrong because you think eating meat is fine for instance. That seems a bit more complicated than the intend of the word opinion, which can inherently not be wrong like that.

Well, duh, of course they can. I remember seeing a video from the Daily Show during the election, where this redneck woman claimed that a woman couldn't be president because of hormones and blablabla. And I'm like, that's patently false. A woman can be president, both by law and otherwise.

You'll get no argument from me.

@zevvion: I get your point. That is why, on the first sentence, I said I considered uninformed or lack of knowledge opinions as invalid, or as close to wrong as you can get with opinions.

I agree that the intent of the word "opinion" does not cover examples like your vegan example, and I think most people use that confusion, either intentionally or not. If I say "eating meat is fine", I can be proven wrong with enough evidence. That is why "eating meat is fine by me" is an opinion, "eating meat is fine" is an statement.

An opinion can not be wrong. Others can think it is wrong, it can be based on 100% completely false facts, it can be asinine, but as long as the person stating the opinion believe it to be that way, then their opinion is right, to them.

That stops the moment they try to force their opinions onto others, then they are trying to make it a fact. That is when you can call someone else out on their bullshit. But if they don't go that far, then there is nothing wrong with people thinking whatever they want, it's their life and god knows what goes on in it.

For example, I think Mass Effect 1 is the best Mass Effect game. That is my opinion. I am not going to try make anyone else feel that way, but I am going to always feel this way, and I'm fine with other people liking whichever one they want or not liking them at all.

So an opinion is a conclusion based off evidence. When your talking about what makes a good game, you would need to agree on the criteria of a good game, and then discuss if those criteria were met or not. That would provide a lot more structure around a contradictory conversation rather then "yes it is "no it isn't" .

So what makes a good game to you and me and the rest of the universe is likely vastly different, and unless you are using a structured criteria, you are literally wasting your time

Opinions cannot necessarily wrong, but they can be weak af. If you are writing an argumentative essay and you have weak sauce backing your thesis then you are essentially wrong. If you have an opinion that has nothing backing it up, no facts, and no research, then Idfc about what you are talking about.

No, but they can sure be stupid.

@hermes: We understand each other when we say people need to be able to interpret what constitutes an opinion and what is fact from context. But I'm saying if you draw your example to the extreme, people would also be able to argue 'eating meat is fine by me' to be wrong on a morality scale.

For clarity, I understand 'eating meat is fine by me' is not wrong, nor can it be. But that's my point.

Not really. An opinion is just your perception of reality so far.

Opinions are wrong when they're masqueraded as an interpretation of facts. You can't argue with facts and then say "well that's just my opinion". If you have an opinion ABOUT those facts then that is fine but it doesn't change the facts. But things that can't be quantified as such and are open to interpretation, then there's not wrong or right, because it inherently can't be that way. Even if you have a very compelling argument as to why something is awesome or sucks someone else can present an equally nuanced argument in the opposite direction. They're both valid.

What you're describing OP is something that can't be quantified as a fact. It's just aggregations of interpretations. If a lot of people say something is good then there is some merit there. But it doesn't discount someone else's interpretation. Any good critic can see the validity in what others see, but whether it resonates with that individual isn't easily influenced by others. And it doesn't have it be. I can come up with several reasons why I personally dislike Shadow of Mordor and I struggle to see why others enjoy it so much. But I don't discredit their opinions, I just understand that as players we're interested in different things.

Opinions can of course be wrong because there are opinions that are true. For instance, the opinion that the Human universal acceptance of "love" between Humans is seen as a good thing (we're Social animals). But its not always a black or white (or Right vs Wrong) matter. The answer often lies subtly in between, sometimes leaning more to one side than another.

In sciences, the scientific method is used to create facts, or "truths" out of theories (or opinions if you will). Some theories may as well be proven by applying the scientific method, but other theories that may be proven aswell could provide a counterargument of a well known fact. This means that sometimes correct answers to a solution can become wrong. Fasification also helps a lot in providing valid arguments.

Opinions, like human thought itself, is fluid. Opinions come and go as they see fit.I think @physicalscience says it correctly. Some right opinions may aswell be badly worded that they cannot withstand public scrutiny. It depends on the context and the things people done previously in order that made said opinion happen in the first place.

You can argue that games like Half Life are bad games. If you make valid points, it doesn't mean that everyone else is falsified by itself. It only becomes truth if you can properly counterargue everyones opinion with the same theory, which is impossible. Furthermore, even if you make such a valid point that it automatically invalidates the one everyone makes individually for theirselves its nothing but one bad point. It needs many points in order to create the fact that Half Life is a bad game series. Good luck in doing that.

So yeah, its probably true that objective truth exists in this universe, but this is difficult if not impossible to attain for us. Usually, human nature that comes and goes with its feelings are the only objective truths because thats what defines us. Humans themselves are incapable of seing "objectively" past our own nature but that doesn't mean that we can't and won't try. Thats human nature also :P.

@d-man123: Its difficult to explain, but the reasons why games can be universally good or bad is also a human construct by itself. Thats why if you compare a game, you always have to compare it to another or otherwise you have no foothold to concisely form your opinion. For instance, the reason why Superman 64 is considered bad because if compared a respective quality (like lets say, controls) to another game. Another game with similar gameplay and control scheme, such as Star Fox 64 has a different feel to its controls. This comparasion that can be debated and judged by the qualities and quantities of the arguments.

Can you explain why Superman 64 is a bad game without comparing it to any other game of the same era or before (or even extend this to other forms media)? Can you explain just by the nature of the game itself that it is bad by providing universally accepted facts that only provide solutions but not comparations?

@adequatelyprepared: Thats not how you type Chie.

In my opinion, everyone's opinion is wrong.

@d-man123 A recent post of yours was you said you don't like the emphasis put on 1080p 60 FPS gaming, so yes, opinions can be wrong.

In all honesty, yes opinions can be wrong. But those would be opinions being touted as facts. But when it comes to criticism of games, or other forms of entertainment, then I don't really think opinions can be wrong.