When it was launched? God no. Today? Yes, no doubt.

Now, even game mechanics and graphics can be subjective, even if their function is objective. There are people that like spirte games, other games with minimalistic lines and such... You can argue that the objective part ismwhat matters, ie are they doing well what they were made to do?

Using Total War as an example, take Shogun 2 much more stylised style, with less realism than Rome 2, even if both graphics are very beautiful and realistic, they are distinctive diferent. Without either being worse per se.

 

The score system is what makes reviews so messed up.

Remove the scores, then there's no issue. Sites like Polygon having reviewers mark down Bayonetta because the oversexualised nature of the game makes them uncomfortable is a-ok to me.

As long as you don't score it.

That little arbitrary number at the end of reviews is super important now, because of Metacritic. Polygon's review will weigh much more heavily than most others in that system because of how popular their site is.

When producers tie in bonuses and map their devs pay based on Metacritic scores, then wankers like the dude who reviewed B2 mark it down because he's 'uncomfortable' (because powerful, sexy women can't be comfortable with their own sexuality I presume?), that's messed up.

Keep your agenda driven opeds as just that. If you think a game will make you uncomfortable, get someone who's interests are more in line with the kind of game it is and have them do it.

 

Oh for fuck's sake, you want to know what's really wrong here? The fact that the AAA-industry is tying in bonuses and map their devs because of Metacritic scores, an aggregator that attempts to drive consensus in artistic criticism as if that is something that is desired or relevant or remotely a good thing - and yet somehow that's the critic's fault?

Face it, criticism and reviews are subjective. You can make the argument how well the critic defines their point, and yeah, sure, there are empirical elements about how a game runs that can be well-quantified, but at the end of the fucking day, it's a number. A numerical representation of a complex opinion that said reviewer believes is representative and fair (and duh, if they've got connections to the art in question, they should disclose that or recuse themselves entirely). Speaking as a critic, I only included numerical scores in my reviews because it spurs conversation and gives me an easy metric for keeping track of my reviews, considering I'm putting out over two hundred this year. That's right, it's a fucking bookkeeping mechanism, and the fact that companies are basing their financial policy on a fucking set of numbers on scales that are in no way consistent and often completely arbitrary to the critic is asinine. It's not the critic's goddamn fault that the AAA-industry is too lazy to draft sane compensation policy, and demanding that they give higher scores so that some devs - or really more executives - draw a better paycheque and compromises a critic's integrity far worse than any sort of SJW bullshit.

And you want to know why that is? It shuts down the artistic conversation, because suddenly it's not about that but instead how a bunch of developers get compensated and some demand for consensus - when in reality said consensus is not necessary, required, or even a good thing in the discussion of art. You're not allowed to say something blows unless you're not afraid of hurting some developer's feelings - or rather, some gaming studio executive's bottom line - or give a real representative score because suddenly you're a part of the fucking marketing machine. For as much as GamerGate has gone on about 'free speech', telling a whole load of reviewers and writers that they shouldn't represent a complex, completely subjective opinion about art in any number that breaks some sort of established convention of what is 'good' shows just how hypocritical they are.

But you know what? Fine. At this point, I'm fucking done with this conversation, because it's circular and it's blaming the critics for problems with the AAA-industry trying to shanghai the opinions of a free press in line (mostly because they can and because of how gaming advertisement is placed, which is why I'm happy that many gaming journalists are starting to move towards greater independence, like Jim Sterling). Gamers fought to have games to be considered as art for so long, went to bat against Roger Ebert when said games weren't art, and then when you get the socio-political criticism that all art gets, you say that's "not fair" and "bullshit" because the studios get compensated and thus any opinion that breaks the mold or raises a point of contention and potentially lowers that oh so vaunted Metacritic score must be shunned? Are you fucking kidding me? How much like entitled fucking sheep are you, that you must kowtow to the industry line and bitch whenever someone spews a contrary opinion that could possibly spur independent thought or might point out a flaw in your experience?

Incidentally, this is the same bullshit that gamers spewed with Mass Effect 3 a few years ago, when the designers tried to go for a thematic appropriate ending (with mixed execution, I'll admit that - probably could have been done better, but it wasn't like THAT was the objection raised), and the gaming community revolted because it didn't give them exactly what they wanted. Can you imagine if movie or music critics did that shit with directors or artists they listened to, make petitions to change the ending of controversial films like Fight Club because they either missed the fucking point of the film or wanted it to be done in a different way for their own indulgence? Don't you realize what kind of damage that does to the artistic process and how entitled that makes you look?

And this isn't coming from some SJW bullshit - take it from me, I deal with enough of that crap every single day where I apparently can't criticize some artist because 'I don't know her struggle'. I see critics with opinions I will flagrantly disagree with every single goddamn day - but as a writer and a critic I will fight like hell to stand behind their right to say it, no matter who it pisses off and no matter for whom they write. If gaming culture can't deal with that, that's something they need to get the fuck over, and direct their anger at an industry who feeds the same regurgitated garbage year after fucking year and basing salary decisions off an aggregator trying to drive consensus where none is needed.

But then again, that's apparently what the gaming community wants. Assassin's Creed Unity gets a 75 on Metacritic even though the user score is 4.4, which tells Ubisoft they can keep doing what they're doing even though the user experience is getting worse and worse. COD: Advanced Warfare is sitting at 83 with a user score of 5.8. And both of these games are pulling in huge sales. And I can't really blame the critics here - they're trying to hold onto their jobs in an industry that pays writers and journalists jack - if their boss tells them to give a certain score or the site will lose advertisers, and if they don't give the score they'll be fired and replaced in seconds, I can't blame critics, especially not the ones who are trying to inject something interesting into the conversation. I can blame the industry for releasing broken games that are leading to shittier user experiences, but at the end of the day they're laughing to the fucking bank because people still bought the games, often based on the very same Metacritic scores.

So maybe this is the scotch talking, but maybe the problem isn't the critics who might bother to speak out or raise a point that might have some relevance one way or another, if only to spur the goddamn conversation. Maybe the problem is with a broken industry that's actively driving itself into the ground. Or maybe, to quote George Carlin, maybe 'the problem is with the public'.

 

You've written another essay I cbf reading, lol.

I'll address the first bit though. I've no issue with what people say, no matter how much I disagree.

Scores are stupid though, and make no sense.

They're counter intuitive too. Most people don't even read reviews and just scroll down to scores. You want people to read your work? The industry as a whole has to stop putting scores on their reviews.

Problem: people love that shit. They'll definitely take a hit to their traffic if they abolished numerical scores, but people will eventually have to start reading what the critic is writing (which is surely a priority) to properly gauge their thoughts.

Do I blame AAA producers for abusing the metacritic/ scoring system for their benefit? No. It's their fucking money, they can do what they like with it.

You're a reviewer, right? For music, from memory? I dunno if you put numerical values in your reviews, but wouldn't you rather people argue/ engage with your points of view instead of a number, or the amount of stars you decree?

 

If most people simply scroll to the score and place so much investment in a number alone instead of the actual content, that's not the fault of the number itself (which for most critics is completely arbitrary), but of the audience who is too lazy and can't be fucked (which is a little hilariously ironic, considering you didn't even read to get to my larger point). If my audience wants to ignore all of that to bitch about a number, that's a reflection on them, not me, and they reveal their ignorance when they do so.

And yet you can't see the inherent contradiction here, blaming the audience for placing so much weight on scores and yet giving the industry a free pass for doing the same thing when they actively coerce critics through advertising pressure regardless of the actual review content, because they know the audience is too lazy to look at anything but the score? How is that not, I dunno, exactly what GamerGate should have been fighting against since the fucking beginning? And since said scores are then used to dictate how the industry moves on future projects and we get more of the same derivative drivel... and yet somehow this is the fault of the critics who use scores in the first place and who might dock a game for expressing a varying opinion?

Do you see how absolutely ridiculous that chain of logic you're putting forward is? And let's circle back to the real issue, that supposedly critics dock points for 'social' reasons? Presume scores are removed and the critics are still delivering the same content (because it's not like they need to change), the root of your argument isn't about the score, but how a game is criticized and weighed. Metacritic would still create its aggregate with even more nebulous criteria, the game industry would opt for even more invasive tactics instead of just 'requesting' a fudging of the score, and the audience would demand the text changed if it potentially conflicted with their views.

The problem is not with the score, but how much weight people place on it above all else. It's a frequently arbitrary number to critics, and that's all it should be.

 

I said I don't care what people say about the games I like. I know what kind of site Polygon is, so I don't frequent it.

When their agenda pushing affects others, then I care.

When you yourself tell me the number is arbitrary, yet use it anyway, any pretence of logic flies out the window before any debate can even begin.

Triple A publishers putting so much stock in Metacritic just shows they're ignorant. Doesn't mean they're not within their rights to do it. It's their money.

Publishers that lean on critics for positive hype get found out pretty quick these days. If a game gets positive hype that is very obviously not deserved, that tells you all you need to know about the critic and the publisher.

What's messed up is that the industry lives by whatever scraps are thrown their way by publishers. Talk shit and you won't get any more prerelease sneak peaks to provide timely coverage.

There is no solution for that. Freedom of information for what private companies are working on? No ty. Horrible precedent.

And I don't read essays on here because I'm being disrespectful/ obtuse. It's just how I 'forum'. In small gaps.

 

Do you think feminist criticisms of film and television are all the rage? Do you think film critics hate on Riefenstahlfor her fascist sympathies evident in her work? Cultural criticism is not artistic criticism. Someone who marked down Von Treirs films for their depiction of women would be laughed off the street.

The role of the critic and of the media is utterly critical in controlling excesses of producers when it comes to crass commercial exploitation. They are all blatenlty bought and tasteless. This is a big problem.

I agree with your point that to a certain degree the audience is to blame, just as they are to blame for Tranformers 12. Thing is, in film, there is also the intelligent stuff.

 

This is a strawman argument. Whether games are art or not has nothing to do with whether you can apply socio-political criticism to them. You can apply criticism to anything, art or no. That's half the point of critical theory.

Consider French feminist Luce Irigaray's famous assertion that E=mc2 is a 'sexed equation' because it privileges the speed of light above other speeds. Is relativity art? No, but people still still apply criticism to it. For a more modern example, consider DiGRA's discussions on the politics of citations in academic papers and how those citations tend to not give enough weight to minority authors. Is who you cite in a paper art (other than in the 'review of the prior art' sense)?

 

As someone who's studied quite a lot of physics, this statement literally made me go wtf and Google the hell out of Luce Irigaray and her statement. I guess I now have something concrete to point towards whenever someone asks me why I'm not a feminist.

 

More like why you're not a postmodernist.

Actually, I've finally realised why I dislike this movement so much. It reeks of postmodern thought, which is a school of thought I find completely absurd.

 

Internet aristocrat has shut down his twitter and you tube account. but he has done the same thing before and his previous account names where Jim81Jim's and GameGoodMeBad if you want to look at his previous stuff its archived here -https://www.youtube.com/user/MrGatheringStorm/featured

 

Finally getting some time to sit down and seriously respond.

I'm not saying that just because reviews are opinion based means that reviewers can write whatever the hell they want. Yes, they have to ground their opinion in what is actually before them, the facts of the game. This includes graphics and game-play and game mechanics, but it also includes the story and characters and themes and overall game-feel on display.

The same for film or books. Yes, there is an objective aspect to it, but there is also the subjective. Basing a review on a book or movie solely on whether the cinematography and sound or type and page layout were done well isn't going to tell anyone whether it's worth experiencing. The same is true for games.

I agree with you. But what you're saying, at least to me, is that any review of a game isn't valid when it goes past the graphics and game mechanics because at that point it's based on the reviewers opinion of the more squishy bits. I can't agree with that. If reviews were based solely on the surface level look and feel of a game then they wold become pointless. If that's all you want, go read wikipedia.

I wouldn't be able to say. I got the game the day it came out, but my computer is so old that it wouldn't even load for more.

I think that looking at any media through a feminist lens is the exact same as looking at it through any other lens, completely worth it. It adds a new dimension to the discussion, something I am always willing to at least entertain.

Whether it actually says something interesting or worthwhile is another pint entirely, but the exercise is always worth considering

I have, and I'm not seeing anything worth commenting on otherwise I would've brought it up. Link me to some proof directly.

Again, link me to proof because I've done my own searching and am coming up with jack all to support your argument.

Those "Death of Gamers" articles were tame. If someone gets offended by having their worldview challenged, they need to re-evaluate their personal ethos. This isn't directed solely at GG either - both sides have this problem.

That said, some of GG's supporters are literally, LITERALLY, white supremacists. If people of that ilk started to congregate around something I was involved with, I'd do some serious re-investigation of my position, and if I decided to stick around I'd be ready for others to call me on it.

Also, why has Gamergate latched onto primarily anti-feminists, right-wingers and grossly unethical shitbags as their voices in this? People like Christina Hoff Somers (Anti-feminist, and a member of the same Right-wing think tank that architected a lot of Bush Administration policy), or Milo Yiannopoulos (Famous for being a misogynistic right-wing twit with delusions of grandeur, who hated gamers until he saw the opportunity to push an agenda)?

TL;DR:

I had a lot to say in response to your posts, but this tells me that doing so would be a waste of time. If you're unwilling to even read the other side then there's no point to even acknowledge yours posts.

 

An info graphic for Gone Home: https://i.imgur.com/sDOjHhM.jpg

Bear in mind that Polygon hasn't given quite a few games 10/10. I think games as good as Civilization V weren't given perfect scores.

To be fair, the BioShock thing seems like a minority view. Apart from many people voicing their opinions about it only getting positive reviews upon release, I think I managed to stumble upon the one bad discussion about it on the internet. My bad.

Depression Quest, on the other hand, was in the news for quite some time. There is quite some stuff in this thread about Quinn, and rehashing it is inappropriate.

The problem is that a lot of this is opinion. Again, not being a serious gamer, or anything, I'm not the best person to be defending GG. I don't have links bookmarked or anything to serve up to you. I use Google just like the next guy. I, as a person, am just tired of everything being feminised. Feminism is creeping in everywhere, and there is a time after which you feel that there are people hiding behind the skirts of a great movement just trying to take advantage of it. The reason GG exists is because they feel that feminism is swallowing all other forms of discourse about games. I oppose this on principle, though I don't know just how true it really is. Judging from the vitriol being thrown against GG, I suppose there is more truth in thie stance than not.

Edit: I will also say that I have been working till now, and it is 3am here. Hence, I'll add that feminism is just part of the debate, and there are many other matters at play here. I'm not the best person to ask for details. Banta, I'm just supporting the points I agree with on principle. If you read through this thread, there are lots of points made about the things you ask about in detail. I know it's long, but please, read through it once.

 

Banta, I gave you an example and you ignored it. Look up details on Rome 2. It was an awful, broken game. As was Aliens Colonial Marines. These are at least two points where there is no "opinions" to be had. These games stunk. Objectively.

Im not sure how anyone can defend this. Game journalism has never been great. I recall a scandal over Driver 3 when I was younger. Its always been an arm of the games publishing industry. There have always been goodies (look up Rob Florences article). And what we now learn (objectively, yet again) is that there are close interpersonal relationships between many indie darlings and the games press.

I dont understand how anyone can deny this.

 

I'm not responding to more of this, because frankly, I don't care about 90% of it. I support gamergate because anti-gamergate pissed me off, but my active participation is limited to here.

I didn't have my world view challenged, I was insulted. Having had a number of both debates and insults in my lifetime, I've gained the ability to tell the difference.

For instance, should someone walk up to you and tell you that you should be embarrassed for enjoying, say, Harry Potter, or anime, or even just books in general, I imagine you would tell them fuck off. I know I would, because that is a stupid, stupid thing to say.

However, imagine you read quite a lot, and go check out this bookstore fairly often. Every time you're there, you talk to the owner, who does book reviews, and you typically go with his suggestions. Everything is great for a few months, and you join a couple books clubs of some variety or another. One day you walk in, and he tells you that you're a fucking idiot for enjoying books so much in the first place. And then you get called a misogynist.

Wouldn't you be kinda pissed?

...So, just because some racists took a side, justifies calling everyone on that side a racist? That's fucking stupid. :facepalm You can't prove that you're not a racist, or a misogynist, or a frequenter of waffle house.

 

I like waffles

 

As do I, they're infinitely superior to pancakes. Hell, they have syrup traps. What's not to love? Waffle House kicks ass.

Where else can you get a waffle at 3 AM next to a prostitute and a guy in a fur suit while a guy who's so high he asked he if he could take your order three times brings you a cup of coffee on the house because you're the only one there wearing actual pants?

 

That info-graphic is the same kind of conspiracy BS that makes me look at birthers and wonder where they left their brain. Give me something of substance, actual proof and not conclusions jumped on top of conclusions.

I'm not seeing whatever point you're trying to make. So Polygon doesn't give many 10/10 scores, and?

Everything that I've read in regards to Depression Quest that favors GG is based on nothing but BS, in this thread and from other places on the internet. So if you want to convince me of something nefarious, you're going to have to link me something.

Where's the proof that feminism is becoming the sole lens of discourse on games? Is it part of the conversation, yes, but I'm not seeing the takeover that some folks are decrying.

GG exists because one guy wasn't a fan of his girlfriend sleeping with other guys when they were together. Is that a shitty thing to do? Yes. The only reason it blew up like this is because she is a game dev.

I have, and I'm not seeing anything that supports GG.

I'm not denying anything about Rome 2 because I haven't played it. You probably would have known that if you'd read my post.

I think our disagreement comes down to two things: (1) what a bad review is and (2) whether someone's opinion has a place in a review.

A bad review to me is one that has actual lies in it. It completely misrepresents the game as a whole. For example, a glowing review of Sonic Boom or Sonic '06 is suspicious because those games are horrible.

On the second point, reviews are opinion-based by definition, so divorcing the two is impossible without killing the point of a review.

No. I'm not that thin skinned that one person saying the things I like suck, and that I suck for liking them, is going to make me angry.

And when did those Gamers are Dead articles say that gamers were misogynists? I re-read the one by Leigh Alexander right now, and there is nothing in it that gives that connotation.

Also, that scenario is what is called as 'having your worldview challenged'.

That's a poor example, but I get what you're trying to say. My point still stands though; supporting a movement that also gets it's support from white supremacists and actual misogynists is going to make me question why you are also supporting it.

Again, if anything I believed was getting support from any group of folks as hateful as them I would seriously reconsider my support. Apparently, you don't care, and that's unfortunate.

 

Plenty of hateful folks on boths sides of the argument.