Settling Video Game Arguments, Part 1: Game Reviews
jeff-vogel.blogspot.com
jeff-vogel.blogspot.com
It really brought into picture that various interests of major players in that community are not inline creating a huge amount of tension. The journalists are basically a PR arm of the bigger corporations or a specific political agenda.
This article seems to ignore the fact that often groups or tribes often form to protect their own interests by creating various forms of economic and/or social moats. The various groups are all trying to reduce competition by creating monopolies or gatekeepers, which in turn increases the tension or hostility between gamers and the mainstream journalists.
It's pretty interesting seeing this occur in real-time. I'm still not sure how the "gamers" are organizing or whether its just an emergent reaction.
In the first instance, all of the coverage at sites like Waypoint, Polygon, RPS and so on has been critical of EA's choices vis-á-vis Battlefront II.
In the second, how can the press make up "salacious lies" about a demographic as varied and numerous as gamers?
Do you have an example of these attacks? Are they representative of the games media? Everything I've read was critical of the approach chosen by the dev/publisher. And there was no shortage of these articles, because I'm sure, like all controversies, this one generated a generous amount of clicks.
It's third installment, Dead Space 3, was slated to sell minimum of 5 million copies. With less than 5 million, EA decided that it's not going to be profitable enough. It also had microtransactions and DLCs on top of those required 5 million copies sold.
Who's greedy here?
This is not really true. This is easy for us to check since many of these companies are publicly traded and are required to report their financials.
As one example, EA claims in their public filings that EA's cost for AAA game development has decreased over the last ten years (roughly $300 million less dev costs per year today, inflation adjusted, than they spent in 2009).
> AAA budgets, $60 titles, and no microtransactions or subscriptions is absolutely a 'pick two' scenario.
It's not -- and again, we can know this for a fact from their public financials. EA claims their traditional AAA games (sales only, explicitly excluding any microtransactions or lootboxes) carry roughly 60% profit margin all on their own.
They definitely don't need the extra gambling revenue, but it's obvious why they want it.
Where I am, AAA games used to cost €40 at the top end. Then €50. Then €60 and now I see them for €70 (more if you buy bullshit deluxe editions that give you extra skins or somesuch; more still for collectors editions, but they've always existed).
So, at least where I am, I'm not seeing it staying "rock steady for decades".
This is called the "Hostile Media Effect" [1]
All I saw was the press uniformly calling EA out for their monumentally stupid mistakes and disregard for customers.
This isn't the first thing EA's fucked up by being greedy for microtransactions, and it won't be the last time they roll it back after their customers reacting loudly enough that someone who doesn't give a damn about whatever franchise they're running into the ground by doing this hears about it - I mean, I don't give a shit about SW, much less SW:BF2, and I'm aware of this, and my entire mental picture of the story is "EA is a bunch of greedheads as usual".
By who? I saw plenty of games media joining the EA-bashing, and none opposing it.
EA deserves the pummeling they're getting. I'm just annoyed because I wish we could get people to devote half the energy to serious issues that they'll spend on getting angry about video games.
That said, please allow me to make two suggestions to anyone reading this:
1) Check out more of Jeff's blog. His writing is fun, excellent and educational. Even if you only care about tech it will be interesting for you to read Jeff's frank discussion of his game sales numbers and the challenges he has overcome almost single-handedly coding and writing his many games.
2) Give Jeff some of your money. His games are unapologetically targeted at people who enjoy rpg elements, turn based combat and an interesting story. If that sounds like your cup of tea then buy one of his games if you like the gameplay video.
Exile II remains the only game I ever cracked (I don't mean with-a-keygen, I mean with-a-hex-editor; I never got into games pirating from other people), because I was like nine years old and hex editors were easier to come by than credit cards, but I'm pretty sure I've made up for that by buying everything he's released since. Blades of Exile was the first game I ever bought through the mail, Geneforge was never my jam but I bought them all anyway on principle, and I still want a Nethergate 2.
(This is unrelated, but loads of people find it very difficult/intimidating to reach out to people who do interesting stuff. I love shooting emails to people who've done stuff that I find awesome and just about everyone is responsive and extremely gracious.)
(And yeah, this article is spot-on, as always.)
But there's a problem with (2): his games are fucking terrible (for context, I've played 3 of his games, for a total of perhaps 50 hours, because I was really trying to like them). I mean, I'm super glad that someone that I admire so much has an audience, and I hope that some people continue to give him some money, but I could never recommend any of his games to anyone.
Then again, the things I think are terrible about his games, perhaps lots of people won't mind.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, just because Jeff Vogel is a wise dedicated respect-worthy guy, doesn't mean his niche will work for you. But then again, maybe you should give him some money anyway, and then just burn the game.
I'm genuinely curious: what makes you say Jeff's games are terrible? Honest question. Personally I played Geneforge and Avadon series and enjoyed both.
On the other hand, I literally grew up with Exile, Nethergate, and Avernum (1-3, I'm not as hot on 4-6), and I will give that guy money for all his stuff (I will buy the Avernum 3 remake day-and-date, and it'd have been the only game I've preordered this year if I could) just because those work for me so well.
An example was a review for the Crash Bandicoot remakes by someone who has never played or been into classic platformers. Therefore, the review was mostly complaining about how you go back to the beginning if you lose all your lives (!?).
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Personally, like others have said, I rely on friends and communities devoted to a few specific genres I like (turn based JRPGs make up 80% of my game library).
The saving grace, though, is that the comment threads on those shows are often wonderful anyway. They somehow have a solid community despite their terrible review strategy.
Possible something like that could happen with a game review site.
If you don't play platformers (I do), then perhaps it would be frustrating for you. But.. yes, games have become more accessible than they were in the 90's when Crash was created.
Go to YouTube and search for the title of the game followed by gameplay. Example: "cold steel gameplay". Now go to page 3 of the search results to make sure you're NOT getting advertising or ecelebs. You're looking for that random guy who is just recording the game. And doesn't talk. Very important detail. You want that video with sub 100k views. And now you can see for yourself exactly what you will get and can make an informed purchase.
But I suppose its just one of those things people want to do that has nothing to do with practicality.
I watched some random streamer with 3 viewers play Skyrim an hour or so a day for several days, asking him what he liked/disliked about it, before purchasing it.
These things are really hard to get from someone doing a several minute video. That said, I do pretty much what you said (although I just pick one of the first page results, since I don't seem to get the 'ecelebs' (?) you get.)
Although, once I read a review of Jak and Daxter II, and the reviewer said it was fantastic up to a particular point, which was impossible to get through, and thus it ruined the game for him. So when I played it, I kept waiting for this unbearably difficult bit... and made it all the way through the game! I went back to the review, and (having played the game) recognized the area he was talking about. It was slightly difficult, in that it might have taken me three tries to get through... :-)
A good review gives an accurate impression of a game's strengths and weaknesses in 5 minutes of reading. I've bought games based on overall negative reviews before, because the writer was even-handed enough for me to judge exactly how my tastes differed from his, and see that I could live with the bits he hated and love the bits he thought were just decent.
> here's a great big pile of streamers who've been playing Dark Souls for thousands of hours, and you will get a very very wrong impression of the game's difficulty if you just watch them.
Hell, when I play dark souls now, I just kinda ignore all the enemies. They're like flies that get swatted if they get too close, but that's it. This is NOT the experience a first time player will have. Instead of flies, each enemy is an angry bear with a time bomb strapped to its back, with robot claws. Every enemy strikes them with fear and apprehension. All of this goes away as you become accustomed to the game.
When you watch an experienced player play, you obviously see the former and not the latter and what you see is NOT the experience you will have. (Although, you can of course watch a video where someone new to the series is playing... but the majority of videos are by existing fans)
My process is typically to look at a gameplay video (as you suggest) first. If the game looks like something I might like, then I check if ACG did a review. Gameplay videos alone aren't enough. They show you a quick snapshot of the action, but it can be super hard to see how much fun it actually is, how good the design is, how well it plays out throughout the course of the game, if there are any bugs, glitches or gotchas, what the overall writing is like, if the graphics or sound are consistently as they are in the gameplay video, etc etc.
Its a good starting point, but its not enough on its own.
Having said that, I have not made a purchasing decision based on more traditional reviews in a long long time and don't personally find "magazine-style" reviews (or their video counterparts) to be useful at all.
Steam reviews are concise by design and give you a better idea of whether you'll have the same kind of positive opinion (for example, if all the positive reviews are memey, that says something significant). So I'd say they're definitely better.
I think some people who were video game reviewers will go on to become popular youtube "video essay" producers like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/user/Matthewmatosis and the rest will get new jobs.
> users want them to quickly provide a helpful recommendation (which is represented by a number score)
Speak for yourself. I'm a "user". I also appreciate criticism that places a game in a historical, textual, and social context and that often tells me more about whether I'll like the game than "oh yeah, it runs at 60fps solid on my 1080Ti". A game reviewer might have put me off of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus or NieR: Automata because of gameplay ephemera they didn't like; game critics turned me onto both games because they were must-play experiments in how we tell stories.
For example, a stunning artistic videogame but boring versus a ugly game but funny.
I also think you're conflating "art" and "visual design".
Quake would be a better example, but I'd hold, too, that the decisions and the ephemera of that are art as well. Nothing says you can't play art.
As for your example, there are boring but beautifully shot films--2001: A Space Odyssey certainly fits that bill for me. There are engaging films with crude cinematography--the original Clerks comes to mind, for a certain time and audience. You are drawing a distinction without a difference.
There's a small section of games which try to be pieces of art. Maybe they are. But most people playing games don't think of them as art, they think of them as games.
The only reason to sniff at any game, even something like League of Legends, and declare it to Not Be Art is to deny the active artistic intent of the creators involved. It is exclusionary for no good reason.
There should be room within artistic criticism for critics to have different opinions. If Polygon wants to analyze games through the lens of left-leaning politics, that's fine! Readers who want games examined in that way will find that useful. If Totalbiscuit wants to rate games based on their PC ports and framerate, that's also fine! He has an audience that enjoys that.
It is acceptable and even valuable for there to be a wide variety of opinions and criticism for an art form. Forget Metacritic bonuses. It's not our job to worry about that. When you read criticism you disagree with, have the confidence to say, "I understand why you didn't like that game, but I did and that's okay."
And a good score could be paid for, too.
And I think it's OK to care about who is being paid to say what.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Until then, this is static.
If he'd said "games YouTube"--now, that's a different thing, as the interactions between influencers and publishers (in ways that are deleterious to the public, to be honest) are pretty well-documented across the board in ways that are not "some rando with an anime avatar said so". But even they aren't incentivized in any way that I've ever, not once, seen substantiated to give bad reviews. So, again, that's a put-up-or-shut-up.
Credible allegations that bad scores are paid for are very rare.
(My favorite bit is when the player unloads a full shotgun blast into a health pack resting on the ground, in what I can only assume is a post-modern deconstruction of late-stage capitalism.)
But some people watched that video and said, "Wow, I should never buy this game," and were right to say it. So the video was useful after all."
I feel like he brushes this criticism off without really confronting it.
A reviewer who's experienced with gaming and good at it can gauge difficulty, one who's inexperienced and terrible can't reliably. Reviewers shouldn't be perfect mirror images of the people they represent. They need to be above average to have cogent criticism and to communicate that to gamers effectively. Terrible analogy: No one is arguing that war correspondents don't need to know anything about geopolitics because "most people who read about geopolitics don't understand it, and they deserve correspondents who advocate for them."
Find ones who like the genre and can express what you consider to be "an educated opinion" (and that one does get the airquotes). They're probably out there.
You want a critic who has a familiarity with the genre that is beyond superficial, and preferably on a deeper level. You want that critic to express an educated opinion, which should be a minimum for any form of criticism.
There are some critics who take a larger frame of reference, who might try to represent general audiences who are less familiar with a genre. Some critics can shift in an out of different perspectives. A good movie critic can talk about the merits of an over-the-top action movie without dismissing it.
It is perfectly reasonable to find the general critic less useful than the niche critic, both forms are still valid criticism.
Part of the problem might be that the time required to become fully versed in video games is immense, if finishing the games are required. One can get up to speed on the history of multiple film genres in less time than it would take to play through the genre of RPGs. Some games are meant to be disposable rehashes (e.g. modern war FPS) that just push the edge of graphics tech (which is OK), so it's easy to judge if the graphics suck or not.
I think another issue is that some people want the experience of the critic to match their own. A kid growing up will find a lot of ideas to be fresh that are tired and cliche to anyone with a childhood of [gaming,movies,etc.] experience. The drawback is that though peer reviews are useful, they don't always challenge you to think critically beyond what your peers think.
It's for sure difficult for RPGs, but even for FPS, take something like Shadow Warrior (remake). Without finishing the game, one can't know the story twist and full evolution of the main character which kind of puts the whole game in a different light. It's just a work of art IMHO. For any critic to adequately review it, they need to finish the game.
That said if you're going to call out a games journalist, it's important to be gentlemanly and civilized and not act like a rabid chimp.
Battlefront 2 (2) is a great example. AAA game, so people felt comfortable preordering. Has the Star Wars IP, one of the most famous universes there is. Is continuing the old Battlefront 2, an insanely popular game and likely a cherished childhood memory of a large part of the now adult population making the purchases and complaining. And despite all the bad press, it is generally considered a good game, it's just that greedy policies ruin it for a lot of people.
I've never felt money was a key driver here.
(Unlike say, platform rivalry, which I've often put down to the fact that it's a massive investment for young kids when they choose to buy one platform and a bunch of games and peripherals, so hearing they've made a bad choice may inflame emotions)
I agree that "problematic" should be retired because it's lazy shorthand that has gotten out of control. But to "academic" types saying something is "problematic" is really banal: literally everything is problematic, in some way or another to a critic. That's okay though, and it's true of all other forms of art that are criticized and theorized. So I agree that the language and jargon of academia is, well... problematic :)
> I don't blame gamers for concluding those tweets were an attack on Cuphead; that's what 'problematic' is, an airheaded attack.
I blame the people like the youtuber in at the beginning of Shaun's video, which I think is the point: there are people out there stoking the flames of outrage for profit based on misreading (on purpose or otherwise) of fairly banal things said by academics and critics.
I would like to know what you mean by subverting the racism / acknowledgeing it, without tinkering with the developer's vision. I believe the video that the plot (which brings with it the dice character) was inspired by racist cartoons, but I don't think the art style alone should have to excuse itself.
To borrow a review on cupheads Wikipedia page:
> Brandon Orselli of Niche Gamer defended the game as a tribute to that art style, writing that it was not meant to deliver narratives, or "go anywhere beyond where it needs to go in terms of its basic and child-like storytelling"
That is a perfectly fine defense of cuphead IMO. But personally I like games that go a little bit beyond “child like storytelling.”
I’m having trouble thinking of an a way that the tropes could’ve been subverted or a game that does this really well. But ultimately what it comes down to is that, personally, I think great games go beyond simple stories and simple pastiche of art styles. Copying the style is and creating all of this art is a marvelous technical achievement. But if you just swap out the racist characters for cups and dice, have you not missed an opportunity to also write a story that borrows from the past while also subverting or otherwise questioning its tropes?
And I acknowledge that plenty of people will read this and think “who cares, it’s just a game?” And I will admit that if it’s all “just games” then my thoughts will seem pretty irrelevant. That’s okay. But I’m going to keep taking about games as if they were any other form of art, because that’s how I see them.
In this case, a game journalist should be specialized in some kind of games. Its not as simple as "i play xbox" or "playstation". For example Flight Simulation games or Wargaming. All of them are niche, and if you don't get it, you could considers it as a boring game, and yes, they are bore if you aren't part of the target market.
Cuphead is an example, a apparently good journalist trying to play a game where hes clueless. IT WAS PATHETIC.