Gerostock on 9/4/2012 at 22:11
If you want to know why the gaming press give mediocre but hyped games good scores, look at the comments and ratings on IGN reviews when they give them bad reviews.
Also the gaming press are too close to the publishers. They rely on them for advance review copies and advertising money, so there's a lot of sucking up.
Pyrian on 9/4/2012 at 22:31
Quote Posted by catbarf
Honestly, I have to agree with Koki here... An objective review should point out what elements are likely to contribute or detract from fun, since clearly the amount of fun someone has is expressly tied to their preferences.
What you just wrote here does
not agree with what Koki said and does agree with what I said, and does so in direct contrast to what Koki said (he's expressed that "fun" is not the proper purview of reviewers at all and should be left to word of mouth). And I agree with you. A good - i.e.
useful - review helps readers decide whether they want to play the game, and you're absolutely right that this involves dissecting elements that might suit various preferences (although a lot of that can be gleaned straight from trailers, of course - "3rd person, bleeccch" lol).
Quote Posted by catbarf
More importantly, implying that a good review is one that correlates to sales is like saying that, for film, a Michael Bay explosion fest is a better piece of art than something like Metropolis solely because the former is more popular to the mainstream.
I didn't really
say that; I'm speaking of the value of the review to the decisions of the consumer. Whether it has "artistic merit" in some abstract sense is interesting, but secondary. I would in fact claim that such interests are best understood as a pseudo-genre with, in most cases, a
very limited audience. If you're part of that audience, you'd certainly want to know it, as we discussed and agreed above regarding elements and preferences.
Quote Posted by catbarf
What's good as a work of art and what's popular don't always overlap, and regarding games as fun over all else is essentially relegating their artistic status to cheap, meaningless entertainment.
How do I put this? I think Art makes itself too irrelevant, too useless, not good enough, if it sets itself such a low goal that it does not even succeed at being merely compelling. It's entirely possible for great Art (in
any medium) to be highly compelling, so I see little reason to allow it to be uninteresting and still call it "great". If you make something "deep" that doesn't get at something fundamental to the human psyche, than you've merely layered semantics, it's not deep in the traditional sense at all.
CCCToad on 10/4/2012 at 00:29
Just gaming journalism? Any corporate American journalism is a joke and both are a joke for the same reason.
The reviewers of the "news" rely too heavily on the producers of the "news" for a healthy relationship to exist. In all cases the journalist is able to get an edge up on his peers by positively hyping what they have to say. A journalist who toes the party line is rewarded with early access, exclusive interviews, review copies, invitations to the right parties, and so on. The result is that journalists (both gaming and conventional) have become little more than stenographers. They believe that their job is simply to report without questions the assertions that newsmakers make, and allow the readers to make their own decisions.
june gloom on 10/4/2012 at 00:36
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Just gaming journalism? Any corporate American journalism is a joke and both are a joke for the same reason.
The reviewers of the "news" rely too heavily on the producers of the "news" for a healthy relationship to exist. In all cases the journalist is able to get an edge up on his peers by positively hyping what they have to say. A journalist who toes the party line is rewarded with early access, exclusive interviews, review copies, invitations to the right parties, and so on. The result is that journalists (both gaming and conventional) have become little more than stenographers. They believe that their job is simply to report without questions the assertions that newsmakers make, and allow the readers to make their own decisions.
Inline Image:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t185/dethtoll/wtfisthis.jpgCCCToad on 10/4/2012 at 05:47
Whine all you want, you pathetic little piece of shit, but it is simply FACT that i am correct.
I present, Exhibit #1 :(
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/12/1054126/-New-York-Times-asks-readers-Should-reporters-report-facts-) The New York Times Public Editor thinks its even a question whether journalists report the truth
If the high echelons of journalism are this corrupted, what makes anyone think that gaming magazines (some of the least prestigious "journalism" entities) are any less corrupted by this mentality?
june gloom on 10/4/2012 at 06:18
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Whine all you want, you pathetic little piece of shit, but it is simply FACT that i am correct.
and then you link to dailykos
i can't even muster up anything to say to that, so i'm just going to leave a gif that accurately depicts what goes on in your brain
Inline Image:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t185/dethtoll/bukarrot.gifCCCToad on 10/4/2012 at 10:56
How about from the man himself:
(
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/)
Should you try to report what's actually happening that makes you a "truth vigilante" and not a serious journalist.
I guess dethtoll is a "serious journalist"
Here's a favorite of mine from the comments. While this was written about "news" journalism, it applies to gaming journalism as well. Think back to the Dragon Age 2 review that was little more than a line-by-line recitation of Bioware's pre release hype.
Quote:
Of course journalists should be truth vigilantes! What do you think you're being paid to do? If your only purpose is to pass along the claims and counterclaims of the powerful, then replace the New York Times with an RSS-feed consolidator, and fire all the reporters and editors. You'll save a lot of money. The only value you add, versus unfiltered feeds of press releases and soundbites from the powerful, is if you provide independent checks on the truth of statements made. When Mitt Romney accuses Barack Obama of apologizing for America, you should follow up and demand examples, and if no examples are provided and you can't find any Obama statements that a reasonable person would see as such justification, then you should call Romney on his lie, plainly and simply. Anything less would just make you a glorified stenographer
DDL on 10/4/2012 at 11:56
You get into 'thin end of the wedge' territory very fucking quickly, though: saying "romney said obama was apologising for america" is a fact, since romney said that.
Saying 'he was outright lying when he said this' ventures more into opinion than fact, since it depends hugely on ones definition of what constitutes 'apologising for america' (hell, in some circles anything short of 'bombing every sandy country in range' seems to constitute an apology).
It takes the journalist from reporting "what was said" to reporting "what they think is the most accurate actual interpretation of what was said", and it's rarely a clear cut thing.
Plus, potential for slander accusations. And accusations of being partisan (let's be honest, if you point out every fuckup a political party makes, you're going to end up looking massively left-leaning purely because the right has the tea-party nutjobs).
What you're saying here, in essence, is that you're too stupid/lazy to do your own fact-checking/fundamental reality check, and that journalists should do it for you.
As it currently stands:
Code:
politician says something>>journalist reports it>>I read the news, make my opinion
you'd prefer
Code:
politician says something>>journalist makes his/her opinion clear>>you just recycle that
There are of course columnists who do exactly the latter, and they're doing it
already, so you could just read those. Or hey, read both and actually form your own opinion?
Eldron on 10/4/2012 at 14:38
88% butthurt!
But entertain us Koki, what percentage would you give ascend?
Thirith on 10/4/2012 at 15:24
Quote Posted by demagogue
People still read game reviews?!
Does... not... compute.
Dunno - perhaps I'm myopic, but I always felt that a lot of game reviews immediately got better once you ignored the number at the end, even the ones from IMO relatively reputable sites such as Eurogamer or 4players.de. The numbers are a curse anyway - do you give an original niche game that is a hidden gem but will appeal to 5 1/2 gamers the same score as a safe, polished, fun but generic AAA title? Is your score an indication of how many people will enjoy a given title or of objective quality? If it's the latter, what's the point of determining this mystical objective quality if most gamers still won't like the game?
Lose the number and you lose that pointless, boring discussion - though publications won't lose the numbers, because too many stakeholders and audiences want it... so I prefer to (mostly) ignore the scores and just read the reviews. There's still a lot of crap reviewing out there, but I seriously think that the overall quality isn't all that bad - or rather, you can find reviewers who are good at describing *why* they like or dislike a title and whether it might appeal to you or not.
