I sympathize with the modern games critic. There are many of them out there doing great, thoughtful work. They’ve got things to say. And the broad response from gamers, at best, is “we don’t care.” Or at worst, “shut the fuck up.” Of course there are people who like their work, but my feeling is that is a tiny niche.
https://twitter.com/yacobg42/status/1684236237316534278
Games can be thematically meaningless, politically abhorrent, fundamentally not cohere as a story, and yet fans who have conflated their own sense of self-worth with the product they like will break their own spine to defend it.
Anyway, my question is, are they at fault? Not with the things they say, but their tack. Their approach to talking about games as a whole.
I view games largely as a functional art. I recognize I may be on an extreme end of this spectrum, but for me, the systems are the juice, the aesthetics are the rind. My assumption is that the same is true for developers. The conversations they are having with each other are not ones of theme, but of genre. Not of political systems, but mechanical ones.
Of course, there is value in pointing out developers’ deficiencies in this regard. They make all kinds of assumptions about life and politics as they fill their world with bad guys and goals. Why does Mario collect the coins? But the answer to most of these observations, for the game, is “it doesn’t matter”.
But of course, it matters to the critic! But therein lies the dilemma: the game is a jumping off point for conversation, rather than the target. Because gamers don’t care, and developers don’t care. If the themes and politics of games are reflections of the culture they’re created in, then the ultimate target of “thoughtful critique” is at culture itself. Which is why it doesn’t land with the target audience. They are enthusiasts; they don’t want to read about why they shouldn’t enjoy something, gamers just want to have fun.
What do you think? Do you think there are flaws in the approaches of some games critics? Do you think the conversations we have about games are flawed? Do you approach the narrative of games with a critical eye? Do you think you should? I could keep asking more questions, but I think you get it. This isn’t super well thought out, so I welcome “you’re wrong, dummy!”
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I think there’s a tendency in professional reviewers, of any content medium where they become desensitized and jaded. Perfectly good things come out, but they just blend in with the thousand others they experienced before. Something quirky and unique comes out, it grabs their attention and they overlook its flaws, perhaps overhyping it too. And then for big name projects they try to bring the claws out and show they can be hard hitting.
This is why reviews from actual, regular people are so important to offset this. Many of us can still come at a new piece of art with wonder and fully experience it, and we don’t have all the baggage that comes from simply being in that line of work.
I miss EGM’s Fun Factor category. I want to know the usual stuff, is it technically good, runs well, looks good, has a good story, etc sure. But we also need to specifically focus on is it fun to play.
If you want to critique something, let’s examine flaws in gameplay. Are the mechanics clunky? Does it try to utilize every single button on the controller and is over complicated? Do the jumps feel right? Is the crafting system a PITA with little payoff? That’s what they should be criticizing the most in modern games.
Sure some gamers/devs don’t care about themes/narratives in games, but that doesn’t mean all of them don’t. We can see with genres like walking sims, adventure games or visual novels that story matters quite a lot to some people. Games like Mass Effect 3 have been roundly criticized by gameplay-focused fans on their failure to provide a good narrative. Plus, politics is relative, what one person thinks is politics or an agenda being pushed into a game (ie: a trans character or themes) might be extremely important to someone in that community
I think the problem is that “game critics” in the sense of professional reviewers and the like tend to feel extremely distanced from anything I would possibly think when looking for content about games. 7.8/10, too much water ring a bell for anyone?
Overall, the core is that a lot of reviewers fail to answer the question “is this game for me” separately from reviewing the game as a whole. As an example of what I mean, take the site christ centered gamer. Just from the name, you’d probably avoid the site thinking it would just be the morality police coming to say your fanservice jrpg is evil, and yeah, they do. But it’s very clearly separated from the rest of the review as it’s own rating. They’ll still give the game a fair shake apart from their own personal values. As an example, xenoblade chronicles 2 recieved an 88% from them, despite recieving a 42% in “morality”. for an even more extreme example, SMT V recieved a 90, despite the 28 in morals.
Regarding the idea of games as art and therefore meriting the sort of haughty reviews, I think the issue is that reviewers tend to not separate games meant to be statement pieces from games that aren’t. I find the same problem in movie reviews as well. For example, I saw a review of godzilla vs king kong that rated the movie pretty low… because it just felt like the plot and characters were an excuse to watch kaiju fight. Like yeah, that’s the point. I didn’t walk into the theater for a compelling plot. I went there to see a giant gorilla fight a giant nuclear lizard.
Basically, I think media should be reviewed primarily on what it tries to be, not on what it isn’t, and that a lot of modern critics are too set in their own ideals of media to actually judge things fairly.
