next »

[Tuba]

why don't we move on from reviews altogether and just require all journalists to develop games to respond to games that describe how they felt while playing games

Would be awesome to make a review that actually is a game... but that's way too much work just for a review. And anyway, a good critic is not necessarily a good developer.

I'd like to see reviews where the authors divide them into subsections of different schools of critical/literary theory with some jQueryUI tabs so I don't have to read the shit that's fundamentally boring or founded on wrong assumptions, each tab being thorough and rigorous in its own right.

At first I thought you were talking about dividing them into stuff like Graphics, sound and gameplay like some people used to do some time ago (I believe some still do this but it's getting more rare nowadays). Anyway, If I understand you right, that's hard to pull since afaik each author follows his own school and trying to emulate another one wouldn't feel natural.

[pottering]

so who is going to take care of the committee that is going to police game journos' private lives, so they are up to the puritan standards of #gamergate?

[rj]

christian weston chandler

[Blambo]

so who is going to take care of the committee that is going to police game journos' private lives, so they are up to the puritan standards of #gamergate?

Milo Greekname and Guy Who Was in Firefly

[Mittens]

I'm so sick of having everything judged on a sexism scale these days.
Not everything is about gender, game journalism is prone to good old fashioned dishonesty, greed, corruption and other shortcomings which are completely separate from the gender of said journalists.

People only want to talk about the problems with game journalism now that feminism is is involved, why did no-one how broken is was before?!

[rj]

i'm pretty sure that not only did multiple ones how broken is was before, but it was a common point of conversation. games journalism has been trash for ages and people have been complaining about that trash for ages. and responding to that.

honestly feminism's improved games journalism, not made it worse; people who cry about ladies wanting to get all up in their games are only using "games journalism has ethical issues" as a misdirection tactic & pretense; the real reason the whole recent campaign has happened is at its core the result of pretty blatant sexism, which is pretty obvious

and yeah, "not everything is about gender," but when something is about gender (like the attacking of women in games and their opinions on gendered grounds), the intentional use of that phrase/similar ones to divert away from that issue of blatant sexism is kinda a scummy thing to do (not that you're doing that intentionally, but it's something to keep in mind)

[s0]

honestly feminism's improved games journalism, not made it worse

yes

[Blambo]

i'm pretty sure that not only did multiple ones how broken is was before, but it was a common point of conversation. games journalism has been trash for ages and people have been complaining about that trash for ages. and responding to that.

honestly feminism's improved games journalism, not made it worse; people who cry about ladies wanting to get all up in their games are only using "games journalism has ethical issues" as a misdirection tactic & pretense; the real reason the whole recent campaign has happened is at its core the result of pretty blatant sexism, which is pretty obvious

and yeah, "not everything is about gender," but when something is about gender (like the attacking of women in games and their opinions on gendered grounds), the intentional use of that phrase/similar ones to divert away from that issue of blatant sexism is kinda a scummy thing to do (not that you're doing that intentionally, but it's something to keep in mind)

yeah this. props upon props.

Leigh, this gamergate thing didn't actually start out as a good faith argument about corruption. if it had been and didnt champion a shoddily held up example with zero grounding simply because of some other agenda (sexism, just not liking the game she made , etc) or obfuscated by dickweeds exercising their fascist, immature understanding of media and art, i might've been more interested in supporting a comprehensive study of how games succeed in the industry. not "why do games I don't like become popular wah" but "how do things enter the collective mindset of people in the games industry".

and besides why of all things target indie games? Its absurd that of all the shady things that could go on with multi million dollar companies and huge media outlets that people decide to prey upon academics and small time critics.

[jolene]

the worst thing to happen to game journalism is when everyone turned british n called it games journalism

[Tuba]

I'm so sick of having everything judged on a sexism scale these days.
Not everything is about gender, game journalism is prone to good old fashioned dishonesty, greed, corruption and other shortcomings which are completely separate from the gender of said journalists.

People only want to talk about the problems with game journalism now that feminism is is involved, why did no-one how broken is was before?!

Oh, they did it before. Merely 2 years ago we had the "Doritosgate" with journalists being accused of being bought by big publishers and advertisers. There was some debate, some people got burnt, some dirty was found out and suddenly, after some weeks, it all stopped and everything went back to normal.

This time it seems like people keep bringing it back and don't let it die. I believe it's a little because of feminism and a lot because of people like Milo, the Firefly guy and a bunch of youtubers that are using the situation to boost their popularity and keep bringing more bullshit up everyday.

[Mittens]

I simply mean to say people never seemed to careTHIS MUCH

I mostly wanted to vent how I feel gender is out of proportion lately.

I just wish video games were more about enjoying the art instead of tedious political arguments.
I say tedious because, as far as I can see, everyone already agrees.

Who here would actually say they are anti-women, Who on TIGsource are making sexist games?
The people out there saying "L3L W0men mak mi sandiwech!" are not here (as far as I know)

[Mittens]

Anyway, my dream games journalism site would be one that basically only does honest reviews.
One that isn't funded by anything but their readership, so you can trust that the security of their cash flow is not influencing their writing as much as making informative and entertaining content for their readers is.

I really like how Zero Punctuation seems free to criticize any game and cut through hype. But ZP is mostly entertainment and will almost always poop on popular games rather than showcasing or glorifying the best parts of games.
But yeah, like the rest of the internet ZP is driven by hits, so it's gotta use dem catchwords

[Dragonmaw]

Anyway, my dream games journalism site would be one that basically only does honest reviews.

One that isn't funded by anything but their readership, so you can trust that the security of their cash flow is not influencing their writing as much as making informative and entertaining content for their readers is.

All major game journalism sites do "honest" reviews and if you think otherwise you're straight up wrong. There is not a single prominent reviewer in the industry who is "dishonest." They don't accept bribes. The worst that could be said about them is they get caught up in the same hype that consumers do. Shock.

As for funded by the readership: that's never ever going to happen, and even if it did it would just guarantee that the writers pander to their audience.

Ideally you'd be able to stay separated from both, buuuuuut that will also never happen, because ~capitalism~.

[Mittens]

Anyway, my dream games journalism site would be one that basically only does honest reviews.

One that isn't funded by anything but their readership, so you can trust that the security of their cash flow is not influencing their writing as much as making informative and entertaining content for their readers is.

All major game journalism sites do "honest" reviews and if you think otherwise you're straight up wrong. There is not a single prominent reviewer in the industry who is "dishonest." They don't accept bribes. The worst that could be said about them is they get caught up in the same hype that consumers do. Shock.

As for funded by the readership: that's never ever going to happen, and even if it did it would just guarantee that the writers pander to their audience.

Ideally you'd be able to stay separated from both, buuuuuut that will also never happen, because ~capitalism~.

All the reviews I read from major review sites seem to be nothing but positive. Always hyping and encouraging the reader to buy Titanfall or whatever else it is.
Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places but I can't remember the last time a major reviewer advised against buying a game or said it wasn't worth their time  (where I would say this about most games)

[s0]

All the reviews I read from major review sites seem to be nothing but positive. Always hyping and encouraging the reader to buy Titanfall or whatever else it is.
Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places but I can't remember the last time a major reviewer advised against buying a game or said it wasn't worth their time

have u seen what happens when a new AAA game gets a less-than-perfect review score? (hint: the reviewer is attacked by a mob of angry fanboys).

btw the obsession with review scores over the actual content of reviews sucks and metacritic being as influential as it is is a Very Bad Thing imo.

[Dragonmaw]

Anyway, my dream games journalism site would be one that basically only does honest reviews.

One that isn't funded by anything but their readership, so you can trust that the security of their cash flow is not influencing their writing as much as making informative and entertaining content for their readers is.

All major game journalism sites do "honest" reviews and if you think otherwise you're straight up wrong. There is not a single prominent reviewer in the industry who is "dishonest." They don't accept bribes. The worst that could be said about them is they get caught up in the same hype that consumers do. Shock.

As for funded by the readership: that's never ever going to happen, and even if it did it would just guarantee that the writers pander to their audience.

Ideally you'd be able to stay separated from both, buuuuuut that will also never happen, because ~capitalism~.

All the reviews I read from major review sites seem to be nothing but positive. Always hyping and encouraging the reader to buy Titanfall or whatever else it is.

Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places but I can't remember the last time a major reviewer advised against buying a game or said it wasn't worth their time  (where I would say this about most games)

A lot of reviewers are moving away from consumer-driven pricing guides, but to address your claim: looking at Polygon (and Polygon alone, although this is true of most major review sites), there are several prominent, high-profile games getting bad reviews, like Hyrule Warriors.

Maybe the reviewer liked Titanfall? Tastes are different between people; this is why you find a critic that speaks to your personal taste and follow their work.

Either way, there's no dishonesty or money changing hands. It's just people talking about games and why they like/dislike them. Reviewers are, generally speaking, subjected to the same pressures of hype and expectation and such that consumers are. This paranoia that companies are buying out top-tier journalism (they aren't) is dumb and it's an annoying misconception that seems to stick no matter how many critics come out and say that it's not this way.

I guess people have to justify why somebody doesn't believe what they do.

[Tuba]

Anyway, my dream games journalism site would be one that basically only does honest reviews.

One that isn't funded by anything but their readership, so you can trust that the security of their cash flow is not influencing their writing as much as making informative and entertaining content for their readers is.

All major game journalism sites do "honest" reviews and if you think otherwise you're straight up wrong. There is not a single prominent reviewer in the industry who is "dishonest." They don't accept bribes. The worst that could be said about them is they get caught up in the same hype that consumers do. Shock.

As for funded by the readership: that's never ever going to happen, and even if it did it would just guarantee that the writers pander to their audience.

Ideally you'd be able to stay separated from both, buuuuuut that will also never happen, because ~capitalism~.

All the reviews I read from major review sites seem to be nothing but positive. Always hyping and encouraging the reader to buy Titanfall or whatever else it is.
Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places but I can't remember the last time a major reviewer advised against buying a game or said it wasn't worth their time  (where I would say this about most games)

Things are getting better, I'm seeing reviewers getting more critical and games like Hyrule Warriors and Destiny are getting a lot of "bad" reviews from major sites.

One big problem that reviews have is the distorted score scale where 7 is considered a bad score. Heck, people were complaining about Uncharted 3 getting an 8.8.

I think a lot of people just care about the score and don't even read the review. I've seen a bunch of reviews out there pointing a lot of flaws in the game but in the end giving it a high score and I believe this has to do with not wanting to face the fanboys.

Kotaku just gives a straight "Buy" and "Don't buy" and IMO that's worse. First because in practice it pretty much makes the score binary. Secondly because I don't think a review should be a buying recommendation, a critic shouldn't tell you what to buy, just analyse and tell what they think. And then you do whatever you want, IMO everyone should play everything, good or bad, but sadly that's not possible.

[team_q]

In my opinion reviews are worthless. It's frustrating how much stock people put into the value of reviews, only to turn around and make jokes about how worthless reviews are.

Most of my game purchase decisions are based off of kickstarters, Giant Bomb Quicklooks, or playing games at events. Usually who is making the game holds bigger sway over me then the game itself, but I'm a proponent of Auteur Creators.

Also the obsession of objectivity has broken perception of reviews, which as they are done by people, are always subjective. This isn't exclusive to game reviews, News works the same way. It's a lot easier digesting news/reviews when you realize it comes from a place of subjectivity based on who/where the work is posted.

[jolene]

i solvd the problem by not playing gams anymor

[team_q]

That's the safest plan.