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[Hempuli‽]

That gives us the question if this 'good taste' is worthwhile enough to be seeked for. I think my personal view to the thing is malec2b's post induced with FatHat's further comments. But I refuse to accept the fact that things that experts like would be 'better' than the other, similar things. This was the point of view for a long time, but it discriminated many things that are nowadays considered as 'good'.

So yes, it's subjective, but that doesn't mean you couldn't argue over that.

[Seth]

I think at certain extremes it hard to say there is no objective "better," (as long as you have a vague audience or purpose in mind) for example if you had Frank Sinatra sing a song and then you had me sing a song (I don't know how to sing), I would never believe you if you said I was better.

[B. van Stokkum]

I think that, past a certain point, something can be called "bad" objectively.  At that point anything resembling "quality" is gone, i.e. Big Rigs.

If there are any redeeming qualities, it's easier to say "I don't like it" rather than "it's bad".

The idea of "good taste" and "bad taste" are ridiculous.  They are different tastes.  I guess the terms made more sense when people had a common or clearly defined sense of etiquette... but even that is a cultural thing...  *shrug*

[team_q]

This is meta critic territory. Which is a bad and good thing.

[s0]

I think we need to get away from trying to define things as "universally" good or bad. It's important to establish a (loose) set of criteria, taking context into account, by which to judge works of "art".

Comparing Britney to Mozart is essentialy comparing apples to oranges. The criteria are totally different. Britney and Mozart come from completely different eras and backgrounds, they have nothing in common musically, their "works" were meant to appeal to entirely different audiences and I think it's extremely pretentious and arrogant trying to judge them by the same criteria. I mean, I'm a musicology student and it bugs me how a lot of the lecturers sneer at popular music just because it doesn't fulfill the same requirements that Mozart or Bach do.

[Montoli]

I think it's usually safest to say "good" or "bad" in the context of some criteria.  For example, Yaris is a much better game than Psychonauts...

...at raising people's awareness of Toyota car lines.

I would posit that when people say "X is a really good game", there is almost always an unspoken "...at doing some thing I'm thinking of, which I expect would be obvious and so I don't need to say out loud."

Maybe it's just "...at making me like it" but it's there nonetheless.

People just get into arguments when they guess the wrong "...at XXX"

[Aquin]

Montoli, you totally hit it right there.

It's still kinda depressing though.  You can't even agree on what's bad.  I know of a man who staunchly defends Superman 64 as a great game.  I bet if I look hard enough, I can find honest defenders of even the stinkiest games.  WHAT A WEIRD WORLD THIS IS

[John Nesky]

I would posit that when people say "X is a really good game", there is almost always an unspoken "...at doing some thing I'm thinking of, which I expect would be obvious and so I don't need to say out loud." ... People just get into arguments when they guess the wrong "...at XXX"

YES. That. Exactly. So many arguments are caused by people imagining a different context without realizing it.

[FatHat]

I think it's usually safest to say "good" or "bad" in the context of some criteria.  For example, Yaris is a much better game than Psychonauts...

...at raising people's awareness of Toyota car lines.

I would posit that when people say "X is a really good game", there is almost always an unspoken "...at doing some thing I'm thinking of, which I expect would be obvious and so I don't need to say out loud."

Maybe it's just "...at making me like it" but it's there nonetheless.

People just get into arguments when they guess the wrong "...at XXX"

Yeah that's definitely quite true.

Here's why I think what I do though. We all have pretty much the same brain structure. We all experience pretty much the same emotions. People make the same facial expressions across all cultures. (Really!). Most our languages share a lot of commonalities, even though it might not be obvious on the surface. Almost every society follows the "golden rule" to some degree, and our morality has a lot of commonalities despite cultural and religious differences. There's so much that is universal to the experience of being human that we take for granted, and a lot of it isn't learned, it's just part of being human.

Yeah, there's always outliers, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

So I guess what I mean is obviously games fill different needs for different people, but the set of needs people have aren't nearly as varied as we think. And so you can objectively say some games fill peoples psychological needs better than others, in the same way you can say an apple is better food than a twinkie.

So my main point is just that, yeah, people won't always agree on everything because we all have different needs and desires, but that doesn't make things purely subjective, because there is a LOT that is universal to the experience of being human.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Although there is a common pattern to human psychology (which is pretty obvious based on the common biology of our brains) one has to remember that psychology of people individually isn't the only thing that affects them.

Society is an important factor here, and that actually can have a large effect on what is "good" or "bad". For example, some societies may value privacy, while others value community.

And in games we can see it too. Japanese gamers aren't so harsh on the repetitive nature of RPGs, when compared to their American counterparts, with the obvious exclusion of the otaku subculture since gaming is more incidental than intentional, I'd say. They're more focused on the fact that it's from Japan than whether or not it's good. (From my Canadian experience at least.)

Or what about the idea of "property"? European conventions dictate that we own things individually and we have laws so we don't kill eachother for them. But many native cultures such as the Bushmen have more of a commonwealth mentality, where the entire group owns things.

There is no such thing as objectivity. Even the universe itself in its current theorization has singularities; things which just don't follow the rules. Yet if we follow our rules of frames of reference, we can get down to something very similar to "objectivity". We can get, as Montoli and others said, a level of objectivity in a field of expertise/intent. Such as making the American public have fun, or make the American public be more aware about Toyoto.

But it's still important that it's not really objective. Like the asymptote of a curve, objectivity can simply never be touched. We can get close, really close, but never actually touch it. And by being aware of this factor, one can lead a life of better understanding, and avoid much grief and confusion. By knowing that we will never really be pure of subjectiveness.

Or maybe that's just my agnosticism talking. 

[FatHat]

But it's still important that it's not really objective. Like the asymptote of a curve, objectivity can simply never be touched. We can get close, really close, but never actually touch it. And by being aware of this factor, one can lead a life of better understanding, and avoid much grief and confusion. By knowing that we will never really be pure of subjectiveness.

Absolutely true, but I think it's worth chasing.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Oh, absolutely. Sometimes the unattainable things are the best guides and models.

[Anthony Flack]

I should say that when I talk about "experts", I don't mean to imply any kind of central authority, or even a "recognised expert". I mean it only to describe somebody who has seen, and understood, enough about subject X to be able to get a feel for the breadth of the subject. So if you want to be discerning about vertical SHMUPs, you need to have experienced the very best and worst that the genre has to offer, and plenty in-between.

That's how you learn to separate the average from the exceptional. You need to build a data cloud of sufficient density in order to identify the curve.

[letsap]

I think so. If you want to call something bad I think it has to be bad at doing something, like reaching a broad audience.

[s0]

I should say that when I talk about "experts", I don't mean to imply any kind of central authority, or even a "recognised expert". I mean it only to describe somebody who has seen, and understood, enough about subject X to be able to get a feel for the breadth of the subject. So if you want to be discerning about vertical SHMUPs, you need to have experienced the very best and worst that the genre has to offer, and plenty in-between.

That's true. Just look at how many people are calling WoW "the best MMO ever" simply because they haven't played anything comparable. When we want to make valid quality judgements, we need to be aware of the context.

[Montoli]

I should say that when I talk about "experts", I don't mean to imply any kind of central authority, or even a "recognised expert". I mean it only to describe somebody who has seen, and understood, enough about subject X to be able to get a feel for the breadth of the subject. So if you want to be discerning about vertical SHMUPs, you need to have experienced the very best and worst that the genre has to offer, and plenty in-between.

That's how you learn to separate the average from the exceptional. You need to build a data cloud of sufficient density in order to identify the curve.

Heh.  How do you know what the best and the worst are, to play?

Ask an expert?  How did THEY find out?  :D

[Seth]

I should say that when I talk about "experts", I don't mean to imply any kind of central authority, or even a "recognised expert". I mean it only to describe somebody who has seen, and understood, enough about subject X to be able to get a feel for the breadth of the subject. So if you want to be discerning about vertical SHMUPs, you need to have experienced the very best and worst that the genre has to offer, and plenty in-between.

That's how you learn to separate the average from the exceptional. You need to build a data cloud of sufficient density in order to identify the curve.

Heh.  How do you know what the best and the worst are, to play?

Ask an expert?  How did THEY find out?  :D

I think he mentioned that: personal experience.

[team_q]

People are confusing things you like with things you think are good.

[Aquin]

Yeah I can think of a few things I adore that are probably not good by any measure.

But man, I still likes it!  Maybe because it reminds me of what I used to be, I dunno.  There are two sides to every story:  what the writer tries to say, what the reader wants to read.  Somewhere in the middle, the book lies.

[Squiggly_P]

There are a lot of people who think that no one person's opinion is any more valid than anyone else's and therefore the idea of criticism is pretentious and a waste of time.  I don't agree, and those people probably only exist because people think that critics are giving their subjective opinions when they are often being objective.  At least TRYING to be objective.

"Bad" is not subjective at all.  It's use implies an objective statement.  That people use it in subjective statements is a mistake on their part.  That those people also seem to confuse objective critique for subjective opinion is also their own mistake.  I watch bad movies a lot, and they're really quite bad.  Very poorly made films.  I say they're bad, but that doesn't imply that I don't like them.  They're just bad.  Megashark Vs Giant Octopus 2 had better be as awesome as the original.

I think too many critics focus too much on negativity and fail to offer advice.  That's what a critique is, after all, and I don't want to just sit around saying "These guys don't know what they're doing, blah blah blah".  That's fine if you're doing it purely for entertainment purposes, but if you're actually trying to learn something, it's better to look at things from a larger perspective and take everything into account, not just pick something apart.  Nit-picking is often subjective stuff, anyway.

So to recap and clarify:
Critics are generally objective, but people tend to think that they're being subjective. Critics are all generally douchebags, however, who love to have a good 'bad' thing to rip into.  Is it any wonder that Transformers 2 got hundreds of reviews, while Moon - released a couple weeks earlier - got very few?  It's a shame, because they gave all their attention to a film they all knew they'd probably hate, when they could have given an independent film a nice leg-up and maybe gotten some people to go see it.  It was a limited release, but it wasn't THAT limited.  Few hundred theaters were playing it.  Made about $4.5 Million, which means that it nearly covered it's budget, and probably will double that figure in DVD sales.

In my opinion, the thing that sucks about critics is that for as pretentious as they come off as most of the time, a lot of them are actually pretty clueless when it comes to indie stuff.  You'd think that if anyone was going to be 'into' independently produced games, movies, books, etc, it would be the critics who want to rub the masses' noses into how 'stupid' they are for liking crap like Transformers.

Some things are harder to be objective about, tho.  Gameplay is difficult to really pin down objectively, for instance.  Maybe I feel like the control on a platformer is pitch-perfect, while someone else might find it too sluggish or too responsive.  A lot of gameplay stuff is relative.  One can critique the art and the music and the sound effects and other elements of the game, but the actual gameplay itself is generally impossible to quantify.

Maybe it would be easier to review games if there was more insight into the decisions being made by the developers.  Why did they make the character jump this high instead of that high?  If the controls are slow, is there a reason for that?

Film is a medium that has been around for so long that many people can read into a lot of subtle things.  Some directors put subtext into just about everything, from the dialogue to the performances to the way they have their lighting set up, etc.  Citizen Kane is chock full of that sort of stuff, and a lot of modern directors tend to go overboard with that stuff as well.  With games, the medium is so young that there's really no precedent for interpreting gameplay elements yet.  It's starting to happen now, but that's really where an objective review can be useful.  Or at least interesting.

Sorry if I come off like a pretentious douchebag.  I just like to hear myself talk.
Or read myself type.  Something like that...

But critics don't hate the things they criticize.  If I hated film I wouldn't watch any.  You don't spend an hour or two writing up a review - including possible multiple viewings of a film you don't even like - if you hated films.  It's probably the same with any sort of critic.  They love it so much they have to be hard on it.

That's true. Just look at how many people are calling WoW "the best MMO ever" simply because they haven't played anything comparable. When we want to make valid quality judgements, we need to be aware of the context.

Everyone knows Everquest was the best MMO.

Duh.