2030

I think one of the other things that’s different is that Tom has made a name for himself, at least in this little corner of the world, and his preferences are relatively well known (at least to those reading his reviews). The same is true for other reviewers who have developed a reputation (e.g. some of the old 1up crew, the Giant Bomb folks, etc.) Those reputations were developed after years of work, however. Ironically, although I often disagree with Tom’s assessments of games, I like to read his reviews because I find them thought provoking and well written (hell, enjoyable to read).

This particular GameSpot review was written my Martin Gaston. I don’t read GameSpot, so maybe he’s well known to that audience, but I’d never heard of him prior to this review. Judging from his “joined” date of January 2013, it looks like he’s been part of GameSpot for roughly 20 months, which, honestly, isn’t enough time to develop a reputation (although he may well have work prior to that). I honestly think of GameSpot as a place for pretty bland and formulaic – but factually based – reviews of games, rather than a highly stylized review (which is what I expect of Tom) or an editorial review (like I’d expect of RPS, for example), so I find the review a little bit jarring. It does, however, lead me to think that I might be better served by going to Metacritic and reading different reviews rather than relying on GameSpot for reviews if/when I’m interested in learning facts (rather than opinions) about games.

Weirdly, since the gaming mags have gone out, I actually find I am exposed to fewer different reviewers, since the mags generally had a stable of in house and freelance reviewers and I developed a feel for a lot of those reviewers. Now, I read fewer reviews, since the signal:noise ratio on so many gaming sites is just awful, and as a result don’t get to know as many reviewers’ preferences/styles/etc.

TLDR: I only care about the opinions of reviewers I know/respect, and generally want “just the facts” from the random person I’ve never heard of writing a review.

2031

https://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/links/lists/topjourn.html

Number 42. I would stress that it’s important to consider the context, both of who made this list and what kind of works the essay/criticism is placed among (for example, look at well known number 22).

She’s also taught in filmmaking schools, so I guess you could consider her impact to be incredibly far reaching in the medium.

Also, I´ll say it yet again, that essay in particular is extremely insightful given the current mess, and imho recommended reading…

2032

lol video games

2033

This will be tragic, as it will lead to tons of toxicity, just like politics.

People these days counter speech they don’t like by only listing to speech they like. This might actually be worse than censorship.

2034

It don’t surprise me if Planetary is not a game friendly to the player, but require some magic to reveal their mysteries.

For everything good that Divinity Sin has, it was also somewhat a unfinished piece full of non-explained system that you can sort of figure out, because you are a veteran player, or because RPG games are a number game and you are given a log to parse and numerous tooltips that change numbers when you equip things. So RPG games work somewhat at “skill planner” or “RPG laboratories” to find the best build/strategy.

It don’t surprise me either that random people angry will show when Tom write a review with a low score. A lot of people don’t get it, and apparently never will, that scores are subjective, and your personal score can be different, and that don’t mean the review you read is “broken”.

2035

Wow. I think that’s a misreading of what’s happening in the “gaming journalism” industry.

I think we’re probably splitting between traditional reviews – which generally try not to inject too much beyond the “facts” in the game – and critique. In this sense, I don’t think it’s too different from movie reviews, which are also split along the lines of bog standard (but informative) reviews and folks who do (with varying degrees of success) critique.

Each will appeal to different audiences. Part of what I think we see going on now, in terms of backlash against journalists, is that we have an imbalance in the amount of “critique” vs. “review,” and many of the people being exposed to the critique aren’t particularly interested in hearing much about a particular reviewer’s critique, they’re actually looking for a review. Needless to say they are (obviously) protesting loudly against getting some critical peanut butter mixed in with their review chocolate. The same happened to Kael (and to some extent Ebert) in terms of the amount of protesting mail they received in response to their reviews, but that was also largely before the Internet, which reduced the amount of effort necessary to send a scathing review (or death threat) down to virtually nil.

I don’t think it helps that most of the gaming “critique” is pretty pedestrian, but even the extremely talented critics (and I’d put Tom in that category) get a fairly vitriolic response from the proponents of any particular game. I suspect that’s just in the nature of critique – if you want to do that, you need to have a pretty thick skin, as you’re going out to intentionally ruffle feathers.

2036

I think you are onto something here, in that what we are seeing is a bunch of people reacting to critiques and “reviews”.

However, I remember reading very few pure games reviews in my life. Even in the good old days, game reviews were full of a lot of subjectivity (mostly positive and hype influenced I think). They were critiques, just focused on other aspects (and shallower, I think). Although it´s true most of my reading was of Spanish magazines, so that might have been it´s own niche.

I don´t think I know of many gaming publications that do pure reviews, that is, quick one-two paragraphs reviews of a games just stating the facts, without any attached score and keeping the subjectivity just to the perceived quality of the individual elements (as opposed to the overall subjective effect and an analysis of whether the game is good or not). Even in film pure reviews are rare, but they do exist (in the US, in Spain its a lost art).

I doubt whether these pure, aseptic and short reviews will fulfill people claiming for them, I suspect what they really want are lengthy critiques that focus only in the formal aspects of the medium.

2037

Yeah, the “just the facts” approach to reviewing was somewhat in jest. Reviews often compared games to other games, or commented on the mechanics, or otherwise described (and criticized or praised) mechanics or other aspects of the games. They rarely, however, commented on games in a larger social context (for example, I don’t remember reviews of Quake commenting on the meaning of Quake vis-a-vis American Neo-Imperialism in a Post Cold War Clash of Civilizations). I think the key distinguishing factor isn’t so much “objective” reviews – reviews by their very nature of subjective – but rather attempts to connect one thing to another, generally unrelated thing.

I would characterize the recent front page review of Planetary Annihilation, for example, as a pretty straightforward review (albeit one which is highly stylized and personal to the reviewer’s opinion of the game itself). In a nutshell, I thought it boiled down to “wow, the documentation and learnability(?) for this game is awful, and the core gameplay mechanics leave a lot to be desired,” with a number of illustrative examples. Agree with it or disagree with it, it was a review that essentially limited itself to the space of video games and didn’t attempt to connect PA to the dehumanizing nature of drone-based warfare.

Contrast that with the Gamespot review, which read more like “hey, I came to this game with an ax to grind about depictions of <insert topic du jour here> in gaming, and here’s what the game says about that topic.” While I can understand and respect that, it’s not really a review of the game so much as it’s an editorial comment on the tone or tenor of the game as it relates to something outside of games, in this case the topic du jour of misogyny and stereotyping in games. While I think that topic is worth exploring, I think it is better explored in a well-considered editorial piece rather than in what is ostensibly a game review.

I’m sure someone else here can better describe what I’m trying to say here – or perhaps put me in my place! – but I think I agree with you in saying that many readers are looking for “lengthy critiques that focus only in the formal aspects of the medium.” I’m certainly willing to read editorial content – hell, I loved the editorial content in most of the gaming magazines back in the day – but part of what I enjoyed about that content is that it was separate from the actual preview/review coverage of games.

2038
2039

Oh wow! That is certainly a website!

2040

I can certainly respect where you are coming from, but where I disagree is the bolded portion. To some extent critique of the medium has evolved along with the content of the medium. When games were primitive, abstract, and simplistic–shooting monsters in a corridor–there wasn’t much substance to comment on so reviews were primarily technical. This was also a time of rapid technology advancement (buying a new graphics card every 6 months) so reviews also fetishized the technology, graphics engines, and hardware underpinning the game. Now games have lifelike fidelity and include much more complicated themes, images, and motifs. Contemporary reviewers aren’t just trying to connect one thing to other unrelated things since what some feel are unrelated subjects are now present in the content of the game. I realize I am painting with really broad brush strokes here.

Some people want a review that tells them how awesome it feels to chainsaw zombies wearing a giant lego head in 60 FPS 1080P (not saying you or anyone in particular) and some people appreciate a review that takes a step back and raises questions about certain representations in the game. Not all reviews need or should do the latter but I appreciate those that do.

-Todd

2041

I’ve tried to articulate my feelings on my blog several times, but David Hill said it all way better: https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13fftyjopfahdvz504cdldh0zr1j52o12w

2042

The problem with criticism in games vs. movies, at least fundamentally to me anyway, is their manner and form of creation. In theory the greatest movie ever made, by the criteria of criticism, only needs two people involved in the whole project; someone to film the movie and someone to be in the movie. All the screenwriting, dialog, cinematography, editing, and final cutting can be the brainchild of some super genius. And sets are free - the world is yours for the filming, all those skylines and sunsets are public domain. And that hypothetical perfect movie made by two people would be lauded as the perfect work of art by the Pauline Kaels and Roger Eberts of the world.

And that’s why they couldn’t wrap their heads around video games. There has to be a maestro, a plot, a performance, a set, a score, a visual style. It’s hard to see how those fit into video games. Video games are more in process of creation like animated films, and they go to war with the army they have. Sure, it would be great if your artists were better, but they’re not, and it’s a business, so you make do. That one scene between John Marton and someone in Read Dead Redemption wasn’t shot between lunch and dinner on location somewhere near Santa Fe in two takes and 20 minutes; it was the product of dozens of people with scripting and animating tools that were probably not best for the job they are contorting them to do, which is tell a story.

2043

All of that is also true of many indie games that get heaps of love thrown on them at the moment. Hotline: Miami was a critical darling, and it was made by two people using game maker. Gone Home got lots of critical attention and it was made by a 3 person team and a musician. It would be easy to list others… Plus with physically based rendering becoming more prominent in increasingly cheap high end engines (Unity and Unreal), physical rendering packs selling similar to cheap sound packs, and projects like mixamo making available a wide array of 3D animated characters, the distinction between high end and indie will become increasingly less apparent.

And that’s why they couldn’t wrap their heads around video games. There has to be a maestro, a plot, a performance, a set, a score, a visual style. It’s hard to see how those fit into video games.

I won’t claim to be an expert on film criticism, but I think you’re implying structural considerations are way more important than they actually are. They’re important when they’re challenged, otherwise you don’t need to mention them. Roger Ebert has that famous quote: “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”, which I think applies just as well to video games as it does to movies. Tom’s great retrospective on Imperialism 2 felt like exactly that sort of criticism. It was focused on how Imperialism 2 achieves its theme in a fantastic way we don’t see too often. The various specific lenses of movie critique are only valid when they’re valid. Performing a feminist critique of Tetris is probably about as useful as doing one for Koyaanisqatsi. Some forms of critique don’t work for certain works, but that’s true in both mediums. There will be critiques that only work for one medium or another, but I really think most of it transfers over pretty well. It’s similar to the critique overlap between films and novels / poems.

Video games are more in process of creation like animated films, and they go to war with the army they have. Sure, it would be great if your artists were better, but they’re not, and it’s a business, so you make do. That one scene between John Marton and someone in Read Dead Redemption wasn’t shot between lunch and dinner on location somewhere near Santa Fe in two takes and 20 minutes; it was the product of dozens of people with scripting and animating tools that were probably not best for the job they are contorting them to do, which is tell a story.

I don’t really see how it’s relevant whether the people making the part of the game being critiqued were employed to be good at making that part. Critique isn’t (usually) about the creators, it’s about the work, so I don’t think the circumstances of the creator should matter. Plus, we have examples of carefully scripted moments that do stand up well to intense scrutiny, so it’s not like games have to hide behind the defense of the difficulty of their creation to merit approval.

2044

… but the problem is that the work is the product of a very large team, teams which often make their contribution to the game in a void to which the rest of the production of the game is simply an abstract thing. That’s the point. The auteur film maker vs. the auteur game maker are going to make very different things. It’s hard to look at GTA 5 and say “aha! This scene clearly show the guiding hand of a director”.

So it’s harder to critique something when it’s a “product” instead of a “production”. That’s why, like you’ve said, most of the “critical darlings” recently have been both things, tiny teams making tight, narratively rich games, and that’s not an accident because creating that tightness in a giant team of hundred of people and massive graphical budgets is very difficult, at least in the Western model of game development. AAA games have become things like cars. You don’t say, oh, the 2014 Chevy Tahoe’s director was clearly cribbing from the Toyota 4-Runner’s narrative. It’s a nuts and bolts product with parts that work and parts that don’t. Even Rockstar games with their incredibly savvy criticism of modern culture and their pseudo realistic painterly style don’t really have a guiding hand that you can point to; it’s just a “Rockstar style”, and like cells in a body the employees can come and go but the style lives on. You might argue that not having a target is irrelevant for criticism but i’d argue that a product can’t be critiqued in the exactly same way because the way it was created is simply different. Not impossibly different, not diametrically opposite, but certainly not side by side. Destiny’s or Diablo’s terrible writing are essentially different products compared to the guys making levels or writing net code, and the latter are indifferent to the success or failure of the former.

2045

There are a lot of movies that have huge production teams, HUGE, especially with some much CGI being made. Just because the soundtrack is made in a different location and independently of the team putting together the dinosaur doesn’t somehow make that movie above critiquing. I’ll never understand why so many think the Gaming industry is somehow so special it can never be compared to books, movies or television. It’s media. You’re not even talking about what actually makes games unique, because large teams is not it… it’s really the interactive piece. That part is certainly worth discussing but large teams that don’t talk to each other, that’s found in other industries.

2046

That’s an excellent article, thanks. I continue to be baffled about how all of this focus on corruption in games journalism came to be focused on the indie scene, of all places. Really? The indie scene? Not the $100 billion dollar industry which habitually flies reporters out on junkets to get exclusive footage for “previews”?

Also, at the risk of injecting a bit of levity into this dour, depressing conversation, here’s a very funny account of somebody playing through the Witcher to find all of the sex-o-cards, with an eye towards an analysis of the gender relations in the game. It has seven parts so far.

The trouble is, the writers do need all these convoluted excuses for girls to throw themselves at Gaston, because he has the charisma of a wet rag. He’s not bad looking if you’re into that, sure. But his monosyllabic responses and dead-eyed stare make him the most gormless (least gormful?) dude to shamble across my screen in a while. I’m convinced that he would actually be terribly dull in bed. There are two possible reasons for this that I can think of. Either the writers have absolutely no clue how to write a character who is appealing to women, or they could, but they worried that if they made Goofus too interesting and alluring, their imagined male playerbase would no longer be able to identify with him. I’m not sure which possibility is sadder.

2047

Having worked on both games and movies I can guarantee you the average movie is more expensive and employs more people in more creative roles than the average game. I would say that small games are way cheaper to make than small movies, while bigger games are starting to match budgets with movies (and in rare cases surpass), but only a few of them a year, compared to the average Hollywood tentpole movie production nowadays. And that’s for products that last 1.5/2h, not 80. The average film scene is both more expensive and has more people involved than the average game scene, at least going by the numbers.

I think you are right about one thing, and that’s that movies have a established production pipeline that is coherent along a huge amount of products (movies), which makes it easier for the critic to understand this pipeline and identify each contributor’s work and therefore evaluate it. So yes, I agree there’s more talk in film criticism about specific collaborators/authors in a film, but it’s not because critics only consider two people in the project, but because their inputs are easier to see due to a more intimate knowledge of the means of production by the critics themselves. I think a huge problem in games criticism is many critics not understanding how games are made, and thus failing to see personal inputs in a body of work.

This doesn’t make sense in the view of what the classic auteur theory says (regarding films). It does not identify anybody as the sole (or most important) auteur of a work, but instead identifies auteurs by looking at a body of work and finding contributions that both impact the product and show a consistent approach. Auteurs do have to be leads of teams (since otherwise it’s hard of the contribution to show, or even to be credited individually), but they can be anything. There are multiple papers examining people as John Williams, Harry Harryhausen and Gordon Willis as auteurs.

I think there’s a very extended misinterpretation of what auteur theory really is and how it applies to film criticism. the idea of the director, of anybody, being the the auteur of a film is ridiculous. It’s about of somebody’s body of work making him an auteur (with an overlapping body of work -including some of the same movies- making somebody else a different auteur).

Many, many movies are products, yet they are sometimes criticised (though, as you say, critique tends to prefer smaller, more independent fare, since it’s somehow more worthwhile). Something like Guardians of the Galaxy, or the recent Batman movies, are more a product than a production, using your definition. Actually, critical acceptance of the late Batmans is very similar to critical acceptance of the Rocksteady Batman games, in that people were surprised such a product (licenses property) was so good and interesting.

All this points to is that probably one of the most influential auteurs in those games (if we want to use that framework) is higher up the production chain, being probably a producer (and in games many producers feel personal about their games). This has also been discussed in films, specially when talking about the classic “studio era” (with book like the Genius of the System defending those producers as auteurs).

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but the point I want to make is that there’s no big difference between film and games in terms of their condition as products of a “cultural industry” made by hundreds of people with economic pressures most of the times having more weight than purely “creative” decisions (the more so the bigger the budget). Therefore, the approach to criticising them (bearing in mind the formal and structural differences, of course) do not need to be that different.

Hell, Tom has both a film and a games podcast, and I think there’s a reason why both of them work.

2048

Indeed, I managed to get a degree in radio/tv/film with the “wrong” understanding of auteur theory. All this time I thought it was a way of ascribing a form of singular authorship to an inherently collaborative work by crediting the person in creative control.

Where’s my refund?

2049

Yeah, that comes from Sarris’s misinterpretation of the original Cahiers du Cinema writings, which are not about assigning authorship, but about identifying authors within the industrial means of cultural production that cinema is. It was a while until the mistake was identified in American academia (because Sarris was the first to speak of this in the US, so people followed him somewhat blindly, perhaps due to the lack of French speakers in that field) and although his original theory is now interpreted as something different from the French “politique des auteurs”, and although he changed his views to more correctly reflect this, there’s still a lot of people that speak of both theories as the same. Basically the French approach is about analyzing a whole possible “auteur” body of work to try to perceive trends that would point to personal influence in the works, and can not be applied until said person has enough of a body of work (because in that case his/her influence can not be identified).

Assigning sole authorship of a collaborative work is, at least from the point of view of somebody who has worked on (some, not too many) feature films, absurd. Identifying authors in the film industry is not, though.