A Call for Input
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Games: On this weekend's podcast (to be recorded) we're tackling the role of reviews and the reviewer. I won't say much more at the moment, but below are the eight items we'll be addressing. Take a look, and if you've got some thoughts, opinions, feedback or comments, email me or leave a message here and we'll use them on the show. (And thank you for the effort!)
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1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
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2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
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3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
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4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
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5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
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6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores.
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7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
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8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it.
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My take is from my RPG-skewed perspective.
1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
- While I prefer to complete a game before I review it, I also play mostly RPGs. Something fun or bad at the start might not be the same at the end. There is room for both ends of the spectrum as long as it's disclosed.
2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
- No. It should be to inform those that are interested in a game about the game in detail. Readers can then take from it what they will.
3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
- I work for a site as Editor-in-Chief/PR Manager. Have written almost 70 reviews, over 60 editorials, and who knows how many news stories. I do interviews and go to gaming events. I don't care if you call me a journalist or not, I feel like I am. I'm enthusiast press as well, and even a games writer, but a journalist as well.
4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
- It's all in how it's written. I imagine there CAN be a difference between the two. It's all in how you want to define either.
5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
- Not in the least. Reviews serve as a solid archive for years to come. The social impressions provided by blogs, podcasts, and twitter are just another dynamic.
6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores.
- Not pressure from aggregate site directly, no. They are a problem, but only because of how they are used. Providing a portal to all the reviews about a game is great, but not all sites score the same, so the overall score is horribly wrong.
7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
- Again, it depends on the site. I truly believe that some people do tweak scores and handle news in ways to generate or avoid controversy.
8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it.
- While I would love for people to look at my name and say, "Hey, I know this guy's work and respect his views," I know that's not the case more often than not. People that read reviews are a diverse crew. Some people just glance at scores and leave. Others actually read what we say. In the end, name and reputation do make a difference in some cases.
I've pretty much lost all trust in the mainstream review machine. Rely on personal comments & testing interesting games myself.
1) Finishing a game isn't necessary, that can be a worthwhile point as well. But don't start making stuff up, if you've only played the game for an hour, come through with it.
2) A review should provide a concise, crystallized opinion first and foremost. The review shouldn't read like an introduction or even advert to the game.
3) Bloggers are truer journalists than big site reviewers.
4) It shouldn't be a "critique" for a game the writer didn't like, or a "review" in the opposite case. All games should be met with the same editorial standard of writing either reviews or critiques for all games, because the two article types are not the same thing and don't have the same focus.
5) Game reviewers have rendered themselves obsolete. They are out of touch with the sensibilities of a large group of people playing games, and a large group of disenfranchised former readers.
6) There is definitely pressure, but it seems that the big sites are the ones that give in the most easily, running more on advertisements than enthusiasm.
7) Fully subscribe to this observation, but most obviously in caving into hype.
8) In the modern environment of compromised reviews, misplaced "profiling" and ad pressure, I have zero reason to trust a reviewer unless I've become familiar with their taste and game history.
Very interesting, Brad. Can I point you in two directions which you may well already be aware of?
The first, and to plug myself a little, is Big Red Potion episodes 21 and 22, when we talked about this very subject. We were lucky enough to be joined on Episode 21 by Justin McElroy, reviews editor for Joystiq, and his views were very interesting.
Secondly, Shawn Elliot held a symposium on reviews a while back, one I'm not sure got properly concluded, but very many contributors including N'Gai Croal, Leigh Alexander, Kieron Gillen and others gave their view on the subject, and I think a lot of these views merit more explanation on your show.
Right, onto my answers:
1. Yes. I believe it leads to danger otherwise. It's unfortunate that some games are very long, and some are very bad, but it's not fair on what's being reviewed to not give it fair trial until its end.
That said, a reviewer should acknowledge in the review that he or she wanted to stop playing the game at that point, if that's the case. It's highly relevant, obviously.
2. It's to inform the viewer of the game's quality and content. If a reader bases a purchasing decision on it, so be it.
3. This is semantics. Who does this matter to? Are the 'real' journalists getting in a huff? This is far too vague a question in any case. You need to consider the difference between someone who reviews games and someone who writes investigative stories on games and the gaming industry.
4. I'm not sure I see the difference. A review should talk critically about games, surely.
5. Don't agree. We also talked recently on this on Big Red Potion. Twitter, blogs, and podcasts are only broadening the net, and bringing more people into games and games journalism. It's up to print magazines and website to use these new avenues of talking about games effectively. There's no reason why a review and a blog/podcast/tweet have to be exclusive.
6. & 7. I can't really give personal answers here. I've never encountered it during my work.
8. Agreed. It's up to the editor to pick the right man or woman for the job based on their knowledge of the genre and game's history, and for the writer to convey his or her views as honestly and impartially as possible. But the reader must also realize that one author's view must not be taken as standard.
Unfortunately, this is all a bit idealistic and in the real world reviews are far murkier than this ideology.
1) This is a tough call. For the most part I agree with the rule of thumb that if a game stinks, you can probably make that judgment within a few hours. However, if you think a game is great, you have to finish before you put that in a review because the propensity to go off the rails 3/4 in is pretty high. On the other hand, you have games like Far Cry 2 that have a slow burn to greatness. The reality is, those games are fewer and far between.
2) No, no, a thousand times no. You can't forecast fun. You need to give the reader information about the game so he can make his own educated decision about a purchase.
4) Generally I would say the difference is that a review aims to comprehensively assess the quality of a game in all its modes of sensory and emotional delivery, while a critique focuses on unpacking the central ideas of a game and discussing how the game's outputs convey those ideas. In a typical review, you talk about how good the graphics are. In a critique, you only talk about the graphics if their characteristics matter to the game's core ideas.
8) This is the ideal, but one rarely achieved. Game difficulty is a particularly problematic area -- unless you have an idea of a reviewer's skill, it's often very difficult to interpret his assessment of the difficulty curve.
1.That age old question, or at least it seems like the one that comes up the most. There are plenty of times where I've got 2-3 reviews on my plate, and 2 of them are RPGs, and I contemplate jumping out of a window.
There's always the thought in the back of my head that I could probably review game x or y without finishing it, not just with RPGs, but arcade styled games as well - where the action sets a predictable tone. But I can't really know how predictable it was if I don't finish it, and among all the crap complaints that might get hurled at me in a week, I don't want there to be room to legitimately point out that I missed something.
That said, plenty of people will announce that they couldn't stand to finish a title, and that seems like an equally fair way to go (though I feel sometimes this line gets used when they simply didn't feel like reviewing it) so long as you aren't trying to hide that.
There's plenty of games that probably don't deserve to be finished and need to catch more flak for not presenting inviting experiences for the player.
2.Probably, but I'm not a consumers guide. Metacritic's existence, and a slew of big sites with review scores, offer a chance for others to do something that's hopefully different and refreshing - talk about games. Remember when we used to talk about games? Sigh, those were the days.
3.If I'm enthusiastic about a title, I don't do a good job at hiding it for sure - and that pleases or pisses people off depending on their own enthusiasm.
I don't consider myself a journalist, being that I'm not concerned about covering every bit of news or discovering where the barrels of buried nuclear waste are. I can't really be a journalist in an environment so utterly under the dollar.
Want to do postmortems on games and talk to designers about what they are really interested in? Not unless you're lucky or in the top tier club, because they need you to talk about whatever is on the shelves.
Probably why so much of the more interesting work is outside of any connection with a studio, and yet the leaves room for a disconnect between people writing about the games and people creating them. Hrm.
4.I think most of the difference between those two words exists primarily in the mind of the writers concerned about which they are promoting themselves as.
Talking games on an earnest level is talking games on an earnest level. Bullshit and hyperbole are bullshit and hyperbole. A critique by any other name would still smell review-y.
5.It's made everything very noisy, and distracting. But it comes in waves. The long term value of reviews to a site aren't likely affected.
If I want to know more about a game from years back, I'm going to go fishing for old reviews over podcast mentions or twitter chatter. The long term value of a review database to a site is something I'd like to hear more about.
6.Such things get said over drinks. I've never written for a site that gives review scores, so in turn, no one much cares about me screwing with their marketing goals.
7.Definitely. As well as the theatrics of writing styles behind reviews from people looking for an edge.
8.Agreed. Certainly lots of us have our favorites, but anyone just looking for aggregated numbers is probably unconcerned with who produced them. Unless you have a catchy style or name, BRAND POWER!
1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
- This would be the case in a perfect world, and whenever I play action games and the like I will always try to finish the game before I review it. Sometimes however I think that the length of the some of the games would prohibit many of the part-time reviewers from going through it completely before reviewing it. It's unfortunate and not ideal, but if you're trying to review a game with an 80 hour story while also trying to juggle a full time job, a personal life, and hit a deadline, it's not always going to be the case that you finish the game first.
2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
- I think the goal of a "proper" review should be to point out all the positives and negatives of the game as the reviewer sees it, perhaps comparing the game to other competing titles, and give an overal opinion of it. Whether the reader chooses to buy the game after that is up to them.
3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
- I've never considered myself as a journalist, merely a games writer. For me at least, as I purely review games and post news stories, calling me a journalist would be an overstatement as I don't do any of the investigative work associated with journalism.
4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
- I don't really see the difference. I look at a game critically when playing it, then turn that into a review.
5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
- Not in the slightest. I still look to formal game reviews if I need help deciding on a game to buy, and while I respect the opinions of people on Twitter and the like, it's very rare they go into the same depth as a formal review and therefore don't give me all the information I need to make a proper decision about whether to buy the game or not.
6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores.
- I can't answer this is it's not something I've personally experienced.
7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
- I'm sure that does happen, but again it's not something I've done, nor something I've seen done anywhere I've worked.
8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it.
- When I read a review I tend not to look at the name of the person reviewing it, merely look at the quality of the writing and the review itself to see if it's worth taking the opinions seriously. While it would be great to be a famous reviewer whom everyone respects, with so many reviewers around these days it's near impossible to stand out on name alone any more. The quality of the writing and the review should always be the things you look to first.
Apparently my comment is too long, at >4,096 characters. I've therefore split it into two. Sorry about that.
1) My gut reaction is yes, however how do you go about judging if a game is finished? Should a critic ensure they play every side quest in Fallout 3, with both positive and negative karma? That would be a rather absurd request to make. I think a concerted attempt should be made to get to the end of any game that can be said to have a conclusive ending, and investment should ideally be made in as much additional content as is possible given time constraints. However if that content has not been created in such a way that the critic would be willing to explore it if they didn’t feel required to do so that should be made clear.
2) I wonder if that’s a potentially naive opinion of readers. I think reviews hold some sway over opinion but suspect that people have often decided upon their purchasing decisions before reading the review. At the very least they are likely leaning significantly in one direction or another.
I think reviews can allow people to understand what they are getting into and often I’ve found reviews are better than the game itself, or the manual, in explaining how to actually play the game.
3) I think the term journalist has certain cultural associations that, if I’m being blunt, a lot of game writers simply haven’t earned. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are journalists I find it difficult to apply the same title to those who write previews and features about the latest Guitar Hero title.
However I think the term “enthusiast press” has a certain stigma, so tend to simply prefer the term games writer.
4) I disagree, though the division is often blurred. To my mind a review is an examination of a game as a product: does it achieved what it set out to achieve? How does it compare to similar titles? Is it functional broken? A review should answer questions along those lines.
A critique on the other hand would take either a more macro or micro approach. An examination of Borderlands as it relates to the development of First Person Shooters and genre hybrids would be a critique; as would an article on the portrayal of gender in Gears of War.
5) Personally I think the formal “consumer report” style game review was obsolete the moment one person asked their friend what they thought about a game, which is to say almost immediately. People will always give more worth to the opinions of those they can relate to; there is of course a facet of human psychology that leads us to trust the opinions of anybody described as an expert but that’s a long winded discussion, for another time I suspect.
That is not to imply that I don’t read reviews, but when I do I try to ensure they are written by somebody I know of. I’m looking for the personal opinion of somebody I can relate to. Recently I’ve found I can get that more from podcasts and twitter posts that I can from a formal review.
6) I suspect that is probably the case, and it’s frustrating. However despite my own opinions regarding reviews I do almost always skip ahead to the number at the bottom before reading a review. So I am as much a part of the problem as aggregate sites.
7) I’m convinced this is true in some circumstances, though I also think a fair proportion of readers are savvy enough to see when this has occurred and mentally account for it.
I find it very difficult to believe that every review had essentially the same opinion about a game. There was not one reviewer who didn’t find Braid pretentious? Not one who got utterly hooked on Hellgate London? I just can’t believe that’s the case. The more homogenous review scores become the less relevant they are to me.
8) I disagree; I find the EDGE style of reviews without by-lines frustrating, especially when the reviewer in question make a lot of personal statements regarding how they felt about a game, or which aspects they had trouble with. Such relative statements are next to useless without context. If I can see who wrote that review and what they have said previously I can work out what they mean when they describe a game as “not challenging.” Without attribution that statement means nothing as I have no way of comparing the reviewer’s definition of challenging to my own.
Interesting post!
Here's my take...
1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
I feel an overwhelming desire to say "Well of COURSE!" but in modern day games, it cant be that simple.
If you assume that the point of reviews is to guide the consumer on what to expect from the product, then reviews should be in before the game hits the stores.
But we are in the age of epic games, maybe the mmo fad is dying off a little, but its still THE major seller (with some noteable console exceptions + the Sims). So how are reviewers expected to put in a solid review of these kinds of games?
It cant be possible, not really, if you do get a mmo review anywhere near the release date you can guarantee it will only be based on initial impressions, even though the reviewer will give the impression that (s)he saw much of the game.
2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
Well, i tend to think of it like this, if it doesnt have either a score at the end, or an evaluation for the consumers benefit somewhere in the text, then its an article, not a review.
3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
I would say "game critics", more than anything.
Roger Ebertt does not introduce himself as a Movie Writer or Movie Journalist, he introduces himself as a Movie Critic.
He does the same job, just a different medium.
4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
Aside from the fact that a reivew usually has one of the following attached to it:
a score out of 10
a percentage score
an aware of between 1-5 stars.
and a critique is more of general impression that is openly biased; I really cant think of a single one.
5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
I disagree whole-heartedly. Many, many people still use reviews as a final say on whether or not a game is worth that now sizably hefty sum of their hard-earned cash.
These people could not care less what the average amateur blogger with an over-inflatened sense of their opinion's importance would ever think.
These people go straight to the publications and websites that have been giving reviews they've trusted for years, as well as asking the opinions of those they trust and know. The "publications and websites" dont have to be huge, they just have have earned that persons trust in their opionion.
6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores.
i have no doubt this happens... metacritic - brings out the evil all of us.
7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
Assuming this statment is aimed at the smaller review sites and not the leviathans i am pretty sure this happen a lot.
but then again, ive seen even the mighty do this more than once - Bioshock and Spore anyone?
8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it.
in an ideal world this would be the case. but in reality game critics are human like the rest of us, and have predisposed views on games and genres.
I cant stand anything more than a review site giving a review of a product, say, a racing game, to a reviewer who has a preference for RPG's and Character-Driven Story-Based experiences.
it's irresponsible to their readership. in order to understand how a review is relevant to you, the person buying the product, you must at least understand where the reviewer is coming from, and his own personal tastes.
I personally have a preference RPG's that are story based and action games that are adrenaline based. So i purposely seek out reviewers with the same preference as me.
I could not care less what a reviewer who believes that Halo is the greatest series in gaming history thinks about the kind of games i like.
So this is my opinion about the items you'll be addressing.
"1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review."
Critics can beat the game if they wish but for a review I don't need to hear what the story is like near the end of the game. If they play for one full day even for 8 hours or so. That will be enough time for someone...anyone to have enough information to give a game a very detailed review.
"2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game."
Yes and no. If a gamer already wants that game then they will only read the review to agree or disagree with it. If it's a gamer that hasn't researched the game or just heard about it then the reviewer should fill that reader with knowledge about the game so the gamer can make up their own mind if they want it or not. I would rather see all pros and cons and end with a general score then to tell me to go buy it.
"3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
I would rather have a gamer review their opinion about the game then someone who only reviewed to get paid. Although I would like the gamer to explain the game clean and simple, and of course legible.
"4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique"."
That depends on how they are written, I personally would rather see a review than a critique. Critiques usually end up personally and I have to hear why they loved or hated the game more than what the game is or how it is played.
"5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete."
I disagree reviews from websites like IGN, Gamespot, GameInformer and others now spread faster to people who are curious about a game. Then, if the person reading the review agrees or just hates the writer it is recommend luring more people over to that review.
Lots of gamers head back to the same websites even if they say, "They hate the reviewers of that site."
"6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores."
I've never this before, so I cannot or comment.
"7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it."
If the game scores are tweaked, I don't think it would matter. Usually a gamer already gave the game there own score even before they played it. So when they see the score of the reviewer and its lower then what they want. The gamer will flame the reviewer anyway.
"8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it."
I guess this just depends. I usually don't care who the reviewer is as long as they get to the point of a game and give the review life. I would like some personality in a review because if it's cut, dry, and boring then the game sounds boring. If that's the case I will find someone better in seconds and enjoy their review if it has life.
1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
Ideally yes but on a practical level, it can be extremely difficult. I think it depends on the type of game and how many hours it takes to feel confident to have a strong idea of what to expect from the full product. Case in point: Shellshock 2, it's very short to complete anyway but within 30 minutes you've seen everything that it has to offer which is pretty terrible anyhow!
It also depends what kind of review you write too. I write some pieces for one site that are more a narrative of my experiences with the game, not really a traditional review though.
2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
There are always going to be titles that someone may love but others might hate so it's a tough one to call. I think it should be more a critique of the game so that the reader can consider the issues brought up.
3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
I consider myself as a writer rather than a journalist. I don't do enough investigative work to be a journalist imo! But I think it does depend on the individual as to what they 'are'.
4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
To me a review is the typical 'gameplay, sound, graphics' sort of break down while a critique looks more at how it made the writer feel, less nit picky and more about the experience on the whole.
There is a part of me that just thinks 'tomayto, tomarto' linguistically however ;)
5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
Asking writers this is going to skew the results surely? ;) No one's going to say yes I would have thought! They'd be putting themselves out of a job!
Personally I think it's more to do with the writers themselves, a good writer will be a good writer whether they're 'formal' or a blogger. However I can't see Twitter making any form of reviewing obsolete simply because of the length restrictions.
6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores.
No personal experience I'm afraid and I haven't heard of anyone having this problem, so can't really say!
7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
I wouldn't be surprised. Grand Theft Auto IV seems a perfect example of this, as if no one had the nerve to point out flaws in it when it was first released.
8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it.
Although I enjoy some personality in reviews I don't admittedly tend to notice when it comes to magazines, so many seem to hide away the author's name! However I do think knowing names can be a double edged sword as it could make me pre-judge their opinion and perhaps be harsher or more forgiving of it because of that.
Hey Brad, @stillgray here.
1. The first point should be taken on a case by case basis. It isn’t necessary to play a strategy game’s campaign for hundreds of hours to review it; only long enough to get a good feel of what the game has to offer and to have a good feel of the game’s mechanics and to see whether it has any glaring problems that come up after hours of play.
I would argue that it’s necessary for a reviewer to go through a game’s multiplayer options in depth, especially if the multiplayer mode is a key selling point for the game.
2. It is important for a review to provide the reader with enough detail on the game to make an informed decision about buying it. Whether this comes in the form of analytical dissection of the game’s various features or an intelligent, first-person walkthrough of the game is something that should be left up to the writer.
3. I would call any game writer or blogger who’s isn’t only interested in regurgitating press releases, shilling for publishers (for the sake of raising their Metacritic scores) or merely posting news that’s scattered throughout the web a proper game journalist. A game journalist must be involved in the games he or she writes about at a certain level of depth. A journalist must be willing to criticize developers and write about games with honesty and ask important questions if there are any issues to be raised.
4. The key difference (and I believe this is a point to be made) is in how the article in question is written. A review generally glosses over much of the game’s content in favor of informing the reader about its key elements like gameplay, presentation, story, and an overview of what the player can expect to experience. A critique would have to critically assess a number from a microscopic or macroscopic perspective, such as detailed analysis of the game’s key features (e.g. the RPG/character development mechanics in an RPG) or what the game in question manages to add to the genre or gaming as a whole.
5. I agree to an extent. Many readers depend on their own judgment and personal experience to determine if a game is worth buying. They will also depend on the word of their friends, favorite bloggers, game writers or Tweeters to make their decisions. No single magazine or website has a monopoly on public opinion, but the reviews of respected writers can go a long way.
6. This is only an issue for reviewers and outlets that do not place much value in personal judgment and rely instead on the majority opinion. It’s difficult to afford respect to any review site that does not respect the opinions of its writers by changing their scores, and any writer who chooses to go with the majority opinion does a massive disservice to her reputation. That being said, a writer should always be willing to reexamine her opinions at a later point in time, while standing by the original review and its conclusions.
7. It is a disappointing fact that there are many instances in which a game score is tweaked to reflect the majority opinion on Metacritic despite the fact that the review itself may not necessarily reflect the score.
8. It is a journalist’s responsibility to be as clear and concise to the reader as it is possible. It is not the reader’s responsibility to determine where the writer is ‘coming from’ with her opinions.
1) Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
A critic should be required to play a game enough to get its full experience- usually this means finishing its story mode, but not always.
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2) The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
To to tell them what they 'should' do, but to provide enough information to make an informed decision.
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3) Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
Tow-may-tow Tow-mah-tow.
4) There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
The world "review" implies something systematic, with an assessment bent. So yes.
5) The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
Not at all... I still go to the big sites for information about games despite all the other stuff.
6) Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from aggregate sites to change scores.
I don't know, I've heard this is the case but I haven't experienced it myself.
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7) Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
I suspect so.
8) A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it
Agreed, although if you get the know the author, their taste, their sense of humour, quite a bit more value can be derived from reading them, than a stranger.
I’d like to add the following to my statements above, as I believe that it is tangentially related to some of the questions you posed.
A writer should never have to ‘talk down’ to her readers by assuming that they are ignorant of the most basic concepts of video games. It’s annoying for any reader to have some of the most basic gaming concepts explained to her in the article.
Beyond that, it’s impossible for anyone to be objective, especially in an entirely subjective issue. A writer should never make the attempt to cater to each and every possible personality, so unless she wants to water down her entire article, the writer ought to express her feelings on the game in her own words without diluting with generalities.
Most, if not all mainstream game reviews sound more like feature lists than anything else, so it’s really in the best interest of the alternative game journalist to focus on writing game ‘critiques’ rather than game reviews.
Above all else, a reviewer must have integrity. That is the only thing the reader is owed.