Three Steps to Success: Summary

July 6th, 2008

With these topics discussed it’s time for me to tease out some conclusions. Basically I wrote the past three articles to analyze what I see as our most significant issues holding our industry back from going to the next step. These are by no means guaranteed solutions but rather a few suggestions of my own that I think if adopted will do some good.

gordan freemanImplications with Classification of Hardcore and Casual

When using the terms hardcore and casual in reference to games we need to ensure that we recognize that they are just loose terms to roughly describe a set of games or players. Caution needs to be taken to not use them in a polarizing or overly definitive manner.

Fanboys and How to Deal With Them

The only way in which we can defeat fanboys is to embrace them and take on board their enthusiasm. Attempting to prove their interests invalid is unfair and not the kind of culture that we should be encouraging. Players should not feel pressured by others if they have a strong interest in a particular game, console, company or brand.

Game Reviews: Critique, Subjectivity and a 10 Point Scale

The checkbox way of analyzing games has to go, in favour of describing your personal reaction to the experiences within the game through critique. Subjectivity, much like fanboys should be embraced and we need to reform to a 10 point scale in order to alleviate ourselves of the petty arguments generated over a bloated grading system.

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Game Reviews: Critique, Subjectivity and the 10 Point Scale

July 4th, 2008

I have already put forth my own frustrations with game reviews but I would like to add a little more as I feel that there is still a substantial amount of work that still needs to be done on fixing the current make up of video game assessment.

The Reviewing Vs Critiquing Framework

another code nintendo ds ashleyFor a long time this has been (and no surprises here, still remains) the crux of my argument for improving game reviews. The word ‘review’ doesn’t really work in this context as I am comparing ‘reviews’ to critique and the final product will still classified as a review. So lets give it a name like ‘Check Box Review’.

Check box reviews are reviews where a game is judged based on a preconceived set of builds that determine where the game falls on the scale of good or bad. There is a “standardized” set of these prerequisites which are often clearly labeled in the reviews such as graphics, gameplay and sound .

More importantly are other controls which are not spoken of but still greatly affect the outcome of a review’s text. This is the company’s/reviewer’s perception as to what formula and framework make a perfect game. This is a little tough to explain, what I am referring are the opinions that speak to you as:

“I’m a reviewer and for this I know what a great game should consist of and these variables are what I am going to measure my games on”.

Basically, as the quotation says, the reviewer is the person whom defines what video games are and he reviews based on that judgment. Unfortunately the reviewer is wrong as he should have no role in defining the experience, the experience defines itself. So when we add the already familiar variables (gameplay, sound etc.) in with this pre-purposed idea as to what exactly defines a video game then the result is this broken set of rules for analyzing games with the narrowest of perspectives.
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