The nature of the game review culture.

[rounds1]

C'mon...a 10 for CoD4? I can find a few reasons to take away from that score from the couple hours I've spent in the SP.

The game's awesome, no doubt....but a 10 it is not.

[Mallhew]

Originally Posted by Chibi Kitsune

a 1st grader can win an award for his art, does that mean it's better than the Mona Lisa?

also keep in mind journalism is viewed as an art by more people than video games

I'm not getting the analogy. If you hadn't quoted me, I would have thought you agreed.

[NaD00D00]

Originally Posted by Gnu

Most newspaper articles are written by people who don't seem to have taken English 101. As long as all journalism is piss poor, I don't know how much luck you'll have getting well-written video game reviews...

First of all, which paper are you reading?

Second of all, newswriters dumb down their writing on purpose, so that anyone (including the average joe) will be able to read it.

Lastly, journalism as a whole is piss poor? How many forms/types of journalism do you read on a daily basis?

[NaD00D00]

Originally Posted by Mallhew

...What do you think?

I agree with you on a lot of points.
The point system is retarded not only because of the "inflation" or game reviews or what not, but number scores also give "readers" an excuse not to read why the game was actually good or bad (i.e. the entire article).

Why in the world would you give people cliffnotes of your hard-written article at the conclusion of the article? It makes no frikkin sense (journalistically, or even in terms of general writing).

I also think readers are at fault, too. How many readers of gaming mags actually complain about how much the writing sucks? Not many. Because most of these people don't really care about content and how it's presented. They'd rather get the quick fix of information that they need.

People just don't like to READ anymore.

And magazines know this, so they skimp out on stuff like quality writing and objective reviews in favor of giving their customers what they want.
If mags actually made their customers read, the custmers would prolly get pissed off about how there aren't enough pictures or a comprehensive scoring system to explain what's clearly already there in the text.

Why spend the extra money to hire better writers, when they know the readership doesn't care?
And why risk losing customers and profits for the sake of good writing/journalism?

It's a vicious cycle.

And don't even get me started on the ethics of gaming journalism. It practically doesn't exist, considering all the handouts and early releases they get from all the developers.

[jonajacket]

I read Edge, they can be a pretentious bunch of gimps at times, but they're generally fair and produce well written reviews and discussion topics. I find the score system to be a highly condensed summary. I'll skip a review of a genre I don't like much, but a glance at a score may intrigue me to read.
E.g. I'm not a big racer fan, but if I saw a 9 or 10 I'd read and see what all the fuss is about (as I did with PG4)

[Nettacki]

At its current form, I think that game journalists' opinions are no more reliable or helpful than those of some lesser "normal" gamers. In other words, they are just opinions that may or may not be trusted and with questionable reliability that makes me wonder if they were either honest, fanboyish, or paid off by others.

[downphoenix]

I think that gaming standards need to evolve.

High scores have lately become the norm. Game Informer for instance, gave such crazy scores to a huge variety of games, no surprise from them. But IGN and OXM have now been doing scores a little high, which has me worried because these formats were 2 of the most restricted. The only ones that still lean toward a "higher standard" would be 1up or Gamespot, and who REALLY knows what's going on in their mind, why one game gets a 9 and one an 8, even though they are of roughly the same quality.

Its hurtful when people like Robert Ebert say that games are not a form of art. I think they are, some games transcend the standards and live on for years to come. Of course, when it comes to unapologetic bloodbaths like God of War or Mortal Kombat, I can see where he can make that assumption.

[Gnu]

Originally Posted by NaD00D00

First of all, which paper are you reading?

Second of all, newswriters dumb down their writing on purpose, so that anyone (including the average joe) will be able to read it.

Lastly, journalism as a whole is piss poor? How many forms/types of journalism do you read on a daily basis?

Haven't you noticed newspapers being entirely full of spelling, grammatical, and syntactical errors? Sometimes, these errors are so bad, its hard to even understand the point that is trying to be made.

Anyway, I have no need to justify my experience and observations to you.

[Chibi Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Gnu

Haven't you noticed newspapers being entirely full of spelling, grammatical, and syntactical errors? Sometimes, these errors are so bad, its hard to even understand the point that is trying to be made.

Anyway, I have no need to justify my experience and observations to you.

newspapers are generally seen as the lowest you can go while still being acceptable in nearly any field (or sub fields) such as

graphic design
journalism
print
paper quality
comicing
etc.

[fiasco8]

Originally Posted by NaD00D00

I agree with you on a lot of points.
The point system is retarded not only because of the "inflation" or game reviews or what not, but number scores also give "readers" an excuse not to read why the game was actually good or bad (i.e. the entire article).

Why in the world would you give people cliffnotes of your hard-written article at the conclusion of the article? It makes no frikkin sense (journalistically, or even in terms of general writing).

I also think readers are at fault, too. How many readers of gaming mags actually complain about how much the writing sucks? Not many. Because most of these people don't really care about content and how it's presented. They'd rather get the quick fix of information that they need.

People just don't like to READ anymore.

And magazines know this, so they skimp out on stuff like quality writing and objective reviews in favor of giving their customers what they want.
If mags actually made their customers read, the custmers would prolly get pissed off about how there aren't enough pictures or a comprehensive scoring system to explain what's clearly already there in the text.

Why spend the extra money to hire better writers, when they know the readership doesn't care?
And why risk losing customers and profits for the sake of good writing/journalism?

It's a vicious cycle.

And don't even get me started on the ethics of gaming journalism. It practically doesn't exist, considering all the handouts and early releases they get from all the developers.

This is quite a broad generalization.