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Consumer vs. Critic

March 2nd, 2007 by Anuj

What do we as an audience expect from critics; what do we as critics expect from ourselves, when it comes to the concept of an opinion? I personally believe that too often, too much time is spent writing a long and wordy review for the sake of seeming thorough and complete, covering topics that don’t need to be covered only prolonging the time it takes to truly find out what the critic thought of the game in the first place. But perhaps that is what we want, perhaps that is what is to be expected of a general and unbiased review of any game, despite its history or lack thereof.

[more consumers versus more critics]

It truly does depend on the game the level of attention it should get, perhaps it is a blockbuster title and people just want to know if it is everything that it was built up to be or a disappointment (despite probably buying it anyways). Or perhaps it is something totally new and different and people know little to nothing about it and want to know everything they can about it before considering a purchase. Without any exception, treating a game as it were different from no other, the latter of the two is probably the safer of the two routes, but games are different, and most of the time people are going into a game knowing a lot of what has already been written. I personally believe a lot of that information is better found in some sort of listing found on the website for the game, or by means of a list of specs found somewhere on the developer/publisher’s website. Perhaps the reviewer’s responsibility should contain though, at least a means to get this information.

Reviews should contain impressions and opinions and nothing else if you ask me. But how much credibility can simply ones impressions and opinions hold in a reader’s mind when dealing with only that. To truly appreciate and understand one’s impressions and opinions, you have to first know the person; an odd sense of trust needs to build between the reader and the writer to truly accomplish the desired goal. This trust can be formed through months and months of reading, or through proof of knowledge on subject in question, or even just in an agreeing opinion. Though trust and understanding are a significant leap away from each other, and not even in the same field; I have understood plenty of people that I wouldn’t place an ounce of trust in, and I’ve trusted people who I never really understood, so what makes one critique any more special than any other? Opinion?

Why would the guy who has played every other game ever made have any more say than the guy playing a game for the first time in his life, assuming of course that both are able to appropriately depict their thoughts on the matter. I think anyone would prefer the opinion of the person they can more relate to for a review, which reintroduces the idea of bias in a supposedly unbiased industry of criticism. So my thought is, why pretend to ignore bias, why hide from it, why try to negate it, especially when dealing strictly with opinion anyways? People are opinionated, and they are going to go into it opinionated, and as long as they understand your stance, there isn’t any conflict about the quality of review, or the myth of the unbiased approach. Why not write for the readers? Why write for this strange social standard created by people who aren’t doing the writing or aren’t doing the reading as an audience, but only as a critic of critique?

This is something that I desperately wish I could change, something I desperately wish I could adapt onto the world, but on the same note, who am I to think that such standards would be better? This is something that has been this way since the beginning of the journalism industry when dealing with anything opinion, and it will be this way forever. While the idea of the proper review grows and grows, and more and more adapt to it, I think we get further away from truly reviewing and critiquing media the way we all envisioned it at first. So, while we may not be able to change the rest of the world (not that we really want to anyways), we can at least adopt this philosophy on ourselves. I say this now as a warning, don’t expect objective review standards, expect us to bitch and moan about the stuff that sucks, and rant and rave about the stuff that rocks. That is all.

I suppose this all goes back to the whole, “being able to appropriately depict ones opinions” bit…in the end, it’s all that really matters, but for us at least, that’s a waste of time and thought, because it shouldn’t be an issue.

[image courtesy of Jeff Pidgeon]

Entry Filed under: Gaming, Life