"Good" Game = "I Like this Game"?

[Living Contradiction]

I think that when my sister says a game is good she really means that a majority of people like the game and that somehow translates to objectivity. What really makes something objective if you believe that a game's quality can be?

Objectivity exists outside of subjectivity and there are no standards that exist, not one, without opinion and perspective, both of which are subjective.

Whatever aspect of a game you focus on, you have focused on that aspect and that, right there, takes you from objectivity to subjectivity. Either by choice or by accident, you are ignoring the rest of the game to focus on that aspect, limiting what you see and thus, limiting your experience. That's what subjectivity is all about: the experience that you perceive as opposed to what exists objectively. Even if everyone agrees on how something is perceived, or is supposed to be perceived, that doesn't make it objective. It just means that everyone's subjective perceptions match or are being urged to match.

Is a truly objective fact available about a game? Yep. You can say it's a game. That's all and that's the problem with objective facts: there is no justification for why they are the way they are because justification demands perspective which demands subjectivity. There has to be a point you draw perspective from, a focal point to look from, to justify something and once you do that, objectivity goes away. Only when there is no need for an observer, no need for a perspective to justify something, does a fact become objective.

Everyone can point to something they enjoy that others, even a majority of others, hate. This doesn't mean that we're objectively right depending on where the majority stands. It means that all of us have perspectives. When you take away the liking and the hating and are left with only the object itself, then you've got objectivity.

**Edited to adjust my grammar. Confound my subjective need for grammatic correctness!

 

[Entitled]

Things like game performance, control responsiveness, voice work, and graphical quality can all be quantified fairly easily.

The first of these can be. But the rest?

PC shooters are much more responsive because the mouse is more accurate. This is something that PC gamers brag about, but I have heard console gomers complain that it's not as "smooth" as aiming with a controller.

I can't think of many game voice actors, but I know of anime voice actresses who really annoy me, while they were often praised by other revewers.

Graphics are entirely subjective, You can say that you consider Skyrim the prettiest game, but I consider Spore's coloring more likeable. You say that Minecraft's pixellated theme had a nice retro atmosphere, but I say that it was getting boring too quickly, Bioshock's graphics were memorable for much longer.

Take for example, Deadly Premonition. If you were to judge the game based solely on the above the criteria, it is an objectively bad game. However, many people found aspects like the characters and story, which were the game's high points, good enough to look past it's many shortcomings. Whether or not someone liked the game, it is still objectively bad due to its clunky controls, dated visuals, poor and repetitive animations, and bad level design.

That only means that these shortcomings were not as significant, or even existent, as you might think so.

I could say that Rome: Total War is an objectively bad game because of it's historical inaccuracies, but that assumes that "historical accuracy" is an important measurement of quality, that we all objectively agree about taking into account. What if someone doesn't want historical accuracy? How can I arbitarily decide that it should be important, even if other people overlook it?

It's the same with "dated visuals" or "repetitive animation". You don't get to tell how "fresh" the visuals must look, or how "un-repetitive" the animations have to be to provide a good fame experience. The people having the experience do.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Yep, you can definitely dislike good games. I dislike quite a few good games. The way I look at the matter is this. A game's value is determined by its target audience's expectation of the game's genre. Obviously, something like an JRPG could be amazing and "good", not because it is universally loved, but because it does exactly what it was supposed to do. The audience wanted a great JRPG-esque story with fun game play and good music, and if that game gave them that, then it qualifies as a good game because it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It doesn't matter if it can't be appreciated outside of that audience if it does right what it was supposed to do.

 

[Entitled]

Yep, you can definitely dislike good games. I dislike quite a few good games. The way I look at the matter is this. A game's value is determined by its target audience's expectation of the game's genre. Obviously, something like an JRPG could be amazing and "good", not because it is universally loved, but because it does exactly what it was supposed to do. The audience wanted a great JRPG-esque story with fun game play and good music, and if that game gave them that, then it qualifies as a good game because it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It doesn't matter if it can't be appreciated outside of that audience if it does right what it was supposed to do.

Does that make Fifty Shades of Grey a good novel?

 

[DeltaEdge]

Yep, you can definitely dislike good games. I dislike quite a few good games. The way I look at the matter is this. A game's value is determined by its target audience's expectation of the game's genre. Obviously, something like an JRPG could be amazing and "good", not because it is universally loved, but because it does exactly what it was supposed to do. The audience wanted a great JRPG-esque story with fun game play and good music, and if that game gave them that, then it qualifies as a good game because it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It doesn't matter if it can't be appreciated outside of that audience if it does right what it was supposed to do.

Does that make Fifty Shades of Grey a good novel?

I haven't read it (and I doubt you have either) but if it accomplishes what it sets out to do and pleases its target audience, then yes, it is a good novel.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

There is no objective good design. Recognizing a game has flaws but liking it anyway proves the flaws were not major enough to interfere with your enjoyment. If someone says they dislike a game that is objectively good I just translate that to "I didn't like it but others might" and liking a game while claiming it is objectively bad merely means "I liked it but others didn't." Lets face it, before we can claim somthing is objectively better than somthing else we have to set a goal which can be measured. For example a light can be objectively brighter than another. But the goal of games is to enetertain audiences, and everything we consider "good design" are just things that most people like.

 

[Robot Number V]

The only time this is different is when it is a published reviewer or proffessional eho is qualified to say it is good or not...

Yeah, no. Not how that works. Professional reviewers are entitled to their opinions like everybody else, but their opinions are not "worth more" then anyone else's. Gears of War does not magically become objectively good just because a lot of reviewers like it.

Their opinion might be worth more then that of someone who has never played a game in their life, and hates "Bioshock" merely because they can't master the use of two analog sticks, but if a random gamer truly understands any given game and dislikes it, their opinion is worth just as much as a reviewer who understands the same game and likes it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Games can be objectively good if you leave out all the subjective stuff. Think in terms of glitches, graphical power, level design, attention to detail.

But when you put back in all the subjective stuff, you can easily dislike it. Point and click adventure games are an excellent example. Syberia was beautiful, had well designed layout and puzzles, was glitch-free, and had a very unique setup. It's universally acclaimed, even grabbing several "Adventure Game Of The Year" awards. It's almost as objectively good as games get. However, people who dislike slow puzzle-driven games will simply dislike Syberia. It's a shame, but there you go.

 

[mirage202]

Good game = It works, few or no bugs. Mechanics are solid.
Bad game = Doesn't work. many or game breaking bugs. Mechanics are clunky at best.

-->EVERYTHING<-- else is opinion, personal taste. Simply put, liking it does not a good game make. Hating also does not make a game bad either. You can like or hate a "bad" game, you can like or hate a "good" game.

In short, good or bad are not mutually exclusive with like or hate. People that think that way, I feel are lacking in the most important part, thinking.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yep, you can definitely dislike good games. I dislike quite a few good games. The way I look at the matter is this. A game's value is determined by its target audience's expectation of the game's genre. Obviously, something like an JRPG could be amazing and "good", not because it is universally loved, but because it does exactly what it was supposed to do. The audience wanted a great JRPG-esque story with fun game play and good music, and if that game gave them that, then it qualifies as a good game because it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It doesn't matter if it can't be appreciated outside of that audience if it does right what it was supposed to do.

Does that make Fifty Shades of Grey a good novel?

Fifty Shades of Gray is simply badly written.

He?s tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly.

Not only does this describe his tie as having hair and eyes, but it also plods, misplaces the word "shrewdly", runs on a bit and loses focus. An equivalent JRPG would be one that had sound glitches, overlong stretches of nothing and major mistranslations. So no, this does not make Fifty Shades Of Gray an objectively good novel.

 

[Finbark]

Yes, I believe that one can dislike a game and still think it's a "good game." I didn't necessarily like Half-Life 2, but can see why it's praised so highly. I can barely even pick out what I didn't like, but I just know it's a good game that I don't enjoy.

Conversely, I enjoyed Fable 2 and 3, but can understand why they both got so much hate.

 

[Mike Richards]

What makes a game good is how well it achieves what it sets out to be. There's always a sense of what a game's goals were that's usually not too hard to pick up on. If it fails those goals but blindly stumbles into something you find fun then it's a bad game you like, if it accomplishes everything it set out to perfectly but those goal aren't something you enjoy then it's a good game you didn't click with. That's the closest we can get to objectivity.

For example, I've never really liked RTS. My brief time with Company of Heroes was enough to tell me that it wouldn't make me a believer in the genre, but that for people who were already on board it was a fantastic piece of work. A good game that wasn't for me.

There is absolutely a way to judge a game objectively. Story can be judged based on an understanding of literary tropes and narrative design. Mechanics are probably the most objective aspect of games. Essentially, does this work and can it be obviously improved in anyway? Graphics and aesthetics are probably the least objective, but even this can be solved by having an understanding of both the software and hardware involved in creating the game, as well as an understanding of artistic designs and directions.

It's also easy for people to get caught up in the hype and excitement and overpraise games. Going off of this objective model, Mass Effect, arguably one of the most popular franchises this generation, is really a cesspool of mediocrity surrounded by unoriginality and absolute poo. The story is absolutely unoriginal, with many of it's elements, themes, etc. being practically carbon copied from other stories, the game mechanics are incredibly subpar - the original Mass Effect had some godaweful hybrid between third person shooter and tactical RPG, and the rest were uncreative attempts at making a third person shooter in the vein of Gears of War. Finally, you have the graphics and aesthetics, which were marred by too much white and black and not enough striking aesthetics to leave an impact. Simply put, it was all too "clean".

Now, you can ARGUE with what I just said about Mass Effect, but I don't really CARE, that's more of an example of how to objectively judge a game, and how "a game that I like" doesn't mean that the game is objectively good.

But that's not objective at all, that's the problem. Objectivity is 2 + 2 = 4, or "This game has a bug that will erase your boot sector if you try to uninstall it".

The story doesn't randomly pull elements from from other stories and leave them inert. It builds from familiar sources and then actively tries to deconstruct, subvert, and lampshade that array of common space-opera tropes over the course of what would appear to be a rather rote narrative from an outside view. The mechanics are slightly less successful, but since combat isn't the point in the same way it is for GoW or MW it's allowed to take a more simplistic role. No one would pick up ME just to shoot things and it knows that, so it provides exactly the kind of framework it needs to support the main draw. Not to mention that part of the series' design philosophy is streamlining a lot of common RPG functionality, and an immediately familiar, action-oriented setup is a good way to accomplish that. And as for the visuals, the art style is invoking an older, very retro aesthetic that had a tendency to paint things in very clean, bright, optimistically stylized ways. Part of this in the first game is just unfortunate technical limitation, but the series on a whole is trying to realize and even deconstruct that view by slowly peeling back the layers. The most obvious example is how ME2 is visually darker, dirty and follows a different color pallet because of the different parts of the world it explores, without violating the original style and atmosphere.

Neither of our statements are objective. You're right that liking a game doesn't automatically make it 'good' but disliking it doesn't automatically make it 'bad'. I love Mass Effect AND I think it accomplished everything it wanted to be, those aren't the same thing. If you feel that all of the problems you mentioned are bad goals that it still met, then it's a good game that really didn't work for you. If you feel that it had good goals and all the problems you listed were how it failed to meet those goals, that's a different story, but it still doesn't make it completely objective truth.

 

[elvor0]

Things like game performance, control responsiveness, voice work, and graphical quality can all be quantified fairly easily.

The first of these can be. But the rest?

PC shooters are much more responsive because the mouse is more accurate. This is something that PC gamers brag about, but I have heard console gomers complain that it's not as "smooth" as aiming with a controller.

I can't think of many game voice actors, but I know of anime voice actresses who really annoy me, while they were often praised by other revewers.

Graphics are entirely subjective, You can say that you consider Skyrim the prettiest game, but I consider Spore's coloring more likeable. You say that Minecraft's pixellated theme had a nice retro atmosphere, but I say that it was getting boring too quickly, Bioshock's graphics were memorable for much longer.

Sticks smoother than a mouse? Madness. Distilled and utter insanity. It's not a case of argument, a mouse is objectively better and more accurate than a stick. Preference is subjective, but a mouse will always be more accurate than a stick.

Voice actors, yeah comes down to reference really, of course the voice actors in resident evil will always be bad, lest the universe collapses.

Graphics and Aesthetics are different though. Graphically Skyrim is more detailed and looks very "good". Aesthetically though, I'd say you're right in Spore being more eye pleasing overall, Skyrim has the problem of being so realistic the aesthetic becomes a bit grey. But then it is set in a snowy Viking Land, Cartoony games tend to retain their graphical quality better than ultra realistic games though. I remember CoD 1 blowing me away at the time, now it looks shocking, Crash Bandicoot 2 on the other hand; still looks pretty good.

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

It's not always easy to recognize the difference between liking something and it being good, simply because your own opinions can cloud your judgement somewhat. But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

And how can you tell that you succeeded?

In this thread, you make big claims about how Marvel vs. Capcom is objectively good, and most JRPGs are objectively bad, but how do you know that you succeeded in finding that truth, instead of just adding another layer of opinions?

We know that hydrogen is lighter than air, that the Holocaust happened, or that the Earth is revolving around the sun, because we can prove these with scientifically acceptable proof.

But can you actually demonstrate the "fact", that Marvel vs. Capcom is a good game, with a proof that any logical human is forced to accept?

I don't really think it's fair to say that I'm making "big claims," especially when you say that I said most JRPGs are objectively bad. I didn't say that "most were objectively bad." I said "only a small percentage of the JRPGs that I've played over the past few years would be qualified as 'good.'"

I'm not trying to back out of anything, I just want to make it clear the position I'm arguing from. I didn't give a number of JRPGs I've played: hell, I might have only played four in the last few years, which hardly means I'm making a claim about 'most.'

But the MvCO argument is - for the most part - valid. I can with certainty that I'm not "adding another layer of opinions," because my OPINION is that it isn't a very good game. But, as an interactive medium of entertainment, video games have a few areas that you can fall back on to judge whether the game is good or bad.

Mostly, you have to look at what a game is trying to be, and make your judgement that way. MvCO, as an arcade fighter, has a few areas that it HAS to hit upon to be a good game. The controls work, the moves are flashy, the characters each have their own areas of strength and weakness, the AI is balanced, the online mode is smooth, and so on. It accomplishes what an arcade fighter SHOULD accomplish, without trying to be something more, and potentially upsetting the balance.

I think that's ultimately the best way to judge: what is the game trying to accomplish, how successful is it in accomplishing it, how intuitive is it at accomplishing it, et cetera. A game can be fun without meeting these criteria, but is it good? Logically, it can't be. It would be like reading a mystery novel where there was no real mystery: you could like the novel - maybe you thought the setting was well described, the characters properly fleshed out and engaging, the interaction between them organic - but you would never call it a 'good mystery story.'

I mean, ultimately, the question will just generate rather circular arguments, because everyone has their own opinions on how games SHOULD be judged. Maybe some people think fun IS equal to good. Personally, I don't, and I have my own reasons for it. But, when you get right down to it, is it THAT important? If you have fun with a game, should it matter if other people think it's "good" or not?

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

It's not always easy to recognize the difference between liking something and it being good, simply because your own opinions can cloud your judgement somewhat. But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

And how can you tell that you succeeded?

In this thread, you make big claims about how Marvel vs. Capcom is objectively good, and most JRPGs are objectively bad, but how do you know that you succeeded in finding that truth, instead of just adding another layer of opinions?

We know that hydrogen is lighter than air, that the Holocaust happened, or that the Earth is revolving around the sun, because we can prove these with scientifically acceptable proof.

But can you actually demonstrate the "fact", that Marvel vs. Capcom is a good game, with a proof that any logical human is forced to accept?

I don't really think it's fair to say that I'm making "big claims," especially when you say that I said most JRPGs are objectively bad. I didn't say that "most were objectively bad." I said "only a small percentage of the JRPGs that I've played over the past few years would be qualified as 'good.'"

I'm not trying to back out of anything, I just want to make it clear the position I'm arguing from. I didn't give a number of JRPGs I've played: hell, I might have only played four in the last few years, which hardly means I'm making a claim about 'most.'

But the MvCO argument is - for the most part - valid. I can with certainty that I'm not "adding another layer of opinions," because my OPINION is that it isn't a very good game. But, as an interactive medium of entertainment, video games have a few areas that you can fall back on to judge whether the game is good or bad.

Mostly, you have to look at what a game is trying to be, and make your judgement that way. MvCO, as an arcade fighter, has a few areas that it HAS to hit upon to be a good game. The controls work, the moves are flashy, the characters each have their own areas of strength and weakness, the AI is balanced, the online mode is smooth, and so on. It accomplishes what an arcade fighter SHOULD accomplish, without trying to be something more, and potentially upsetting the balance.

I think that's ultimately the best way to judge: what is the game trying to accomplish, how successful is it in accomplishing it, how intuitive is it at accomplishing it, et cetera. A game can be fun without meeting these criteria, but is it good? Logically, it can't be. It would be like reading a mystery novel where there was no real mystery: you could like the novel - maybe you thought the setting was well described, the characters properly fleshed out and engaging, the interaction between them organic - but you would never call it a 'good mystery story.'

I mean, ultimately, the question will just generate rather circular arguments, because everyone has their own opinions on how games SHOULD be judged. Maybe some people think fun IS equal to good. Personally, I don't, and I have my own reasons for it. But, when you get right down to it, is it THAT important? If you have fun with a game, should it matter if other people think it's "good" or not?

 

[Entitled]

Going off of this objective model, Mass Effect, arguably one of the most popular franchises this generation, is really a cesspool of mediocrity surrounded by unoriginality and absolute poo. The story is absolutely unoriginal, with many of it's elements, themes, etc. being practically carbon copied from other stories

Well, according to MY objective model, building from familiar tropes and identifiable settings is more important than just blind originality, so Mass Effect has a better story than Psychonauts, for example, that was just too annoyingly weird.

My objective model says that your objective model stinks.

Does that make Fifty Shades of Grey a good novel?

Fifty Shades of Gray is simply badly written.

He?s tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly.

Not only does this describe his tie as having hair and eyes, but it also plods, misplaces the word "shrewdly", runs on a bit and loses focus. An equivalent JRPG would be one that had sound glitches, overlong stretches of nothing and major mistranslations. So no, this does not make Fifty Shades Of Gray an objectively good novel.

That's only the case if we asume that it's audience's major expectation was that it mus to follow the grammatical traditions of modern everyday american english, and the writer's priority was to fulfill that desire.

Otherwise, if it's audience still enjoyed it for what it is, there is no objective reason why being grammatically sound should be seen as an universal, objective value that it failed. You might as well say that it's bad because there is no detailed worldbuilding in it. So what, if it wasn't supposed to be it's strong points?

 

[Dr. Cakey]

I guess I should stop studying game design now, because whether or not people like a game is apparently completely random and has nothing to do with the months of design and programming put into it.

 

[shrekfan246]

Generally speaking, when "this is a good game" comes up in an average conversation, it can be translated into "I liked this game because of reasons."

However, it's possible for games to still be good and for people to not enjoy them. Call of Duty, for instance, is objectively a rather solid title with tight controls and crisp visuals, and multi-player modes that repeatedly seem to suck people in over and over again.

And how do you know, that it's not an objectively terrible title, that some people subjectively consider solid "because of reasons"?

For example, I think that COD's visuals feel rather bland, generic, brownandgrey, and ugly. It's multiplayer didn't suck me in. (MW2). The controls were fine, but that's like saying that a novel's binding was fine. Being functional should be expected from any product, not just from an entertainment experience.

So, other than that, how can you prove that the game was objectively good anyways, if that seems to be solely your interpretation of it?

Prove to me that it's objectively bad.

Note that I didn't say Call of Duty was good, I said it was solid. It accomplishes what it was designed to accomplish. It is an arcade-y first-person military shooter with engrossing multi-player (no matter what you or I may think of it, there are many other people who play it on a daily basis so it must do something right for them) and tight controls.

This entire discussion is the exact same thing that circles around and around every single time a person stumbles across a review that displays a different opinion than their own. There's no such thing as completely objectively viewing a game, because we are always going to factor in our own experiences and predispositions.

Can I prove that any game is objectively good? No, probably not, because as I mentioned in the section that you so conveniently snipped, people don't usually take into account how well-designed a game that they dislike may be. Anything I can say, even about sound design or visual design, can be countered by another person's personal preference. But that doesn't make a game "good", nor does it make it "bad". Which is why this entire subject is silly to begin with, so I'll leave everyone with this handy image:

 

[lacktheknack]

Going off of this objective model, Mass Effect, arguably one of the most popular franchises this generation, is really a cesspool of mediocrity surrounded by unoriginality and absolute poo. The story is absolutely unoriginal, with many of it's elements, themes, etc. being practically carbon copied from other stories

Well, according to MY objective model, building from familiar tropes and identifiable settings is more important than just blind originality, so Mass Effect has a better story than Psychonauts, for example, that was just too annoyingly weird.

My objective model says that your objective model stinks.

Does that make Fifty Shades of Grey a good novel?

Fifty Shades of Gray is simply badly written.

He?s tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly.

Not only does this describe his tie as having hair and eyes, but it also plods, misplaces the word "shrewdly", runs on a bit and loses focus. An equivalent JRPG would be one that had sound glitches, overlong stretches of nothing and major mistranslations. So no, this does not make Fifty Shades Of Gray an objectively good novel.

That's only the case if we asume that it's audience's major expectation was that it mus to follow the grammatical traditions of modern everyday american english, and the writer's priority was to fulfill that desire.

Otherwise, if it's audience still enjoyed it for what it is, there is no objective reason why being grammatically sound should be seen as an universal, objective value that it failed. You might as well say that it's bad because there is no detailed worldbuilding in it. So what, if it wasn't supposed to be it's strong points?

Sorry, I was under the impression that, unless you're flagrantly violating the English language for a damn good reason like "Flowers for Algernon", that writing in proper English was one of the requirements for a novel written in English.

That is, unless you're going to say that game glitches aren't objectively bad when left without any reason or context beyond "not enough QA", seeing how writing good code with a prerequisite to programming anything. And if you DO say that, well, I'll just have to file your opinions next to Bill O'Reilly and Youtube Commenters in my brain vault.

 

[Entitled]

I think that's ultimately the best way to judge: what is the game trying to accomplish, how successful is it in accomplishing it, how intuitive is it at accomplishing it, et cetera. A game can be fun without meeting these criteria, but is it good? Logically, it can't be. It would be like reading a mystery novel where there was no real mystery: you could like the novel - maybe you thought the setting was well described, the characters properly fleshed out and engaging, the interaction between them organic - but you would never call it a 'good mystery story.'

My problem with that interpretation, is that it relies on categorizing the possible things that a game might be trying to accomplish, into genres that might only exist because of historical happenstance.

For example, look at the bullett hell genre. If it wouldn't have came into existence two decades ago and the first one would be made today, we would say "Wow, that's a riciculously difficult shoot 'em up game. It fails all the expectations of the genre". Even if the current bulett hell fandom would love it, without having the terminology to call it "a good bullett hell game", they would be forced to call it "a bad shoot 'em up that they happen to enjoy".

Or look at Star Wars. It's considered a good Space Opera, but who got to decide that Space Opera is a legit genre, instead of just an insult for sci-fi with shaky science that is not taken seriously?

If we would judge everything accoding to a single list of things that the genre is supposed to do, that would mean no new game could ever try to reach new goals, invoke new kinds of emotions, or start new paradigms.

If MvCO ended up being a fun game anyways, then why isn't it possible that it created a new sub-genre on it's own, that is good outside of traditional arcade fighter values?