"In My Opinion"

[DeathSwitch109]

You can't go on a public website about gaming and not expect to be ridiculed about a comment you post unless you say "in my opinion." Why is that? The problem with the Internet is that people can take statements too literal and anything can be potentially offensive. Unless it's a proven fact isn't everything people post on message boards/youtube/and blogs opinions? So why do we need to clarify? Just because a reviewer on your favorite gaming website didn't give one of your favorite games "the correct score" doesn't mean that his opinion is incorrect.

I remember in 2006 "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" received an 8.8/10 on GameSpot courtesy of Jeff Gerstmann. As soon as that review was posted the **** hit the fan; people (especially Zelda fans) were infuriated that the "true" sequel of "Ocarina of Time" didn't reach that nine or above benchmark. In his review you never once read "in my opinion" and that's because he doesn't need to say it; it goes without saying. To paraphrase he basically said that is was a great game but it doesn't delve into uncharted territory (from a game-play perspective). I'd assume that he expected a new yet refined Zelda game but got the same cookie cutter experience.


This isn't new in the gaming world, people have been doing this for years and especially now since the Internet is a widely used for of communication. Entitled/opinionated gamers somehow feel obligated to stand up and tell someone how "wrong" they are if their standards don't correlate with their own. As a whole this gives gamers an already negative reputation.

So why am I going out of my way to point out something most of us already know or are at least aware about? Well you could say it hasn't changed much before and after the whole 8.8 debacle. You could also say that saying "in my opinion" followed by stating your opinion pretty much loses any sort of impact in an argument and/or discussion. In other words, you sound like a wimp. But because some people need to be clarified before they brace the idea that their feelings might get hurt you have to be sensitive to their delicate feelings. When I want to make a statement I make a statement, not for the sake of creating controversy or arguing but because it is my belief. Logical human beings will understand that just because they don't agree with me doesn't mean that I am wrong or that they are wrong it's just a different point of view. That point of view (whatever it might be) can be changed overtime but it's still a point of view.

For the entire thing check my homepage under my profile.

So any thoughts?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Advertising your blog in the forums is against the rules.

You can stick it in your profile though, that's fine.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

Thank you, I'll fix this.

 

[DustyDrB]

Hey, I agree. If you can't spot an opinion, then that's your problem. I am not adding "in my opinion" to every statement I make that isn't an absolute fact.

If you try to jump on me with that "Why are you stating your opinion as fact" rant, then I'm laughing at you. In that moment, I understand why trolls do what they do.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Eh, it's all over the internet in every field really. There isn't any need for it. For music, as an example, if I say "Bolt Thrower album X is better than Bolt Thrower album Z" I shouldn't be required to say the redundant "In my opinion" at the end because it should be god damn obvious it is my opinion. Same goes for video games and films and everything, honestly.

 

[Zhukov]

Y'know, I appreciate the odd well-placed "IMO". It prevents you from appearing to be stating your opinion as objective fact which, let's face it, can come across as decidedly obnoxious.

On the other hand, it's also true that gamers have a funny way of getting their personal egos bound up in their favourite games... or something like that. They respond to complaint or criticism of a favourite game as if it's a directed personal attack. I admit, I am occasionally guilty of this.

 

[Reginald]

Some people get agitated when other people state subjective opinions as objective facts. Although, this usually only happens when person A disagrees with person B.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

Y'know, I appreciate the odd well-placed "IMO". It prevents you from appearing to be stating your opinion as objective fact which, let's face it, can come across as decidedly obnoxious.

On the other hand, it's also true that gamers have a funny way of getting their personal egos bound up in their favourite games... or something like that. They respond to complaint or criticism of a favourite game as if it's a directed personal attack. I admit, I am occasionally guilty of this.

In some circumstances that may be appropriate. I can only hope someone isn't conceited enough to actually make their opinions sound like facts.

 

[Zhukov]

Y'know, I appreciate the odd well-placed "IMO". It prevents you from appearing to be stating your opinion as objective fact which, let's face it, can come across as decidedly obnoxious.

On the other hand, it's also true that gamers have a funny way of getting their personal egos bound up in their favourite games... or something like that. They respond to complaint or criticism of a favourite game as if it's a directed personal attack. I admit, I am occasionally guilty of this.

In some circumstances that may be appropriate. I can only hope someone isn't conceited enough to actually make their opinions sound like facts.

Huh?

Mate, people do it all the time. Hell, I'm sure I've done it many times.

Even in a relatively tame gaming forum like this one you can find people branding one another as mentally defective over matters of taste and preference.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

Y'know, I appreciate the odd well-placed "IMO". It prevents you from appearing to be stating your opinion as objective fact which, let's face it, can come across as decidedly obnoxious.

On the other hand, it's also true that gamers have a funny way of getting their personal egos bound up in their favourite games... or something like that. They respond to complaint or criticism of a favourite game as if it's a directed personal attack. I admit, I am occasionally guilty of this.

In some circumstances that may be appropriate. I can only hope someone isn't conceited enough to actually make their opinions sound like facts.

Huh?

Mate, people do it all the time. Hell, I'm sure I've done it many times.

Even in a relatively tame gaming forum like this one you can find people branding one another as mentally defective over matters of taste and preference.

I know, unfortunately.

 

[Kahunaburger]

If you try to jump on me with that "Why are you stating your opinion as fact" rant, then I'm laughing at you.

+1.

Second only to the "but... but... opinion X is subjective! That somehow makes it invalid!" line.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I have been condescendingly reminded many times that my opinion is not a fact. No shit. I don't need to be reminded that my opinion is not a fact or that a house cat is not a space shuttle.

 

[Tupolev]

I don't need to be reminded that my opinion is not a fact or that a house cat is not a space shuttle.

You should really qualify this with "aside from house cats that are also space shuttles," lest someone call you out for misrepresenting all house cats as non-space-shuttles.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

It's just people being pedants I find, usually it's safe to assume that people mean in their own opinions, making people type it just a waste of time usually. For example, if I said 'Conker's Bad Fur Day is the greatest game of all time', it's safe to say it's an opinion.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

While everyone is indeed entitled to their opinion, it must also be considered that if you choose to share said opinion in a public forum, you are inviting others to debate it.

 

[Strain42]

I know this may sound odd, but there's only one case where it bothers me. When people are talking about what they think the game NEEDED. Like if someone criticizes the plot, soundtrack, characters, whatever. I just go "Okay, that's their opinion. No big deal."

But when someone says "This game needed such and such" even though my brain is practically screaming at me "It's just their opinion!!! NO BIG DEAL!!!" I take it was some smug whiner acting like they know what's best for a game (usually this is only the case when the suggestion they make is stupid...in my opinion, of course)

So I dunno, in my opinion it's just...well...people have opinions. Sometimes I do question it on a forum, depending on the topic or what's being said.

But like in the original post, I don't expect to see it in a written review for something. If you're reading a review, the "in my opinion" should be implied from the start.

...in my opinion

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I don't need to be reminded that my opinion is not a fact or that a house cat is not a space shuttle.

You should really qualify this with "aside from house cats that are also space shuttles," lest someone call you out for misrepresenting all house cats as non-space-shuttles.

Oh man, thanks for the warning. I would have looked like a fool!

Godspeed, Moon Cat!

 

[JEBWrench]

Oh man, thanks for the warning. I would have looked like a fool!

Godspeed, Moon Cat!

You, good sir, win the internet.

(This is fact. Not opinion.)


OT: I find it more irritating when people use "In my opinion" to justify statements which are patently wrong.

 

[DyranLK]

When I want to make a statement I make a statement, not for the sake of creating controversy or arguing but because it is my belief. Logical human beings will understand that just because they don't agree with me doesn't mean that I am wrong or that they are wrong it's just a different point of view. That point of view (whatever it might be) can be changed overtime but it's still a point of view.

Problem is, there's almost no way that anyone surfing the Internet would know that; for example on the web, most of us make a single post an accumulative representation of what the poster's basic personality is, simply because of how little other sources of reference we even have -- in that same sense, when one poster says something bad about a game, but honestly doesn't mean to personally offend anyone, and another poster says something bad about a game, yet purposefully tries to be malicious and crude, and you eventually look over them side-by-side, you'd pro'lly end up regarding those posters in the same light, when, technically, if you had known of the first poster's feelings about the matter, you wouldn't have. However, because of most people's tendency to automatically make the presumption that others really aren't trying to avoid stirring any controversy and are putting forth their opinions just for the sake of publically voicing how they feel, they almost instantaneously respond with some kind of aggression of some sort, even if suppressed.

But then, I guess, the obvious question that then arises (and was what was actually posed by the original post as well, I believe) is why people should feel that they have the obligation to defend something, like games, when it's being scrutinized or criticized in the first place.

And that, obviously, is both because that some feel that they are so personally attached to that product that witnessing someone that actually dislikes it is disheartening (thus compelling said person to try to nullify the other's own opinion by trying to justify his/her own fondness for the game) and because some people simply don't understand how one person's point-of-view can possibly be so different from their own over a single, unified product. Which I can't exactly blame them for.

But then again, that's all just my opinion.

 

[shrekfan246]

There are two things that bother me about the whole "opinion" phenomena.

1) A lot of people will stubbornly hold to their opinion as if it automatically invalidates the opinion of every other person on the entire planet -- See also, people who push forth their opinion as fact.

I appreciate that most people won't change their opinions of something just because other people have a different opinion, but it bugs me when they refuse to even acknowledge that their opinion might not be held by every other human being on the planet.

2) A lot of people use "opinion" as a way to blanket-attack anything they don't like.

For instance, people who personally don't enjoy first-person shooters will constantly hop in to articles or forums or ice cream stands that are talking about first-person shooters, spout off about how every single one is a brown-grey copy of the last one, talk about how mindless the fans must be for buying every new game that "is simply a map pack", and then -- related to Point The First -- stubbornly refuse to admit that maybe, just maybe, other people might actually get some fun out of those games.

I don't mind when people qualify something with "In my opinion", unless they're using it in a similar way as "No offense, but" is often used. It might just be because I've seen far too many pretentious egos over the last year or two, but I often can't tell when people don't think their opinion is fact unless they do use the qualifier.