Which consumers? The consumers of the game in question? The consumer of the genre in question?Thanatos2k said:Yes, that's exactly how I feel as well. The review should be for the consumer. The personal op-ed piece can be about the reviewer and whatever they want to praise/whine about.ShakerSilver said:When I hear people wanting "objective" reviews, I feel like the word they're looking for is "impartial", which is something most reviews should indeed strive for. We all have our personal/political biases, but when you're representing your outlet and giving a review to a larger audience (which will also be submitted to aggregators like Metacritic and affect people's jobs), the reviewer's biases should be proportional to what a general audience wants to hear. I feel like more sites would benefit from having contributors write op-ed pieces about certain games (or games) and delve into a more personal critique (without a numbered score being aggregated) while leaving more technical or general criticisms for reviews.
Shouldn't these reviews appeal to people who haven't bought the game already, including people who perhaps don't buy games regularly in that genre, people who aren't "consumers" in that genre?
For example, I initially wasn't a consumer of Modern Military FPSes or FPSes in general. When I heard Yahtzee really liked(Well, as much as one can like) Spec Ops: The line, I knew it was something I couldn't ignore. Because he like me didn't really enjoy MMSes, I knew I would likely share his opinion and even have my outsider opinions on MMSes considered and evaluated by the game, so I jumped on the opportunity After weeks of messing with Wine on my Mac in a foolish attempt to forego the inevitable, I gave up and spent $700 or so on a PC laptop just to play Spec Ops: The Line because the way it presented itself to me looked like something I couldn't live without courtesy of that review. This made me a consumer of FPSes as I went on to buy Far Cry 3 and Bioshock Infinite after that. I was so sold on it I even went out and convinced my non-gamer-identifying father to play Spec Ops all the way through.
Don't these kind of reviews leading people who aren't consumers of a genre to consume that genre demonstrate the value in making reviews that keep in mind the perspectives of people who aren't the direct audience of the genre in question?