Should Any Aspect of Gaming Be Off-Limits to Discussion?

[Something Amyss]

So a critic gets annoyed when people criticize his criticism? Isn't there a word for that?

Considering that didn't happen here, and Shamus articulated his points well, I think the word you're searching for is "strawman."

One of the things I like about Zero Punctuation is that, even with the best of games, Yahtzee still finds a lot of issues to highlight and provides some relief from the incessant praise that the top titles get.

ZP also points out a recurring theme within the community. People tend to like him tearing into games until they're the games they personally like, then it's outrage. It's interesting that a comedy critic where people love it when the creator eviscerates a game suddenly finds him unfair and biased when the tides turn. What's even better are the ones where the fans beg and cajole and plead and pester and Yahtzee says "fine!" and then they get upset or angry when he doesn't like the game he didn't want to cover in the first place.

I guess what I'm saying is that even in a place known for relief from the constant fellatio games are expected to get, it is amazing to see how people respond to negativity towards [game I like].

 

[Sanunes]

I guess what I'm saying is that even in a place known for relief from the constant fellatio games are expected to get, it is amazing to see how people respond to negativity towards [game I like].

I agree, to me its starting to feel like a cycle of players complaining that "games are too generic" so a developer makes a game for a niche market and then when not everyone likes the game they get complaints about "not liking a game that is aimed at a specific market" which that reviewer might not be part of or there are areas that reviewer thinks is important to that market.

 

[Drathnoxis]

But I really hope that in light of that, I would really hope that the Escapist look at the role it played in this. I could barely read the Mordor article without the spiteful tone of the headline infecting every sentence.

Yes, whoever is editing the titles of these articles really needs to put some more effort in making sure that the title matches the content.

Even this article is guilty of misrepresentation. "Should Any Aspect of Gaming Be Off Limits to Discussion?" Where in the article did Shamus explore this question? This article wasn't so much an exploration of contentious aspects of gaming and more of a diatribe against anti-criticism. The title in the url "In Game Criticism Everything is Permitted" fits much better, even if it is a little bland. It makes it harder to read the articles when you are expecting them to discuss a topic that they have no intention of discussing.

And Yahtzee's "Why Were Shadow of Mordor and Alien Isolation So Good?" article was even worse. I don't think he even spent a paragraph talking about the games let alone why they were good.

So Escapist title person, SHAPE UP!

 

[Drathnoxis]

This feels like a strawman argument. I don't think anyone was saying "You're not allowed to say X about a game," people were just disagreeing with his analysis. Of course all criticism is permitted, including criticism of criticism.

When you make strong statements about a game in a public forum people are going to disagree with you. I mean, duh.

When I complained about the story, people said I was overlooking the gameplay. When I complained about the gameplay people said I was overlooking the nemesis system.

First comment of his Second Mordor Article

Can we stop talking about the how the gameplay systems are like Batman? because it's clear the focus was always on the Nemesis System and everything else was there to fill in the blanks, it's like saying that Minecraft is an awful game because of the combat, even though building is clearly the focus.

If that isn't dismissing his criticism, I don't know what is.

 

[sexy=sexist]

I can get death threats for saying sonic the hedgehog is not the sexiest videogame hero. The fact of the mater when I want to see if a movie or game will appeal to me I read the negative reviews and the positive ones. I do think criticism of criticism gets confused for hate but there are lots of freaks out there that will froth at the mouth if you dislike what they like.
This is really not worth your time, and yah I know people yelling at you for being wrong is like 90% of everything ever said to you.

 

[Keith K]

You're absolutely right that there is nothing beyond criticism. Nothing.

Beyond that, your assertion that Mordor is a poor man's Arkham was, in my opinion, spot-on and it mirrored and articulated my feelings about it perfectly.

 

[AlexVanko]

Well said! I find reading harsh criticism of games I loved to be really illuminating. I loved reading your criticisms of Mass Effect 2 and Fable 2. It's especially interesting to read criticism of games that get almost universally glowing reviews everywhere else. Keep it coming!

 

[GloatingSwine]

I think it's important to realise that this is the end result of, essentially, the last ten years or so where the identity of games was in question. As games became more expressive and more capable of constituting acts of social, cultural, or political speech they became more and more of an artform. This culminated in the USSC formally recognising that yes, they were art and entitled to all the first amendment protections that signifies.

And like any other form of art, people started to assess the social, cultural, and political speech acts which those games contained, they started criticising them as art not just as toys to be assessed only on their technical merits.

Because those first amendment protections only stop the government from restricting what you can say in your art, it doesn't stop people saying what they want about it. Being art is an invitation to criticism, not a shield against it.

Gamers got what they wanted, games are art.

Now some of them don't want it because it moves them outside their comfort zone.

 

[Ipsen]

This feels like a strawman argument. I don't think anyone was saying "You're not allowed to say X about a game," people were just disagreeing with his analysis. Of course all criticism is permitted, including criticism of criticism.

When you make strong statements about a game in a public forum people are going to disagree with you. I mean, duh.

But how useful is criticism of criticism?

Probably selectively as useful as any typical criticism, but I can't seem to ever shake the feeling that criticizing criticism, if you aim to be useful[footnote]I say this because you're probably not being paid to write in forums; we're all here for recreation, including possible aims to troll, hate, or just ignore being useful to others.[/footnote], only has a few specific intents. One would be to point something directly wrong with the analysis. This is valid, but I could not exactly find it valid in these Experienced Points.

Another would be that the analysis is personally hated for some reason, and liking SoM can be an easy way to get to this point. This is actually the conclusion I'm finding. For the arguments made for SoM (or rather, against Shamus's conclusions), I couldn't really find most of them...convincing. Some actually thought the gameplay justified the bad story, but even those who argued for SoM along the lines of Tolkien's lore failed for me because the gameplay doesn't show it. [footnote]Apparently, at least; Thanks for no spoilers, but neither Shamus or any comment hinted at the main character, say, weakening or compromising mechanically for all the corruption his power attained for revenge should have brought. For all I can see, the main character had all the power in the world, but ended up killed by the plot. This doesn't strike me as serviceable, let alone worthy of even Tolkien's themes or world.[/footnote]

My grievances from last week now rested (sorry), I fervently wish this site was more geared around analysis of games/geek media, as Shamus's column is, as it's so much more useful and palatable than the clickbait and controversy articles, which lead 'discussions' we typically have (And no one likes those). We're probably not going to have that, the way things are, however. Sure, Escapists are absolutely free to be as discerning as articles such as this, but people don't act in vacuums.

 

[Something Amyss]

Gamers got what they wanted, games are art.

Now some of them don't want it because it moves them outside their comfort zone.

In fairness, many people didn't want games to be treated as art. That doesn't forgive the hypocrisy of those who wanted games to be protected as art, but not criticised as it, but not everyone wanted it in the first place.

 

[John Keefer]

But I really hope that in light of that, I would really hope that the Escapist look at the role it played in this. I could barely read the Mordor article without the spiteful tone of the headline infecting every sentence.

Yes, whoever is editing the titles of these articles really needs to put some more effort in making sure that the title matches the content.

Even this article is guilty of misrepresentation. "Should Any Aspect of Gaming Be Off Limits to Discussion?" Where in the article did Shamus explore this question? This article wasn't so much an exploration of contentious aspects of gaming and more of a diatribe against anti-criticism. The title in the url "In Game Criticism Everything is Permitted" fits much better, even if it is a little bland. It makes it harder to read the articles when you are expecting them to discuss a topic that they have no intention of discussing.

And Yahtzee's "Why Were Shadow of Mordor and Alien Isolation So Good?" article was even worse. I don't think he even spent a paragraph talking about the games let alone why they were good.

So Escapist title person, SHAPE UP!

*Raises hand*

I write the headlines for these columns (*ducks*). As for this headline, it was taken from the end of the third paragraph of the article (sans the Why). As for the the Mordor piece, Shamus specifically called the game Revenge Porn in his piece, although I take responsibility for the "nothing but" part, which gave an air of no redeeming features, and he and I discussed that after the fact. Finally, as for Yahtzee's Mordor vs. Alien Isolation headline, I totally dropped the ball on that one and plead mea culpa for not going to the core of the article on cinemas vs games.

I have told the columnists that if they have issues with any of my headlines, please let me know. I take them seriously, as I wrote headlines for newspapers back in the day. My philosophy still stands in that you want a headline to be interesting enough to make people WANT to read the story. I hate the term clickbait because I usually associate that with bait and switch dishonesty where the headline has NOTHING to do with the story other than to get you to click.

As for "original headline" versus new headline, that is a fallacy here. The Escapist has two separate headlines that we use for search and SEO purposes. The Search headline is the one you see in the URL and it is what Google sees when people search. The share headline is the one at the top of the story and usually asks a question or takes a point of view that the article is expected to answer. So you will always see two headlines to a story, one in the URL and one at the top.

I've always said I am accessible to our readers and writers. Quoting a response from me alerts me (through the forums) that you may be asking me a question, but PM directly me if you have issues or questions.

Keef

 

[GloatingSwine]

This feels like a strawman argument. I don't think anyone was saying "You're not allowed to say X about a game," people were just disagreeing with his analysis. Of course all criticism is permitted, including criticism of criticism.

When you make strong statements about a game in a public forum people are going to disagree with you. I mean, duh.

But how useful is criticism of criticism?

A lot of the people who are upset about people having different opinions to them aren't actually upset that they don't get to criticise the criticism, because they do, the internet is an open forum where they can do just that.

They're upset that the original critic won't engage personally with their special snowflake points they made.

(Harsh truth: Freedom of speech does not compel anyone to listen)

(If GamerGate were a font it would be wingdings)

 

[tzimize]

This feels like a strawman argument. I don't think anyone was saying "You're not allowed to say X about a game," people were just disagreeing with his analysis. Of course all criticism is permitted, including criticism of criticism.

When you make strong statements about a game in a public forum people are going to disagree with you. I mean, duh.

Difference of opinion is cool. What Shamus is trying to say is there is a difference between disagreeing like this:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ITS A GREAT GAME! YOU ARE JUST A CLUELESS DOUCHE!"

And this:

"I see your point. The story of the game did take the backseat a bit, but in my opinion the nemesis systems emergent gameplay made a ton of small separate, and sometimes very personal stories instead. I liked this more than the actual story."

I say this in a general way, not having read the coloumns nor the responses, however my imagination probably suffices to...er...imagine how it went.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

*Raises hand*

I write the headlines for these columns (*ducks*). As for this headline, it was taken from the end of the third paragraph of the article (sans the Why). As for the the Mordor piece, Shamus specifically called the game Revenge Porn in his piece, although I take responsibility for the "nothing but" part, which gave an air of no redeeming features, and he and I discussed that after the fact. Finally, as for Yahtzee's Mordor vs. Alien Isolation headline, I totally dropped the ball on that one and plead mea culpa for not going to the core of the article on cinemas vs games.

I have told the columnists that if they have issues with any of my headlines, please let me know. I take them seriously, as I wrote headlines for newspapers back in the day. My philosophy still stands in that you want a headline to be interesting enough to make people WANT to read the story. I hate the term clickbait because I usually associate that with bait and switch dishonesty where the headline has NOTHING to do with the story other than to get you to click.

As for "original headline" versus new headline, that is a fallacy here. The Escapist has two separate headlines that we use for search and SEO purposes. The Search headline is the one you see in the URL and it is what Google sees when people search. The share headline is the one at the top of the story and usually asks a question or takes a point of view that the article is expected to answer. So you will always see two headlines to a story, one in the URL and one at the top.

I've always said I am accessible to our readers and writers. Quoting a response from me alerts me (through the forums) that you may be asking me a question, but PM directly me if you have issues or questions.

Keef

I understand wanting to make the titles appealing in order to get people to read them in the first place, 'A rose by any other name' and all that, the title doesn't impact the quality that much but is important in attracting people in the first place, I get that. However the "Break Your Xbox One And Xbox 360 With This New App" article from a while back came across as purposely misleading readers, making them think there was an App that broke Xboxes when really you just wanted to inform them about an App from one of your sister websites. Advertising the App is fine, but I thought the way the article was titled was just cheap and misleading.

Anyway, good article. Games are art, you can't say they're art and then once they're criticised go "ah, they're just games." Games are open to any kind of criticism. What you should keep in mind though is you don't have to agree with criticism. One of the best things I've learned in college (not that you have to learn this there, it's just something I picked up more and more since I started) is it's fine to say people are full of crap. Doesn't matter what status they have, you can say they're full of crap. If you want you can even make a response to them pointing out why you disagree.

I do like the part where you say more people should write about what they think of games. I love more in depth looks and discussions about games, not just consumer advice reviews. Personally I really like things like Shamus Young, Errant Signal, TUN, SuperBunnyhop and I realised there's really no reason I can't write my own things about my opinions on games so I started doing it. That's as well as discussing games on forums and in person.

 

[CaitSeith]

I think it depends on what kind of discussion we are talking about. For example: reviews and criticism aren't the same (a review can contain criticism, but criticism isn't necessarily a review). I think in criticism any topic is allowed (like how the heck the ship in Sinistar can survive full-speed front collisions against the planetoids!?), but reviews should still give helpful information (like that the aforementioned front collisions are part of the main gameplay mechanic).

 

[jamail77]

I want to say I should no better and that it should be apparent to me that the Escapist decided to ad their own flavor to get clicks, but The Escapist honestly has had a reputation of having a pretty hands-off management style with their three big names always saying that the Escapist pretty much lets them do what they want. [snip]

Anyway, always feel free to call me out if you think I've gotten out of hand. Legitimately I did not know all the facts here, and those facts had a big impact on my opinion here.

You're right, but when it comes to certain things, especially titles, The Escapist has gotten more hands-on recently. This doesn't have to be a bad thing necessarily because as John Keefer said they listen to writer (Shamus) and reader feedback.

*Raises hand*

I write the headlines for these columns (*ducks*). As for this headline, it was taken from the end of the third paragraph of the article (sans the Why). As for the the Mordor piece, Shamus specifically called the game Revenge Porn in his piece, although I take responsibility for the "nothing but" part, which gave an air of no redeeming features, and he and I discussed that after the fact. Finally, as for Yahtzee's Mordor vs. Alien Isolation headline, I totally dropped the ball on that one and plead mea culpa for not going to the core of the article on cinemas vs games.

I have told the columnists that if they have issues with any of my headlines, please let me know. I take them seriously, as I wrote headlines for newspapers back in the day. My philosophy still stands in that you want a headline to be interesting enough to make people WANT to read the story. I hate the term clickbait because I usually associate that with bait and switch dishonesty where the headline has NOTHING to do with the story other than to get you to click.

As for "original headline" versus new headline, that is a fallacy here. The Escapist has two separate headlines that we use for search and SEO purposes. The Search headline is the one you see in the URL and it is what Google sees when people search. The share headline is the one at the top of the story and usually asks a question or takes a point of view that the article is expected to answer. So you will always see two headlines to a story, one in the URL and one at the top.

I've always said I am accessible to our readers and writers. Quoting a response from me alerts me (through the forums) that you may be asking me a question, but PM directly me if you have issues or questions.

Keef

I appreciate that allowance. It's not that I was afraid to call you out; it's just with your follow up post I thought to myself that I might have jumped the gun unfairly. Good to know you took it in stride.

 

[Kameburger]

But I really hope that in light of that, I would really hope that the Escapist look at the role it played in this. I could barely read the Mordor article without the spiteful tone of the headline infecting every sentence.

-snip-

*Raises hand*

I write the headlines for these columns (*ducks*). As for this headline, it was taken from the end of the third paragraph of the article (sans the Why). As for the the Mordor piece, Shamus specifically called the game Revenge Porn in his piece, although I take responsibility for the "nothing but" part, which gave an air of no redeeming features, and he and I discussed that after the fact. Finally, as for Yahtzee's Mordor vs. Alien Isolation headline, I totally dropped the ball on that one and plead mea culpa for not going to the core of the article on cinemas vs games.

I have told the columnists that if they have issues with any of my headlines, please let me know. I take them seriously, as I wrote headlines for newspapers back in the day. My philosophy still stands in that you want a headline to be interesting enough to make people WANT to read the story. I hate the term clickbait because I usually associate that with bait and switch dishonesty where the headline has NOTHING to do with the story other than to get you to click.

As for "original headline" versus new headline, that is a fallacy here. The Escapist has two separate headlines that we use for search and SEO purposes. The Search headline is the one you see in the URL and it is what Google sees when people search. The share headline is the one at the top of the story and usually asks a question or takes a point of view that the article is expected to answer. So you will always see two headlines to a story, one in the URL and one at the top.

I've always said I am accessible to our readers and writers. Quoting a response from me alerts me (through the forums) that you may be asking me a question, but PM directly me if you have issues or questions.

Keef

So sorry! Lol I really feel like quite the monster. These days with everything taken into account the gaming world has been a bit tense, so that may have contributed, but I guess it was more so that those kind of titles seemed a bit out of character from some of Shamus' previous articles. I mean I always felt the angle of these columns was that his expertise gave him an ability of sorts to tell the story from a dev point of view. After going back and re-reading the articles they weren't so extreme, but I think the blow back might have been from the title which is why I was a bit concerned. (Also I should mention I never read the comments of the first too so I don't really know how extreme the comments got, but I assume since this article exists it got pretty bad.)

Anyway Thank you for responding, that was pretty cool.

 

[Callate]

Ngeh...

Shamus is absolutely right that there needs to be a space to discuss games, and while it pains my heart a little to hear him talk about "rotten poison to cool-headed discussion", he's right about that, too- at least in the context of discussion.

But he's also right that decisions are being made on the basis of the reviews of a relatively small pool of critics, and (me here, not Shamus) some of those critics are neither doing a good job nor taking their responsibilities very seriously. And while the critics might start some discussions (or a round of insult-flinging and worse), most aren't really participating in them in a real way. Mostly, they're writing their reviews and moving on, for better or worse.

The Metacritic score for "Shadow of Middle Earth" for PS4 is based on 84 critics reviews- a pool for which they have to collect scores from Italian, German, and Spanish-language sites (among others) to round out. By contrast, the new movie Interstellar has 130 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes without breaking a sweat, and it hasn't been out even half as long.

I've been repeating myself a lot here, but flatly: Maybe there really ought to be more of a boundary between reporting, editorializing, and reviewing. There absolutely needs to be discussion- but that discussion isn't something you can just drop haphazardly wherever you want. I'm tired of seeing editorials that back themselves up by citing other editorials. I'm not pretending reviews are ever going to be absolutely "objective", but I don't need to read some college dropout's manifesto in the guise of a review. And if something that's occurring is a pattern, by all means, point it out- but for God's sake, don't take another twenty articles all pointing to the same event as proof of a pattern.

Not even just game journalism, frankly- all journalism. Flip through the cable dial some time and see if you can overcome your urge to throw up.

 

[Darkness665]

Shamus, another good read as usual.

As mentioned by RL Dalton, this is a game I would have been angry with paying full price for. Yahtzee put the 'not worth $60' bug in my bonnet, as did a few others, Shamus made the issues clear to me. Using Tolkien as a hook, a tie in or just something to put on the box is also irritating. While not a driveling fan of Tolkien finding that it wasn't really connected would have been disappointing. Now, eh so what? It's not like I am going to pay full price for it.

If the game was 80-90% nemesis system AND you didn't have to empty the poor orc to command him, thus killing any future contribution from him, it would have been a good game. Maybe even a great one. Now, it is a game that will wait for a sale.

God Lord, somebody (John Keefer) at the Escapist actually said they do something. The world is doomed. Of course, we might survive if the titles to the articles made sense. As it is now, I avoid most articles on this site because of their click bait tendencies.