Sorry mate, I'd only buy your position when the media cycle in "gaming" becomes decoupled from profits/corporate incentive schemes.
Ideally it should be more decoupled than it is in movies.
Then "fainting couch" people can have their precious little arthouse community with game equivalent of weird arthouse movie crap a-la Melancholia, and I can enjoy my gory "messageless" 3d shooters.
As it stands (and weird opinions of people who seriously believe in "action game induced violence desensitization" or "The Division having a toxic social message affecting the youth" can have actual impact beyond "someone is upset on the internet, boo hoo"), these folks are not entirely harmless, and unlike you, they certainly aren't willing to have a garden where a thousand flower blooms (they are positively upset about the way The Division blooms)
Imma tell you right now that the way to decouple the media from corporate profits is not by making the media even more vanilla and voiceless. It is absolutely not the critics responsibility that publishers tie review scores to incentives, nor is it their problem that Metacritic boils the complexity of every review down to X/100.
Also I totally think there's a place for mindless games, but your open hostility towards anyone who wants to think about games is disturbing.
I mean, one recent parallel to look at here is being discussed right now in the Uncharted 4 thread.* A review in the Washington Post gave Uncharted 4 a score of 4/10, a game that is receiving almost universal praise right now (Metacritic 93 among professional reviewers, 7.8 among User Reviews... either way, they are both way higher than 4/10). There are a lot of defensive posts and declarations about "troll reviews", but I think that person's review is just as valid as anyone else's review. It doesn't matter if a game is critically acclaimed, SOMEONE out there isn't going to like it. It doesn't matter if a game totally sucks, SOMEONE out there is going to like it. And when you bring in more voices, even if you disagree with them, your point of view is enriched and expanded by the very nature of that act... I often find points that I never considered in reviews that I disagree with.
* Yes, we have places OTHER than the comments section for the comics. If you haven't ventured out of this Hub, you should join in on our community! Don't be a comments section warrior! One of us! One of us!
Troll reviews are perfectly fine too, btw.
Nothing inherently wrong or immoral in manufacturing satire via provocation.
And I'm not saying that "opinions disagreeing with OKAYEST should be extinguished with fire" )
Problem is that the industry is not yet in a place where those are "just, like, their opinions, man " (not sure even movie industry is really there, but it's sure closer), and people expressing a particular type of opinion (Division poisons minds with Toxic Ideas! Doom desensitizes people to mass murder! We need a Genre Reform and Gaming Corporate Social Responsibility!) can be leveraged by interested politicians.
Perhaps it's a bit harder to do now, given how all predictions about "negative" effects of violent games, detective shows, as well as various alleged social perils of pornography have systematically fallen flat on their metaphorical faces for many decades.
But it's not impossible. In fact, attempts to pull crap like this in my country (not first world. No, not telling, cause I can live without internet on my doorstep) are very recent, crap like this have been attempted in so-called "West" many times, and may very well be attempted again (don't forget that first amendment is a US-specific legal quirk and some people outside USA don't get to enjoy it)
* Yes, we have places OTHER than the comments section for the comics. If you haven't ventured out of this Hub, you should join in on our community! Don't be a comments section warrior! One of us! One of us!
I don't take much umbrage at people who feel that the types of entertainment products that I enjoy consuming (and my tastes are likely unconventional for a girl like me) are unpleasant or disturbing, as long as they just keep their preferences to themselves and go about enjoying stuff that they like while leaving me to enjoy stuff I like.
Sure, but why? Nobody has to keep their preferences to themselves. We can say they're obnoxious (they often are) misguided (also) etc, but they have the right to do it, and I have the right to ignore them.
I don't take much umbrage at people who feel that the types of entertainment products that I enjoy consuming (and my tastes are likely unconventional for a girl like me) are unpleasant or disturbing, as long as they just keep their preferences to themselves and go about enjoying stuff that they like while leaving me to enjoy stuff I like.
Sure, but why? Nobody has to keep their preferences to themselves. We can say they're obnoxious (they often are) misguided (also) etc, but they have the right to do it, and I have the right to ignore them.
Okay, fair.
Was not the best way to put it.
I don't mind those people voicing their opinions as long as I am neither obliged to be their audience (can just read something else) nor am running the risk of my favorite devs being negatively affected, or, worse yet, some populist political creep picking up their (scientifically unsubstantiated) claims about "toxic media effects" or "violence effects" or what have you and trying to force some kind of batshit media restrictions (fun fact: some jurisdictions still ban "violent" games. Based on no sound evidence whatsoever)
I realize the later thing might seem like paranoid ideation to American readers who have various free-speech groups ready to fight red in tooth and doller (and boy will they need a lot of latter) for the first amendment, but there are jurisdictions where "an obscure and largely discredited western man Anderson made a claim about violence against pixels on screen so it must be Truth" is a valid political platform, and where there is no such thing as "constitutionally protected speech".
So I guess I'll only be able to partake in "it's just, like, yet another opinion" nonchalance when my immigration plans come to fruition.
As it stands, I will take some umbrage at their "just like opinions", proportionally to the degree they go against my opinions and, yes, my interests (and my interests do include entertainment forms I enjoy, small as that may seem).
Frankly, I think it's a fair way to handle disagreement, not like I'm calling for them to be shot into the sun out of a huge cannon, or something
I think you are going to have to be more specific as to exactly what critical piece offensive to you was used in a manner to actually pass legislation. That's the thing I have the hardest time believing, in any country. "I found this article on the Internet, so I'm going to pass a law" doesn't sound right. Most politicians use scientific papers or studies rather than art critiques.
EDIT: And even if this DID happen, that's on your country and its politics, not on the person who wrote the critique or review. "My country sucks, so these people shouldn't write reviews offensive to me because it would harm my interests because my country sucks". Sure, it sucks that your country's politics sucks. A handful of reviews are still not going to stop GTA V or The Division from selling a bazillion copies and making a bazillion dollars.
EDIT: Changed "Silenced these voices" to something a little less imaginative.
Man, remember when The Division/GTA V didn't sell a huge amount of copies because of that one reviewer?
I don't either.
Maybe pick a better example?
Also remember when despite there apparently being reviews about The Division glorifying authoritarian regimes (or something. I haven't read them. All I know is the game had a handy Objective Morality Indicator, where anything I could shoot was an evil criminal preying on innocent civilians, and anything I could not shoot was good), 99% of the articles about it were about how it was either a) a really fun game with great gunplay, b) a game with garbage itemization, thin endgame content, and rampant cheating and exploits.
Or both.
I think you are going to have to be more specific as to exactly what critical piece offensive to you was used in a manner to actually pass legislation. That's the thing I have the hardest time believing, in any country. "I found this article on the Internet, so I'm going to pass a law" doesn't sound right. Most politicians use scientific papers or studies rather than art critiques.
Well, in places where you need actual evidence to pass media restrictions, game bans/porn bans have no chance to actually come about.
The bar is, to the best of my knowledge, much lower than "evidence based governance" ideal even in "civilized" countries (various crappy "me too" sorta-kinda-science a-la Malamuth's porn studies or Anderson's violence studies have gone surprisingly far even in so-called "west", and much farther outside of it), and my reference to Anderson was supposed to indicate my primary concern is with crappy me-too-science academic claims first and foremost.
I do agree that someone actually managing to leverage GD Martin's verbiage to organize a political effort for "culling" the allegedly "toxic" and "proto-fascist" games like The Division from public consumption is almost impossible in the west and not very likely around here...
...but his claims are not fundamentally different from more "academic-y" claims made by the non-fine un-gentlepeople mentioned above (who had credentials, and at some point even some authority that was worth writing home about), and thus I can definitely see some variant of his "bad fascist games teach kids bad values" bullshit gaining academic traction, given some bad luck and political attention.
I don't take much umbrage at people who feel that the types of entertainment products that I enjoy consuming (and my tastes are likely unconventional for a girl like me) are unpleasant or disturbing, as long as they just keep their preferences to themselves and go about enjoying stuff that they like while leaving me to enjoy stuff I like.
Sure, but why? Nobody has to keep their preferences to themselves. We can say they're obnoxious (they often are) misguided (also) etc, but they have the right to do it, and I have the right to ignore them.
But calling certain review pieces silly or obtuse on internet forums is an act of hostility that warrants reminders of human rights? For as inconsequential as critical pieces might be, anonymous internet comments are even less significant. We can all agree that no one's words should be banished from the internet, obvious legal exceptions aside.
Also remember when despite there apparently being reviews about The Division glorifying authoritarian regimes (or something. I haven't read them. All I know is the game had a handy Objective Morality Indicator, where anything I could shoot was an evil criminal preying on innocent civilians, and anything I could not shoot was good), 99% of the articles about it were about how it was either a) a really fun game with great gunplay, b) a game with garbage itemization, thin endgame content, and rampant cheating and exploits.
Or both.
From what I recall the game did allow you to shoot unarmed civilians and other agents in the PvP area, and all the enemies in the game would shoot you first on-sight. Also stray dogs could be shot, which is the worst of crimes
Extra Credits also did a pretty good episode on the Division, though they did describe the enemies as "minor criminals", which just means that Ubisoft didn't leave enough audio recordings around featuring the rioters talking about killing kids.
And I mean, for me, Doom seems a particularly terrible game to try and draw a line in the sand about.
The -vast- majority of reviews I've seen, especially from the reviewers that I am certain many people are thinking about when they rail against the 'fainting couch psychopaths', have been overwhelmingly, glowingly positive. People love Doom. People love the over-the-top ultra violence of Doom.
It's a fun game that embraces the fact that is a shooter-ass shooter. Even more so than Wolfenstein: The New Order, which was -also- pretty universally lauded.
I don't take much umbrage at people who feel that the types of entertainment products that I enjoy consuming (and my tastes are likely unconventional for a girl like me) are unpleasant or disturbing, as long as they just keep their preferences to themselves and go about enjoying stuff that they like while leaving me to enjoy stuff I like.
Sure, but why? Nobody has to keep their preferences to themselves. We can say they're obnoxious (they often are) misguided (also) etc, but they have the right to do it, and I have the right to ignore them.
But calling certain review pieces silly or obtuse on internet forums is an act of hostility that warrants reminders of human rights? For as inconsequential as critical pieces might be, anonymous internet comments are even less significant. We can all agree that no one's words should be banished from the internet, obvious legal exceptions aside.
Word.
Like I said, I'm not calling for "those reviewer guys" to be "banned from the internet" (is it even possible?) or somehow harmed.
I'm just a girl vociferously disagreeing with the views of "those reviewer guys" on the internet, not a Bond villain with an orbital death laser and a score to settle.
I don't take much umbrage at people who feel that the types of entertainment products that I enjoy consuming (and my tastes are likely unconventional for a girl like me) are unpleasant or disturbing, as long as they just keep their preferences to themselves and go about enjoying stuff that they like while leaving me to enjoy stuff I like.
Sure, but why? Nobody has to keep their preferences to themselves. We can say they're obnoxious (they often are) misguided (also) etc, but they have the right to do it, and I have the right to ignore them.
But calling certain review pieces silly or obtuse on internet forums is an act of hostility that warrants reminders of human rights? For as inconsequential as critical pieces might be, anonymous internet comments are even less significant. We can all agree that no one's words should be banished from the internet, obvious legal exceptions aside.
Word.
Like I said, I'm not calling for "those reviewer guys" to be "banned from the internet" (is it even possible?) or somehow harmed.
I'm just a girl vociferously disagreeing with the views of "those reviewer guys" on the internet, not a Bond villain with an orbital death laser and a score to settle.
You are also claiming that such reviewers are actively harmful to our hobby, which is another point of disagreement. I think the video game industry can take it. It's a big boy/girl now.
Hahnsoo1 on
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Sadly, just ignoring those sites won't work because metacritic is a thing and in many cases developer pay is affected by metacritic score.
This allows fainting couch psychopaths, pretentious "big issue" critics and pseudoscience peddlers (and cultivation theory is pretty much pseudoscience, what with its falsifiability issues and overall theoretical framework fragility) to inflict remarkable and disproportionate influence upon the industry.
As a developer, I have to ask - what's a 'fainting couch psychopath'? Or a pretentious 'big issue' critic?
What are some concrete examples of reviews where they've drastically dropped the score of a game?
Well, for cases of both "fainting coach psychopath" and "pretentious big issue critic", look no further than Ed Smith's GTA V review or (even better) the utterly absurd attempts to ascribe some kind of uncanny political message to The Division, including but not limited to reviews by Phil Owen and GD Martin (because dear dog, if we chose to read uncanny, antihumanitarian, borderline fascist politics into The Division, what will we have to conclude regarding people willingly choosing to represent Zerg Swarm in Starcraft or Strogg in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, let alone about developers who allow their games to have such options :twisted: )
I read that Ed Smith GTA V review; it's a strong reaction to elements that are undoubtedly in that game.
The Division's fascist politics are, of course, completely obvious. It's attempts to pretend they aren't there that are absurd.
You are also claiming that such reviewers are actively harmful to our hobby, which is another point of disagreement. I think the video game industry can take it. It's a big boy/girl now.
Well, I'm not so sure whether my position really involves the "actively" bit.
If not for this whole weird mechanism that connects bullshit like metacritic score (and their methodology is closed-source "secret sauce" obscurantist bullshit) with things that can impact devs, we (or at least you ) would be way closer to a world where their opinion is, well, just an opinion of some guys on the internet.
And I guess a lot of it is a difference in jurisdictional perspective. To someone from a strong-free-speech-protections place, the idea that a moral panic may, in the 21st century, significantly cripple an entertainment medium is likely seen as way far fetched even science-fictional.
To me, it is a very very small - but entirely realistic - concern (think "hit by lightning" level of concern. It's an unlikely way to die - but entirely plausible)
The Division's fascist politics are, of course, completely obvious. It's attempts to pretend they aren't there that are absurd.
Hahaha, and here we have a solid argument that is grounded in evidence
In that case, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars "obviously" carries a morally nihilistic, H-minus posthumanist, anti-humanitarian agenda, and attempts to pretend it doesn't are "absurd"
P.S.: maybe I should start writing reviews about hidden political agendas of games? Seems pretty easy :hydra:
I'm not sure why anyone should be mad at reviewers for meta critic reviews when its not their fault that the industry in certain ways ties some bonus reward to them. Isn't that a problem with the industry/publisher side?
You are also claiming that such reviewers are actively harmful to our hobby, which is another point of disagreement. I think the video game industry can take it. It's a big boy/girl now.
Well, I'm not so sure whether my position really involves the "actively" bit.
If not for this whole weird mechanism that connects bullshit like metacritic score (and their methodology is closed-source "secret sauce" obscurantist bullshit) with things that can impact devs, we (or at least you ) would be way closer to a world where their opinion is, well, just an opinion of some guys on the internet.
The Division's fascist politics are, of course, completely obvious. It's attempts to pretend they aren't there that are absurd.
Hahaha, that's a solid, argument that is grounded in evidence.
In that case, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars "obviously" carries a morally nihilistic, H-minus posthumanist, anti-humanitarian agenda, and attempts to pretend it doesn't are "absurd"
As a developer, I'd like to request that you please stop using the fact that some publishers tie bonuses to Metacritic reviews as a bludgeon against reviewers.
It is absolutely, 100% not the fault of anyone but the publishers (and, to a degree, Metacritic) that this is the situation at hand. No reviewer has a moral responsibility to consider shitty publishing agreements when writing a review.
And again - what's a 'fainting couch psychopath' review that has actually, manifestly affected a game's Metacritic score? Because the best examples of this I can find are still positive reviews, just ones that also bring up larger points or concerns. 90% with a caveat 'this game doesn't handle Y respectfully' is STILL a 90%, and this idea that the 'moral crusaders' are tanking Metacritic scores is one that I've yet to see any actual evidence of, and feels a lot like a strawman to lend more weight to a dislike of games in a larger ethical conversation beyond 'I just don't like it'.
Games with poor review scores are usually games with poor review scores across the board, not games that would otherwise do supremely well if it weren't for people giving them a 3/10 because they had some ethical concerns with them.
If you actually played The Division, you'd know the game ends up having you question your methods of "getting NY back".
In the end, what our discussion comes from is the point in the comic, that iD felt no obligation to any reviewers to grant them free game codes, Tycho uses that to take a jab at the specific kind of reviewer that likes over-analyze something as simple as "shooting demons from hell".
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
In that case, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars "obviously" carries a morally nihilistic, H-minus posthumanist, anti-humanitarian agenda, and attempts to pretend it doesn't are "absurd"
I kind of doubt it. It's not in a modern setting, the opposing factions aren't based on real social groups, there probably isn't as much player lionization because the world isn't as persistent.
P.S.: maybe I should start writing reviews about hidden political agendas of games? Seems pretty easy
Good writing of any kind is hard. But sure, you (and anyone else) can and should write about the perceived political messages in media you consume if you really want to. Everything is political, after all.
As a developer, I'd like to request that you please stop using the fact that some publishers tie bonuses to Metacritic reviews as a bludgeon against reviewers.
It is absolutely, 100% not the fault of anyone but the publishers (and, to a degree, Metacritic) that this is the situation at hand. No reviewer has a moral responsibility to consider shitty publishing agreements when writing a review.
Well, my position is that, as a matter of fact, they aren't just guys harmlessly voicing their highly speculative opinions on "media effects" and shit whatnot on the internet, not that there exists some kind of moral obligation about anything by anyone.
BTW what are the games you work(ed) on (I rarely get to argue with gamedevs online, so wheeeeee, I guess )
RE: 'couch fainting reviews', I suppose the one that comes to my mind would be Polygon's review of Bayonetta 2. In which Arthur Gies had nothing but praise for the gameplay and graphics, but docked it down to a 7.5 due to the sexualization of the main character. Although it was hard to discern whether it was the quality of the sexualization he took issue with, or the context, or if he believed it was making a statement about women in general, or if he just took a moral issue with including sexualized content in a game in the first place. These are all perfectly valid opinions to have, but his stance could have been explained better, as shown by all the comments generated demanding to know why it was bad and if he just hated porn or whatever (he doesn't).
I kind of doubt it. It's not in a modern setting, the opposing factions aren't based on real social groups, there probably isn't as much player lionization because the world isn't as persistent.
I see no particular reason why a "modern" setting or a recognizable parallel to any existent group is necessary to ascribe a broadly antihumanist and/or nihilist agenda to a product.
(EDIT: alternatively, I could even accuse Quake and Quake Wars of demonizing and caricaturing transhumanists, an actually existing, if verily "exotic", group of people, and said "demonization" would be about as "obvious" as alleged "fascism" of The Division)
Good writing of any kind is hard. But sure, you (and anyone else) can and should write about the perceived political messages in media you consume if you really want to. Everything is political, after all.
Define "manifestly" (because that weird-o Uncharted review sure had a quantifiable effect)
I don't think that a 93 Metacritic score is something to be ashamed about. If it had docked down to a 40 somehow, sure. Since it is an average, and there are many samples, one outlier really didn't affect the overall score much. Not that Naughty Dog has anything to fear about Uncharted being a megahit or Metacritic in general (being a first party studio).
I kind of doubt it. It's not in a modern setting, the opposing factions aren't based on real social groups, there probably isn't as much player lionization because the world isn't as persistent.
I see no particular reason why a "modern" setting or a recognizable parallel to any existent group is necessary to ascribe a broadly antihumanist and/or nihilist agenda to a product.
Well, does the game ask the player to identify and agree with characters who have such an agenda, or implicitly assume that they will by default?
RE: 'couch fainting reviews', I suppose the one that comes to my mind would be Polygon's review of Bayonetta 2. In which Arthur Gies had nothing but praise for the gameplay and graphics, but docked it down to a 7.5 due to the sexualization of the main character. Although it was hard to discern whether it was the quality of the sexualization he took issue with, or the context, or if he believed it was making a statement about women in general, or if he just took a moral issue with including sexualized content in a game in the first place. These are all perfectly valid opinions to have, but his stance could have been explained better, as shown by all the comments generated demanding to know why it was bad and if he just hated porn or whatever (he doesn't).
This comes down to the fact that games (and art reviews in general) would be better served by removing arbitrary numerical judgements because numbers mean different things to different people. This is best seen by people who whip themselves into a frenzy when a game gets a 5 or 6 even though, according to the reviewer itself, that is average or slightly above so. Like, is a 7.5 that bad? Even if we go by a scholastic grade scale, that's still average at worst.
Like...what is the penalty for misogyny? Two points? A letter grade? If a game plays mechanically superbly but is a blatantly misogynistic piece of work played without a hint of irony, then most people wouldn't play it! Likewise, a truly brilliant story that has unintentional horrible controls and is also laden with bugs would likely suffer in score as well. This is why numerical systems don't really work out because games aren't like your chemistry grade where there are specific categories and fulfilling the expectations of each guarantees you a specific overall score.
But since reviewing is at the mercy of aggregate sites like Metacritic, which in turn exists because publishers prefer plastering high numbers and stars on a box, it's just kind of a crap thing we have to live with. I feel like if Gies had no score attached to his review, then people wouldn't have cared nearly as much.
I kind of doubt it. It's not in a modern setting, the opposing factions aren't based on real social groups, there probably isn't as much player lionization because the world isn't as persistent.
I see no particular reason why a "modern" setting or a recognizable parallel to any existent group is necessary to ascribe a broadly antihumanist and/or nihilist agenda to a product.
Well, does the game ask the player to identify and agree with characters who have such an agenda, or implicitly assume that they will by default?
Well, that's frankly impossible to determine.
Did I identify with The Division's, well, Division more than with Enemy Territory's Stroggs?
No.
(and as already pointed out by Satsumomo above, The Division does make you question your choices and methods, unlike ET which doesn't even have enough of a narrative skeleton to afford such shenanigans)
This is, frankly, a discussion about meaningfulness of "faces in places" perceptive phenomenon.
Perceiving an ulterior ideological agenda in either of these games is just sheer apophenia.
However, assertion that this ulterior motive is in any way successful, that is, that there exist a negative social effect to Division's alleged ideological shenanigans, that it is somehow meaningfully "toxic", strikes me as a profoundly empirical claim, one made without a shred of evidence (EDIT: and uncannily similar to other claims made about peril of different entertainment forms without a shred of evidence)
However, assertion that this ulterior motive is in any way successful, that is, that there exist a negative social effect to Division's alleged ideological shenanigans, that it is somehow meaningfully "toxic", strikes me as a profoundly empirical claim, one made without a shred of evidence
Dude you're arguing that art doesn't affect people.
However, assertion that this ulterior motive is in any way successful, that is, that there exist a negative social effect to Division's alleged ideological shenanigans, that it is somehow meaningfully "toxic", strikes me as a profoundly empirical claim, one made without a shred of evidence
Dude you're arguing that art doesn't affect people.
e: iirc, this Extra Credits episode has a pretty good explanation of how this sort of thing works.
1) Dude, I'm not a dude
2) I'm a huge fan of the null hypothesis (and would like to use this opportunity to plug Meredith Patterson's exciting, if old, medium article on the thorny matter of null hypothesis and apophenias), and I'm sorry, but material in youtube video in question is not solid enough to make me reconsider.
I mean, it even brings up the whole rusty-crusty America's Army "controversy" (Was it ever, you know, empirically proven to improve recruitment rate? Retention? Any other metric US Mil cares about? Because as far as I can see, no evidence for it having any of the (admittedly intended) effects is available, and this whole affair was a waste of tax dollars*)
3) what I'm arguing is that claims about alleged negative social effects are empirical claims that have to be backed by high quality evidence, not vaguely sorta maybe notreally kinda plausible speculations and shrill moral panics
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* not that I care. Ah, not caring about US taxpayer money, the little joy of not being a US citizen.
RE: 'couch fainting reviews', I suppose the one that comes to my mind would be Polygon's review of Bayonetta 2. In which Arthur Gies had nothing but praise for the gameplay and graphics, but docked it down to a 7.5 due to the sexualization of the main character. Although it was hard to discern whether it was the quality of the sexualization he took issue with, or the context, or if he believed it was making a statement about women in general, or if he just took a moral issue with including sexualized content in a game in the first place. These are all perfectly valid opinions to have, but his stance could have been explained better, as shown by all the comments generated demanding to know why it was bad and if he just hated porn or whatever (he doesn't).
This comes down to the fact that games (and art reviews in general) would be better served by removing arbitrary numerical judgements because numbers mean different things to different people. This is best seen by people who whip themselves into a frenzy when a game gets a 5 or 6 even though, according to the reviewer itself, that is average or slightly above so. Like, is a 7.5 that bad? Even if we go by a scholastic grade scale, that's still average at worst.
Like...what is the penalty for misogyny? Two points? A letter grade? If a game plays mechanically superbly but is a blatantly misogynistic piece of work played without a hint of irony, then most people wouldn't play it! Likewise, a truly brilliant story that has unintentional horrible controls and is also laden with bugs would likely suffer in score as well. This is why numerical systems don't really work out because games aren't like your chemistry grade where there are specific categories and fulfilling the expectations of each guarantees you a specific overall score.
But since reviewing is at the mercy of aggregate sites like Metacritic, which in turn exists because publishers prefer plastering high numbers and stars on a box, it's just kind of a crap thing we have to live with. I feel like if Gies had no score attached to his review, then people wouldn't have cared nearly as much.
Yeah, the scoring system does kind of put on onus on people to constantly clarify just how subjective the scores are. Giantbomb does this pretty often, stating that their 5-star system is nothing more than a "gut feeling", and as a result there isn't as much fuss about their scores. Youtube personalities espouse niche and wild opinions all the time without generating much controversy because they make it painfully transparent where they're coming from. Dressing down their own credibility
The debate on whether or not the morality of a work should factor into a review has been debated in film and academic circles for decades, and it seems to boil down to a reader preference. In any case, these slapfights speculating over a critic's moral considerations usually don't happen when it's made clear. Even if it's in the form of "these angles are supposed to be sexy but they just don't do anything for me", as opposed to the more obtuse version: "the wardrobe choices are problematic"
Dude you're arguing that art doesn't affect people.
There's a pretty big gulf between "The Division doesn't tangibly change anyone's opinion towards rioters, union workers, inmates, and private-sector militias" and "art doesn't affect people".
I've played it with my preteen cousins and even they were making fun of the game's setting. Such as why no one thinks to use any of the cars in the game.
However, assertion that this ulterior motive is in any way successful, that is, that there exist a negative social effect to Division's alleged ideological shenanigans, that it is somehow meaningfully "toxic", strikes me as a profoundly empirical claim, one made without a shred of evidence
Dude you're arguing that art doesn't affect people.
e: iirc, this Extra Credits episode has a pretty good explanation of how this sort of thing works.
1) Dude, I'm not a dude
2) I'm a huge fan of the null hypothesis (and would like to use this opportunity to plug Meredith Patterson's exciting, if old, medium article on the thorny matter of null hypothesis and apophenias), and I'm sorry, but material in youtube video in question is not solid enough to make me reconsider.
I mean, it even brings up the whole rusty-crusty America's Army "controversy" (Was it ever, you know, empirically proven to improve recruitment rate? Retention? Any other metric US Mil cares about? Because as far as I can see, no evidence for it having any of the (admittedly intended) effects is available, and this whole affair was a waste of tax dollars*)
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* not that I care. Ah, not caring about US taxpayer money, the little joy of not being a US citizen.
I'd like to get a yes or no answer to the question of whether you feel art can affect people.
I'm having a hard time actually understanding what Okayest wants reviews to be. There's a lot of hand wringing about critique because she apparently lives in a place that censors games (Australia? Someplace else?), but beyond that it's difficult to discern what she thinks reviewers should/should not be doing and why.
I'd like to get a yes or no answer to the question of whether you feel art can affect people.
You're not going to get that, and your use of rude cornering tactics is noted
But, anyway, I am yet to see high-quality evidence of a directed and sustained "media effect".
Most are anecdotes or highly-fragile studies. The most commonly (and uncritically) accepted flagship case is "suicide contagion", which , for a flagship case, is riddled with silly low-quality research (Phillips, IIRC, counted deaths officially considered accidental as "actually, induced suicide" if they just so happened to fit "the profile", and Cialdini treats this kind of methodological shenanigan completely uncritically), and comical predictive failures of suicide contagion models (like case of Kurt Cobain which was widely expected to cause a wave of "media-induced" suicides and embarrassingly failed to deliver).
Is it hypothetically plausible that some game/movie/book might hypothetically have dangerous effects? As a purely speculative hypothesis, why not.
But I will, in case of every such claim being made about every media phenomenon (be it a game, a movie flick, a lewd jpeg, or even bizarre graffiti that looks like something straight out of SCP wiki), I will ask the claiming party to present high-quality evidence of the alleged perilous effects.
And unless they present said evidence, I will label their claims as unsubstantiated fear-mongering
Art can increase and decrease the viewer's heart rate depending on how entertaining it is, so the answer is "yes". That's an effect
What you mean to ask is "Does art inform, influence, or subvert our worldviews?". In most instances, no, but it depends on how much credibility the viewers project onto it. You can let a Hollywood movie tell you everything you care to know about a foreign country, or absolutely nothing at all. What we do know from the research is that all forms of art, propaganda, and advertising lose their efficacy over time, which forces the messengers to create new messages.
Whether or not a specific game changes someone's politics for the worse, or makes them more violent is a claim of tangible harm that would require some evidence. At least, I think so.
Whether or not a specific game changes someone's politics for the worse, or makes them more violent is a claim of tangible harm that would require some evidence. At least, I think so.
Posts
I don't either.
Maybe pick a better example?
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
Imma tell you right now that the way to decouple the media from corporate profits is not by making the media even more vanilla and voiceless. It is absolutely not the critics responsibility that publishers tie review scores to incentives, nor is it their problem that Metacritic boils the complexity of every review down to X/100.
Also I totally think there's a place for mindless games, but your open hostility towards anyone who wants to think about games is disturbing.
Troll reviews are perfectly fine too, btw.
Nothing inherently wrong or immoral in manufacturing satire via provocation.
And I'm not saying that "opinions disagreeing with OKAYEST should be extinguished with fire"
Problem is that the industry is not yet in a place where those are "just, like, their opinions, man
Perhaps it's a bit harder to do now, given how all predictions about "negative" effects of violent games, detective shows, as well as various alleged social perils of pornography have systematically fallen flat on their metaphorical faces for many decades.
But it's not impossible. In fact, attempts to pull crap like this in my country (not first world. No, not telling, cause I can live without internet on my doorstep) are very recent, crap like this have been attempted in so-called "West" many times, and may very well be attempted again (don't forget that first amendment is a US-specific legal quirk and some people outside USA don't get to enjoy it)
maybe I will, but hey, time constraints.
Sure, but why? Nobody has to keep their preferences to themselves. We can say they're obnoxious (they often are) misguided (also) etc, but they have the right to do it, and I have the right to ignore them.
Okay, fair.
Was not the best way to put it.
I don't mind those people voicing their opinions as long as I am neither obliged to be their audience (can just read something else) nor am running the risk of my favorite devs being negatively affected, or, worse yet, some populist political creep picking up their (scientifically unsubstantiated) claims about "toxic media effects" or "violence effects" or what have you and trying to force some kind of batshit media restrictions (fun fact: some jurisdictions still ban "violent" games. Based on no sound evidence whatsoever)
I realize the later thing might seem like paranoid ideation to American readers who have various free-speech groups ready to fight red in tooth and doller (and boy will they need a lot of latter) for the first amendment, but there are jurisdictions where "an obscure and largely discredited western man Anderson made a claim about violence against pixels on screen so it must be Truth" is a valid political platform, and where there is no such thing as "constitutionally protected speech".
So I guess I'll only be able to partake in "it's just, like, yet another opinion" nonchalance when my immigration plans come to fruition.
As it stands, I will take some umbrage at their "just like opinions", proportionally to the degree they go against my opinions and, yes, my interests (and my interests do include entertainment forms I enjoy, small as that may seem).
Frankly, I think it's a fair way to handle disagreement, not like I'm calling for them to be shot into the sun out of a huge cannon, or something
I don't think making unverifiable and unfalsifiable claims about a game's "toxicity" should really count as "thinking" except in most permissive sense
EDIT: And even if this DID happen, that's on your country and its politics, not on the person who wrote the critique or review. "My country sucks, so these people shouldn't write reviews offensive to me because it would harm my interests because my country sucks". Sure, it sucks that your country's politics sucks. A handful of reviews are still not going to stop GTA V or The Division from selling a bazillion copies and making a bazillion dollars.
EDIT: Changed "Silenced these voices" to something a little less imaginative.
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
Or both.
Well, in places where you need actual evidence to pass media restrictions, game bans/porn bans have no chance to actually come about.
The bar is, to the best of my knowledge, much lower than "evidence based governance" ideal even in "civilized" countries (various crappy "me too" sorta-kinda-science a-la Malamuth's porn studies or Anderson's violence studies have gone surprisingly far even in so-called "west", and much farther outside of it), and my reference to Anderson was supposed to indicate my primary concern is with crappy me-too-science academic claims first and foremost.
I do agree that someone actually managing to leverage GD Martin's verbiage to organize a political effort for "culling" the allegedly "toxic" and "proto-fascist" games like The Division from public consumption is almost impossible in the west and not very likely around here...
...but his claims are not fundamentally different from more "academic-y" claims made by the non-fine un-gentlepeople mentioned above (who had credentials, and at some point even some authority that was worth writing home about), and thus I can definitely see some variant of his "bad fascist games teach kids bad values" bullshit gaining academic traction, given some bad luck and political attention.
But calling certain review pieces silly or obtuse on internet forums is an act of hostility that warrants reminders of human rights? For as inconsequential as critical pieces might be, anonymous internet comments are even less significant. We can all agree that no one's words should be banished from the internet, obvious legal exceptions aside.
From what I recall the game did allow you to shoot unarmed civilians and other agents in the PvP area, and all the enemies in the game would shoot you first on-sight. Also stray dogs could be shot, which is the worst of crimes
Extra Credits also did a pretty good episode on the Division, though they did describe the enemies as "minor criminals", which just means that Ubisoft didn't leave enough audio recordings around featuring the rioters talking about killing kids.
Whoops, our bad lemme fix this.
The -vast- majority of reviews I've seen, especially from the reviewers that I am certain many people are thinking about when they rail against the 'fainting couch psychopaths', have been overwhelmingly, glowingly positive. People love Doom. People love the over-the-top ultra violence of Doom.
It's a fun game that embraces the fact that is a shooter-ass shooter. Even more so than Wolfenstein: The New Order, which was -also- pretty universally lauded.
Word.
Like I said, I'm not calling for "those reviewer guys" to be "banned from the internet" (is it even possible?) or somehow harmed.
I'm just a girl vociferously disagreeing with the views of "those reviewer guys" on the internet, not a Bond villain with an orbital death laser and a score to settle.
...wow that's a lot better. Good job!
The good old days were never that good, the present is never as bad as you think and the future isn't so bleak.
Why can't a good Doom game just be enough without complaining about kids who can't even play M rated games lol.
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
I read that Ed Smith GTA V review; it's a strong reaction to elements that are undoubtedly in that game.
The Division's fascist politics are, of course, completely obvious. It's attempts to pretend they aren't there that are absurd.
Well, I'm not so sure whether my position really involves the "actively" bit.
If not for this whole weird mechanism that connects bullshit like metacritic score (and their methodology is closed-source "secret sauce" obscurantist bullshit) with things that can impact devs, we (or at least you
And I guess a lot of it is a difference in jurisdictional perspective. To someone from a strong-free-speech-protections place, the idea that a moral panic may, in the 21st century, significantly cripple an entertainment medium is likely seen as way far fetched even science-fictional.
To me, it is a very very small - but entirely realistic - concern (think "hit by lightning" level of concern. It's an unlikely way to die - but entirely plausible)
Hahaha, and here we have a solid argument that is grounded in evidence
In that case, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars "obviously" carries a morally nihilistic, H-minus posthumanist, anti-humanitarian agenda, and attempts to pretend it doesn't are "absurd"
P.S.: maybe I should start writing reviews about hidden political agendas of games? Seems pretty easy :hydra:
As a developer, I'd like to request that you please stop using the fact that some publishers tie bonuses to Metacritic reviews as a bludgeon against reviewers.
It is absolutely, 100% not the fault of anyone but the publishers (and, to a degree, Metacritic) that this is the situation at hand. No reviewer has a moral responsibility to consider shitty publishing agreements when writing a review.
And again - what's a 'fainting couch psychopath' review that has actually, manifestly affected a game's Metacritic score? Because the best examples of this I can find are still positive reviews, just ones that also bring up larger points or concerns. 90% with a caveat 'this game doesn't handle Y respectfully' is STILL a 90%, and this idea that the 'moral crusaders' are tanking Metacritic scores is one that I've yet to see any actual evidence of, and feels a lot like a strawman to lend more weight to a dislike of games in a larger ethical conversation beyond 'I just don't like it'.
Games with poor review scores are usually games with poor review scores across the board, not games that would otherwise do supremely well if it weren't for people giving them a 3/10 because they had some ethical concerns with them.
In the end, what our discussion comes from is the point in the comic, that iD felt no obligation to any reviewers to grant them free game codes, Tycho uses that to take a jab at the specific kind of reviewer that likes over-analyze something as simple as "shooting demons from hell".
I kind of doubt it. It's not in a modern setting, the opposing factions aren't based on real social groups, there probably isn't as much player lionization because the world isn't as persistent.
Good writing of any kind is hard. But sure, you (and anyone else) can and should write about the perceived political messages in media you consume if you really want to. Everything is political, after all.
Well, my position is that, as a matter of fact, they aren't just guys harmlessly voicing their highly speculative opinions on "media effects" and shit whatnot on the internet, not that there exists some kind of moral obligation about anything by anyone.
BTW what are the games you work(ed) on (I rarely get to argue with gamedevs online, so wheeeeee, I guess
Define "manifestly" (because that weird-o Uncharted review sure had a quantifiable effect)
I see no particular reason why a "modern" setting or a recognizable parallel to any existent group is necessary to ascribe a broadly antihumanist and/or nihilist agenda to a product.
(EDIT: alternatively, I could even accuse Quake and Quake Wars of demonizing and caricaturing transhumanists, an actually existing, if verily "exotic", group of people, and said "demonization" would be about as "obvious" as alleged "fascism" of The Division)
If everything is political, then nothing is
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
I preferred the Yells at Cloud jpg and don't see why we need to change it
Well, does the game ask the player to identify and agree with characters who have such an agenda, or implicitly assume that they will by default?
Like...what is the penalty for misogyny? Two points? A letter grade? If a game plays mechanically superbly but is a blatantly misogynistic piece of work played without a hint of irony, then most people wouldn't play it! Likewise, a truly brilliant story that has unintentional horrible controls and is also laden with bugs would likely suffer in score as well. This is why numerical systems don't really work out because games aren't like your chemistry grade where there are specific categories and fulfilling the expectations of each guarantees you a specific overall score.
But since reviewing is at the mercy of aggregate sites like Metacritic, which in turn exists because publishers prefer plastering high numbers and stars on a box, it's just kind of a crap thing we have to live with. I feel like if Gies had no score attached to his review, then people wouldn't have cared nearly as much.
Well, that's frankly impossible to determine.
Did I identify with The Division's, well, Division more than with Enemy Territory's Stroggs?
No.
(and as already pointed out by Satsumomo above, The Division does make you question your choices and methods, unlike ET which doesn't even have enough of a narrative skeleton to afford such shenanigans)
This is, frankly, a discussion about meaningfulness of "faces in places" perceptive phenomenon.
Perceiving an ulterior ideological agenda in either of these games is just sheer apophenia.
However, assertion that this ulterior motive is in any way successful, that is, that there exist a negative social effect to Division's alleged ideological shenanigans, that it is somehow meaningfully "toxic", strikes me as a profoundly empirical claim, one made without a shred of evidence (EDIT: and uncannily similar to other claims made about peril of different entertainment forms without a shred of evidence)
e: iirc, this Extra Credits episode has a pretty good explanation of how this sort of thing works.
Yells at post that changed Yells at Cloud to Yells on Internet
WE'VE GONE TO DEEP EVERYONE USE THEIR TOTEMS
1) Dude, I'm not a dude
2) I'm a huge fan of the null hypothesis (and would like to use this opportunity to plug Meredith Patterson's exciting, if old, medium article on the thorny matter of null hypothesis and apophenias), and I'm sorry, but material in youtube video in question is not solid enough to make me reconsider.
I mean, it even brings up the whole rusty-crusty America's Army "controversy" (Was it ever, you know, empirically proven to improve recruitment rate? Retention? Any other metric US Mil cares about? Because as far as I can see, no evidence for it having any of the (admittedly intended) effects is available, and this whole affair was a waste of tax dollars*)
3) what I'm arguing is that claims about alleged negative social effects are empirical claims that have to be backed by high quality evidence, not vaguely sorta maybe notreally kinda plausible speculations and shrill moral panics
_______
* not that I care. Ah, not caring about US taxpayer money, the little joy of not being a US citizen.
Yeah, the scoring system does kind of put on onus on people to constantly clarify just how subjective the scores are. Giantbomb does this pretty often, stating that their 5-star system is nothing more than a "gut feeling", and as a result there isn't as much fuss about their scores. Youtube personalities espouse niche and wild opinions all the time without generating much controversy because they make it painfully transparent where they're coming from. Dressing down their own credibility
The debate on whether or not the morality of a work should factor into a review has been debated in film and academic circles for decades, and it seems to boil down to a reader preference. In any case, these slapfights speculating over a critic's moral considerations usually don't happen when it's made clear. Even if it's in the form of "these angles are supposed to be sexy but they just don't do anything for me", as opposed to the more obtuse version: "the wardrobe choices are problematic"
There's a pretty big gulf between "The Division doesn't tangibly change anyone's opinion towards rioters, union workers, inmates, and private-sector militias" and "art doesn't affect people".
I've played it with my preteen cousins and even they were making fun of the game's setting. Such as why no one thinks to use any of the cars in the game.
You're not going to get that, and your use of rude cornering tactics is noted
But, anyway, I am yet to see high-quality evidence of a directed and sustained "media effect".
Most are anecdotes or highly-fragile studies. The most commonly (and uncritically) accepted flagship case is "suicide contagion", which , for a flagship case, is riddled with silly low-quality research (Phillips, IIRC, counted deaths officially considered accidental as "actually, induced suicide" if they just so happened to fit "the profile", and Cialdini treats this kind of methodological shenanigan completely uncritically), and comical predictive failures of suicide contagion models (like case of Kurt Cobain which was widely expected to cause a wave of "media-induced" suicides and embarrassingly failed to deliver).
Is it hypothetically plausible that some game/movie/book might hypothetically have dangerous effects? As a purely speculative hypothesis, why not.
But I will, in case of every such claim being made about every media phenomenon (be it a game, a movie flick, a lewd jpeg, or even bizarre graffiti that looks like something straight out of SCP wiki), I will ask the claiming party to present high-quality evidence of the alleged perilous effects.
And unless they present said evidence, I will label their claims as unsubstantiated fear-mongering
What you mean to ask is "Does art inform, influence, or subvert our worldviews?". In most instances, no, but it depends on how much credibility the viewers project onto it. You can let a Hollywood movie tell you everything you care to know about a foreign country, or absolutely nothing at all. What we do know from the research is that all forms of art, propaganda, and advertising lose their efficacy over time, which forces the messengers to create new messages.
Whether or not a specific game changes someone's politics for the worse, or makes them more violent is a claim of tangible harm that would require some evidence. At least, I think so.
Bingo.
Internet hugs.
Give this person a cigar and a car