Game reviews are NOT subjective opinion

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Steve Butts

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That's ridiculous. We're not doing crash tests on cars or performing an ISO 9000 audit. Games are meant to entertain us and since that involves our personal tastes and preferences, it's impossible to assume that everyone would see things the same way.

The problem is that we're assuming it has to be one or the other. A review is neither exclusively objective OR subjective. A review is actually a subjective interpretation of a game's value, when supported by an objective view of the elements within the game.

There is an objective, often technical reality to every game -- combat balance, graphics and physics engines, network code, etc. but there's also a substantial subjective side. Are the raw materials, the objective reality of the game, arranged in a way that's interesting and engaging? As soon as you ask that question, you've brought your personal point of view into things.

A good reviewer corrects for his or her own biases, but the reader also has a responsibility to determine where his or her own opinion differs from the reviewer's. Let's take an example: The strategy game Hearts of Iron has numerous small details that create many options. That's an objective statement, but by itself it means very little. Now, I think the depth adds to the game, but other gamers find it tedious and unsatisfying. There's no way for me to present a clear reason why the depth adds to the game without venturing into the territory of opinion.

The trick is to keep the opinion grounded in the objective facts of the game. "The depth is enjoyable because one small decision can have long-lasting, far-reaching effects." Or "...because it makes you feel like you're leading a real country." Or "...because you can adapt the game to your own play style." But if what comes after the "because" isn't particularly compelling for you personally, well, you now have a clearer context for the review.
 

dvd_72

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Fearzone said:
So, whenever a reviewer pans a game, then gets slapped around by the fan boys, we hear the same thing every time: "hey, it's my opinion, it's only my opinion, and my opinion is my opinion, so that that, and I can write whatever I want."

I beg to differ.

Scoring, or rating, is NOT a matter of opinion. It is a matter of judging according to standards. There is some subjectivity in this, but it needs to strive for objectivity. If you are scoring a diving competition, and on one dive, instead of a double flip swan dive, a guy wearing a clown suit grabs his ankles and does a belly flop, well one of the judges might think that is the funniest thing in the world, but he would be wrong to give the dive a 10/10 just because he likes it. Likewise, if someone executes the dive perfectly, he cannot give it a 5/10 because the last four divers did the same thing and the diver who went last time was better looking.

Likewise, if a student in English class hands in a term paper with impeccable grammar and defends the thesis with flawless logic, the teacher cannot give it a D if he has disagreements with the conclusion. Well he could, but it would be wrong, and the teacher cannot say "hey, it's just my opinion, deal with it." One can't expect a person to alway be 100% objective in their scores, but it is unprofessional to hand out easy A's because a student hands in garbage that happens to agree with ones political views.

If Internet game reviewers want respect, they need to hold themselves to some level of objective critique. This is a matter of basic professionalism.

I have news for game reviewers: nobody cares what YOU subjectively think about a game. What readers care about is what WE think of the game. We read these to come to an informed conclusion about a game before we spend money on it. We want to know if it would be our cup of tea if we were to play it. Not whether it is yours.

I support people freely expressing their opinions about any production, but I wouldn't call that a review. So, when companies get mad over really bad reviews, I think they might have a point. I think it is self-defeating for them to boycott the review site, and they should probably just roll with the punches--but I'm also tired of the weak comeback from reviewers that this is all just a matter of subjective opinion.
So basically you want reviewers to rate a games enjoyment, a wholly and completely subjective topic, in an objective way? Because from where I'm standing, that's physically impossable. One cannot take an objective view on a subjective matter because others will inevitibally disagree with the chosen score because the topic is, as state, subjective.

You're fighting a battle that cannot be won.
 

Cleariously

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Mar 25, 2011
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People are seriously arguing over this?

Subjective = Opinion
Objective = Fact

Eg. Bananas are nice <- subjective, opinion
Bananas are yellow <- objective, fact

When asking if something is good or not, there's never an objective answer. A review can say "This game has this mechanic" and be objective. But when they have to say whether it's good or not, that can only be opinion. They can only say what they think of it, they can't tell you if you will like it or not. They can say "I don't like it, but it works, and if you're into this sort of thing, knock yourself out," which I think is the point that most people are trying to make.
 

Busdriver580

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Dec 22, 2009
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I should direct your attention to this, i think it's the type of thing you're looking for:
http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml
 

WouldYouKindly

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Apr 17, 2011
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Are there standards and complete objectivity for movie critics? What about art critics? Games are entertainment, it's very hard to put standards to something everyone perceives differently. For instance, I hate popular game A. I don't care how objectively good you try to tell me it is, I'm still not going to like it.
 

HentMas

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Apr 17, 2009
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actually i think you are right, if they are going to approach the "reviews" with a score system, they have to make it objective, and leave the subjective side as an opinion, i mean in the end we can all have our opinion, but once its about grades our opinion should be secondary to set standards

then again i hate objective scoring, because it doesn´t really work with an art form like our media, similar to that scene in "Death Poet Society" where he reads something along the lines of "this poem follows the set of rules and bla bla bla making it a good poem" its all a bunch of bullocks you cant grade a poem, because its a subjective issue in itself.

that said, i want to state that this is my opinion, and is filled with flaws and mistakes based on what i know, my experiences and what i believe, i am entitled to it, you are welcome to debate it, but in the end its just my opinion
 

dyre

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Mar 30, 2011
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Cleariously said:
People are seriously arguing over this?

Subjective = Opinion
Objective = Fact

Eg. Bananas are nice <- subjective, opinion
Bananas are yellow <- objective, fact

When asking if something is good or not, there's never an objective answer. A review can say "This game has this mechanic" and be objective. But when they have to say whether it's good or not, that can only be opinion. They can only say what they think of it, they can't tell you if you will like it or not. They can say "I don't like it, but it works, and if you're into this sort of thing, knock yourself out," which I think is the point that most people are trying to make.
+1

I'm a little shocked how many people don't know what an opinion is, or think it's a bad thing to have one.
 

easternflame

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Nov 2, 2010
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I only read your post and I don't know if I'll be repeating (happens a lot) BUT if a review is based on STANDARDS and STANDARDS are based on opinions then Reviews are subjective to opinion. For example, Brink was awfully reviewed by many sites, others loved it, the escapist stood in the middle and if you read Funk's review, it's his opinion on the game based on what his standards are and his standards were between FP's and TF2 but in the end the review was an opinion, and my friend, they always are.
Cave Johnson, we're done here
 

Phlakes

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Mar 25, 2010
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Yes they are. Until every person on the planet is exactly the same, there are no standards.
 

Netrigan

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Sep 29, 2010
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Reviews are always opinion. There are some objective facts in the mix, such as Ryan Reynolds stars as Green Lantern, but whether he does a good or awful job in your eyes is completely subjective.

I give Duke Nukem Forever a pi out of fish.
 

josemlopes

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Jun 9, 2008
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I agree, they are being paid to professionaly rate the quality of a game, not to give their personal opinion.

My favorite game of all time: Timesplitters: Future Perfect, I would give it a solid 8 even though I love the game.
 

mjc0961

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Nov 30, 2009
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Fearzone said:
Game reviews are not the same thing as judging a diving competition or schoolwork. And your problem is the same as too many other people's when it comes to reviews: you're focusing too much on the utterly worthless score. Again, this isn't a competition or schoolwork: scores don't mean shit. The scores only work in school and competitions because all the judges or the teacher know exactly what criteria they should be rating by and all the students or contestants are also aware of this.

It doesn't work in reviews because every place that does reviews has their own scores and their own criteria for handing out those scores, making scores universally useless. Some places rate 1-10 and use all the numbers. Some places rate 1-10 but only actually use 7-10 of that scale. Some places rate 1-40. Some rate 1-5. Some rate 1-100. And then some will use decimals so you might get something like 8.6/10 or 75.9/100, and some will only use whole numbers. But that's not enough, each place also has its own interpretations of what we're supposed to think those scores mean. I don't mean to pick on the Escapist or call them wrong here, but I think a great example is the recent review Russ gave to Duke Nukem Forever. He basically said the game sucked, and in the end gave it a 2/5. This cause many people to react by saying "Damn, how awful does a game have to be to get a 1/5 then? Because this game sounds pretty awful based on this review." It was later revealed that for this site to get something 1/5, it has to be full of bugs that break the game in addition to it being completely unenjoyable. And even after that, people still questioned the 2/5 rating.

So as far as I'm concerned, review scores are broken and completely pointless and always will be until the games industry as a whole sits down and comes up with one score rank that all reviews will use with one defined list of what each score means that all reviews will use so that we always know what conclusion to draw from any score, just like you always know what conclusion to draw from a grade on a school paper.

Of course, even then, the score would be the least important part of the review, and you'd still need to read the entire thing to get a more detailed picture of what the game is like and if there are things in it you'd hate that the review enjoyed or things that the review disliked but you wouldn't be bothered by. Honestly, the sooner both reviews and gamers stop putting so much focus on the damn scores instead of on the actual reviews, the better.
 

Sylveria

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Nov 15, 2009
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It is an opinion. There is no objective, scientific, concrete scale for anything pertaining to video games except the technical minutia like file size and resolution. Any sort of grading is open to interpretation.
 

joebthegreat

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Nov 23, 2010
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I think this is especially true when regarding a game review and I think it is important to note both an objective and subjective side to it.

Roger Ebert has said close to the same thing regarding movies he likes as opposed to well crafted movies.

You can prove objectively that a game is "buggy". How often within a certain time-period is the game likely to crash. How many puzzles or interactions can be "broken" by a player doing what the player can be expected to do? Are there any noticeable breaks in continuity or "glitches" of a 3D model during a cut-scene or during player interactions? How many? While it's not on the level of hard science, there are things that just plain make your game objectively bad, from a technical standpoint.

There are subjective portions as well. You can objectively determine whether or not a game is "difficult", but whether or not that is a good thing depends on what level of difficulty you subjectively prefer. You can objectively determine if the art direction of the game keeps the player moving forward or if there isn't any art direction in the game with such a purpose. Whether or not you think a game should have such elements is up to you.

If an element is introduced and it doesn't apply techniques as effectively as its contemporaries then it has objectively failed at introducing that technique. While you can argue whether or not that technique is good or bad is subjective, but there is still that level of objectivity when discussing how effectively a technique has succeeded at doing what it is designed to do.

---

I think the comparison to an English essay is quite apt. Grammar is easy and there are clear cut standards to compare your essay to, but grammar is not the only thing an essay is graded on. An effective essay needs to convey it's idea appropriately for a given audience. Essays need to use sources to give a sense of authority. Essays need to use examples and language that will get the target audience to be more accepting of it. These things are subjective depending on the audience, but there is still a level of objectivity behind whether or not the techniques you put in your essay are effective.
 

mjc0961

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Nov 30, 2009
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Busdriver580 said:
I should direct your attention to this, i think it's the type of thing you're looking for:
http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml
Holy crap, that was hilarious, and a perfect example of why a 100% objective review would be totally useless.
 

drisky

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Mar 16, 2009
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Fearzone said:
Scoring, or rating, is NOT a matter of opinion. It is a matter of judging according to standards. There is some subjectivity in this, but it needs to strive for objectivity. If you are scoring a diving competition, and on one dive, instead of a double flip swan dive, a guy wearing a clown suit grabs his ankles and does a belly flop, well one of the judges might think that is the funniest thing in the world, but he would be wrong to give the dive a 10/10 just because he likes it. Likewise, if someone executes the dive perfectly, he cannot give it a 5/10 because the last four divers did the same thing and the diver who went last time was better looking.
Thats like comparing it to dog shows though, where its based on how closely you can get to the description of the bred. I would be like making a rating system for how close you can get your game to call of duty. You shouldn't want an exact science of measurements in games, because then they would all be the same. Games are very different than dives. As for how it appeals to you specifically, read the review rather then just seeing the number and casting judgment. Listen to the flaws and positives the reviewer mentions and decide for your self wether you consider them flaws. Some people think Witcher 2's lack of proper tutorials, others said they felt great that it wasn't holding there hand, which breaks immersion. By reading the review you know that there is hardly any tutorial and you, as a free thinking individual, can decide how that makes you feel about the game. Theres no point in whining just because the game got a number you don't like.
 

JoshGod

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Aug 31, 2009
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Fearzone said:
I have news for game reviewers: nobody cares what YOU subjectively think about a game. What readers care about is what WE think of the game. We read these to come to an informed conclusion about a game before we spend money on it. We want to know if it would be our cup of tea if we were to play it. Not whether it is yours.
Lots of people reading/watching reviews don't want an informed conclusion, they want the reviewer to agree with them to validate the decision they have already made, now this wont be everyone, but it is a lot of people (or at least a loud group of people). Moreover there are lots of reviewers that do this (providing information over opinion, or atleast highlighting when it is an opinion), lots of reviewers don't even have a score as ones enjoyment of a game is subjective and changes from person to person.