The Apparent Anti-Intellectualism of Gamer Culture

[Lightknight]

Academics debate and argue in the pursuit of intellectualism. Huge difference in type of conflict as opposed to groups sniping at the opposing side to try and silence them.

Not to be snippy, but I'll re-iterate my question if you've ever been in Academia? The ideal is that academics and researchers will argue and debate to promote science and find out what is true and what is not. In reality it tends to come down to two or more camps sniping at each other and doing their very best to silence or shame the other camp. There's a lot of prestige involved in modern Academia and people invest decades into their specific field of research, so if your theories turn out to be wrong you've lost what amounts to you life's work. That's why so many academic disputes seem like nothing but pissing contests between arrogant douchebags who both seem more interested in telling you just how much of an imbecile and hack researcher the other guy is then they are in explaining why they are right (because it should be self-evident that they are correct, at least to them).

Just look at the "debate" about Homeopathy as a fitting example (and this is a debate in which one side is clearly right in terms of research). Both sides have their evidence and research lined up, but today the discussion is rarely about objective findings, but rather about how the other side are either paid shills for big pharma or ignorant yokels that need to learn some basic chemistry. This as opposed to comparing their research to that of the other sides' and then drawing a conclusion about which presents the strongest evidence.

Even within academia the areas of conflict slide according to the area of study in relation to its focus on science. For undergrad I have both a B.S. and a B.A. and the Arts side of the equation did tend to have a lot of competitive shaming whereas the Science side of the equation had a lot more collaborative works and debates of ideas.

Both had nasty tendencies but there was still the same distinct difference I mentioned. Generally speaking the difference is that one area is devoted to the pursuit of knowledge which makes anti-intellectualism particularly difficult to uphold and be successful in.

I mean, maybe if someone was presenting an idea that conflicted with the basis of your work then sure, maybe I could see some major shit slinging to silence going on. But in general debates were to defend positions and potentially learn, not to silence the opposing side. Regardless, science seems to strongly benefit from having verifiable answers whereas other areas sometimes find themselves in moralistic or philosophical grey areas in which both sides think they're right without either side having authority to make such a claim.

 

[Hair Jordan]

I think the problem with this write up is that it's a really interesting editorial with some real thought provoking points on the tools used in gaming and what they signify. As a review though, it fails on all fronts because it's only focused on a few aspects of the game. There is no objective viewpoint on how the game plays and how those elements juxtapose with the themes therein. All of the articles energy is focused on themes and symbolism and in terms of what we'd expect from a full "review" falls short for it.

I think this is a matter of perspective. Countless reviews focus primarily on technical issues, while giving the narrative, literary, and sociopolitical themes and/or context of a game a backseat. These things are, undoubtedly, present aspects of games, as well. Using your same exact argument, we can also claim those reviews to be lacking for only focusing on "a few aspects of the game".

That would leave us with two conclusions to justify your argument.

Either

1.) Almost all game reviews are similarly incomplete, and seemingly worthy of the same condemnation.

or

2.) There is a prioritization hierarchy in regards to the known properties a game review should cover, in relation to it's subject.

I think the first conclusion is obviously not the case, and simply unrealistic to implement, even if it were. Efforts to rectify this problem would quickly inflate reviews to paperback size, given that, logically, all knowable facets of a game would have to be covered.

The second conclusion seems to be the heart of the matter. The real question is who gets to set that prioritization, and why? This is encroaching upon age-old debates concerning what, exactly, the role of criticism is in the human intellectual tradition.

While, hypothetically, a reviewer could attempt to base their entire work on the aesthetic qualities of the box the game was shipped in, I don't believe this framework would hold up well to scrutiny, assuming it was opened up to actual rational debate. You'd have very little problem demonstrating that the most essential or noteworthy qualities of the game are not the box it's shipped in, for example, invalidating their review.

That being said, I've seen no convincing arguments as to why the author's personal prioritization hierarchy, or viewpoint, is irrational or otherwise invalidates the actual review. That doesn't mean anyone has to agree with the author's conclusions.

 

[Zombie Proof]

@ Hair Jordan:

I don't know man, I haven't read any reviews that eschew commentary on story and focus primarily on the game play nuance. Not for games that focus equally on both. If I ever came across a review for something like say Bioshock or The Witcher 3 and the integration of story wasn't taken into account and the focus was only on gamevplay nuance, that would come across as pretty weird to me and I certainly would have remembered it. Since most of your post focuses on this phenomena, I'd need you to link me to some of those reviews before I can comment on some of your points.

 

[Jack Action]

I think the problem with this write up is that it's a really interesting editorial with some real thought provoking points on the tools used in gaming and what they signify. As a review though, it fails on all fronts because it's only focused on a few aspects of the game. There is no objective viewpoint on how the game plays and how those elements juxtapose with the themes therein. All of the articles energy is focused on themes and symbolism and in terms of what we'd expect from a full "review" falls short for it.

The problem with it is that it's pseudo-intellectual drivel. The guy concludes that Ubi hates poor and black people because gangs do gang stuff and sanitation workers take their job a little too literally (very witty, Ubi) in the middle of a Flying Pork Flu outbreak that wiped out 95% of New York. Somehow, that means that janitors are just waiting for a chance to murder you and steal your shit. Obviously.

It's not as if every plague in games everything has SOMEONE pick up the napalm and said someone is a monster instead of a hero only because the protagonist inevitably discovers there's a perfect cure for the plague. Or people who take advantage of the plague to create their own command structure and advance their own interests.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I think the problem with this write up is that it's a really interesting editorial with some real thought provoking points on the tools used in gaming and what they signify. As a review though, it fails on all fronts because it's only focused on a few aspects of the game. There is no objective viewpoint on how the game plays and how those elements juxtapose with the themes therein. All of the articles energy is focused on themes and symbolism and in terms of what we'd expect from a full "review" falls short for it.

The problem with it is that it's pseudo-intellectual drivel. The guy concludes that Ubi hates poor and black people because gangs do gang stuff and sanitation workers take their job a little too literally (very witty, Ubi) in the middle of a Flying Pork Flu outbreak that wiped out 95% of New York. Somehow, that means that janitors are just waiting for a chance to murder you and steal your shit. Obviously.

It's not as if every plague in games everything has SOMEONE pick up the napalm and said someone is a monster instead of a hero only because the protagonist inevitably discovers there's a perfect cure for the plague. Or people who take advantage of the plague to create their own command structure and advance their own interests.

Well ya there will be a villain, but who you pick for a villain and what their motivation writes the message of the story.

 

[ManutheBloodedge]

What can I say that hasn't been said already? It seems to me that the readers of the review weren't looking for an analysis of the themes and plot of the game, but rather how well it functioned as an enjoyable experience. Yes, that included the story, but from what I understand, the author reviewed the game with little to no real concern on how anyone else would see the things that he saw. All he did was just talk about the moral implications of something that the mass media was going to pay little mind to. What he did was take the weakest part of a bridge and examine it thoroughly and declare that the entire bridge is unfit to be used by the public. Normally, this would be acceptable, as everything in a creation needs to work well. But all he did was examine the singular piece rather than the bridge as a whole, as a review should, before declaring it unfit completely, while the rest of the bridge was functioning and safe, albeit unexciting and ultimately not worth one's time, with the one part that he examined being the railings on the side. Nice to have, but ultimately not what people are there for. I don't think that gamers as a whole are anti-intellectual. Quite the opposite. Spec Ops: The Line is a big example of games that are intellectual and were successful. The problem is that he looked at the wrong thing, ignored everything else, and didn't bother to review the game under any guidelines other than his own as someone who had their sensibilities offended.

Look, I get what you are saying here, don't reduce a review of something on a small part of it and then value the whole thing, but the example you choose is rather ill-fited. It is perfectly valid to do that to a bridge, if a part of a bridge, especially the weakest part, is damaged, then this bridge is unfit to be used by the public. Because, you know, bridges can collapse when they have a weak spot. You don't have to examine the whole bridge when you find a structural weakness to declare it dangerous. So again, not the best choice of metaphor to suit your argument. This is more akin to rating a book on the font used for the text, without actually having read any word of it.

That's why, in the bridge metaphor in this case, I said that the story was the railing of the bridge. I may not have made that part clear.

Yes, but the problem still remains. You said "weakest part", which I interpeted as "structually weakest part". I guess you meant "the most unimportant part", but that too is one more reason why the bridge metaphor doesn't work in this case. There are no unimportant parts of a bridge, everything has to function correctly, or else lives could be in danger. Case in point, the railing of a bridge is very important too, unless you want to take a fall as soon as you lean on it.

Look, I don't want to start beef or something, I just wanted to point out that your choice of metaphor ultimately weakens your argument of "don't examine a small part and judge the whole on that", because a bridge is one of the cases where it IS not only valid, but in fact necessary to do just that. It is not that your argument has no merit, your choice of metaphor is just working against it. I just wanted to give you some advice, sorry if I came of as insulting.

 

[Major_Tom]

The "Cleaners" are former sanitation workers, who have decided that the solution to the virus is to burn it out of the city. A gang of blue-collar garbage men and janitors equipped with flamethrowers, they represent the lowest rung of the working class.

Wait, is this actually true? I thought this was supposed to be a "serious" game, not a Monty Python sketch.

This does look more like an in-depth analysis than a review, but on the other hand if someone told me to review Company of evil Soviets Heroes 2 I would have done the same fucking thing, mechanics be damned. Also, fuck Metacritic, I know some companies use it for bonuses and such, but we don't negotiate with terrorists.

 

[Hair Jordan]

@ Hair Jordan:

I don't know man, I haven't read any reviews that eschew commentary on story and focus primarily on the game play nuance. Not for games that focus equally on both. If I ever came across a review for something like say Bioshock or The Witcher 3 and the integration of story wasn't taken into account and the focus was only on gamevplay nuance, that would come across as pretty weird to me and I certainly would have remembered it. Since most of your post focuses on this phenomena, I'd need you to link me to some of those reviews before I can comment on some of your points.

Fwiw, I wasn't making the case that reviews completely ignore the narrative ramifications of games, just that it often takes a backseat to the more technical aspects of games.

Take this review of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by IGN
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/03/call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-review

They do mention that "The topics and themes of Advanced Warfare?s futuristic single-player story are lent a gravity by their reflection of contemporary real-world news: weapons of mass destruction, a dysfunctional Congress, growing private militaries, and American interventionism. It?s delivered with Call of Duty?s typical over-the-top bravado, but there?s a layer of truth beneath it all that?s genuinely scary."

That being said, this is the extent that such themes are explored in this particular review. The rest of the piece is mainly a technical review of the game and it's mechanics. I'm not making the case this is a poorly done review, or that the methodology is flawed. It's simply an example of a contrasting review to the OP's reference piece, as requested.

Hypothetically speaking, as a reviewer, I may find the ramifications of such "reflections" to have more importance than the mechanical aspects of the game, and choose to focus my review around them. Again, the critical question here is to exactly what the role of criticism is supposed to be. You'd have to make a strong, supported, argument as to why a reviewer should prioritize certain elements of a game over others, if it conflicted with their own personal conclusions.

For example, you could make the case that games journalists need to remain relatively objective, or neutral, in reference to sociopolitical concerns. However, if you want to maintain intellectual rigor, you have to be prepared to properly counter the myriad reasons a journalist can argue against traditional forms of journalistic objectivity, such as those proposed by advocacy journalists and other media critics.

Merely disagreeing, especially in a flippant manner, isn't enough, and it is this lack of rigor that the OP is calling into question, to begin with. After all, this is supposed to be the subject of the entire thread.

When you say "not for games that focus on both" you're making a somewhat telling statement. This implies that games have a predetermined amount of attention you should give to their internals, based upon genre factors, or some other form of intentional categorization. I believe this underlies the contention many people are having with the OP's referenced article.

It would appear that he is focusing heavily on the narrative ramifications of a game that, we can assume, was not supposed to have these elements "focused" upon, perhaps due to a conflict with expectations, due to it's genre. It may go without saying, but it would appear that the journalist in question feels as though the ramifications of the narrative elements, and the purportedly unintentional commentary on our current culture, are more important, for the purposes of review, than the quality of the game's mechanics.

There's no obvious reason I've seen, so far, as to why this isn't a valid argument, again, regardless of whether or not you agree with his points.

 

[Zombie Proof]

@ Hair Jordan:

I don't know man, I haven't read any reviews that eschew commentary on story and focus primarily on the game play nuance. Not for games that focus equally on both. If I ever came across a review for something like say Bioshock or The Witcher 3 and the integration of story wasn't taken into account and the focus was only on gamevplay nuance, that would come across as pretty weird to me and I certainly would have remembered it. Since most of your post focuses on this phenomena, I'd need you to link me to some of those reviews before I can comment on some of your points.

Fwiw, I wasn't making the case that reviews completely ignore the narrative ramifications of games, just that it often takes a backseat to the more technical aspects of games.

Take this review of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by IGN
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/03/call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-review

They do mention that "The topics and themes of Advanced Warfare?s futuristic single-player story are lent a gravity by their reflection of contemporary real-world news: weapons of mass destruction, a dysfunctional Congress, growing private militaries, and American interventionism. It?s delivered with Call of Duty?s typical over-the-top bravado, but there?s a layer of truth beneath it all that?s genuinely scary."

That being said, this is the extent that such themes are explored in this particular review. The rest of the piece is mainly a technical review of the game and it's mechanics. I'm not making the case this is a poorly done review, or that the methodology is flawed. It's simply an example of a contrasting review to the OP's reference piece, as requested.

Hypothetically speaking, as a reviewer, I may find the ramifications of such "reflections" to have more importance than the mechanical aspects of the game, and choose to focus my review around them. Again, the critical question here is to exactly what the role of criticism is supposed to be. You'd have to make a strong, supported, argument as to why a reviewer should prioritize certain elements of a game over others, if it conflicted with their own personal conclusions.

For example, you could make the case that games journalists need to remain relatively objective, or neutral, in reference to sociopolitical concerns. However, if you want to maintain intellectual rigor, you have to be prepared to properly counter the myriad reasons a journalist can argue against traditional forms of journalistic objectivity, such as those proposed by advocacy journalists and other media critics.

Merely disagreeing, especially in a flippant manner, isn't enough, and it is this lack of rigor that the OP is calling into question, to begin with. After all, this is supposed to be the subject of the entire thread.

When you say "not for games that focus on both" you're making a somewhat telling statement. This implies that games have a predetermined amount of attention you should give to their internals, based upon genre factors, or some other form of intentional categorization. I believe this underlies the contention many people are having with the OP's referenced article.

It would appear that he is focusing heavily on the narrative ramifications of a game that, we can assume, was not supposed to have these elements "focused" upon, perhaps due to a conflict with expectations, due to it's genre. It may go without saying, but it would appear that the journalist in question feels as though the ramifications of the narrative elements, and the purportedly unintentional commentary on our current culture, are more important, for the purposes of review, than the quality of the game's mechanics.

There's no obvious reason I've seen, so far, as to why this isn't a valid argument, again, regardless of whether or not you agree with his points.

If you knew nothing about The Division but was looking to buy it, would you have found the review informative enough?

*edit*
Also, what criteria do you consider important when weighing in on the functionality of a review?

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

The culture isn't anti-intellectual, it's just that games are mass-media entertainment and aren't expected to a) have good stories or b) be challenging. The Division and Destiny are both especially banal games that offer simple, mindless mechanics and have been aggressively marketed to be as accessible and as widespread as possible. Games with strong stories and consistent themes are quite rare, least of all because themes are traditionally best conveyed through a non-interactive medium, i.e. a book or a film. Games have to pull mechanics and failure states in order to keep the player engaged, so the most effective way to go about metaphors is to use mechanics, think; Dark Souls; Spec Ops The Line; Metal Gear Solid 3; Thomas Was Alone; Journey; etc. Those games are all praised for their story and narrative alongside their mechanics because they gel together so well. However, with increasing development costs, expanding markets and the demand for shinier graphics, a game that is merely functional and just engaging can already be a colossal effort. It's difficult to sit down with 100+ people and create a cohesive and meaningful narrative without too many cooks spoiling the broth, least of all because of how expensive it would be.

There are other avenues for this, like the indie side of gaming, but that is so experimental and chaotic that for every Transistor or Hotline Miami we get 50 DayZ and Minecraft ripoffs. Sifting for meaningful and moving material there is difficult, because devs either don't have the resources necessary to make an artsy game, or because they just don't want to, either out of the need to shift units before making something personal and visionary or because the current generation of game developers were raised on Nintendo and/or Golden Age PC games, all of which focused on entertainment and generally just being about thrills rather than confronting you with intellectually engaging matter. Not to say that it's some sort of vacuum; Deus Ex was verbose for what it was, as was System Shock 2, but they both dealt with their respective subject matter in about the same manner as would a B-movie, which is consistent, because a lot of games of that time were inspired by whatever movies the designers liked. Simply put, gaming heritage is rooted in the 80s, specifically 80s nostalgia. We are slowly moving away from that, but for the time being, outside of games produced outside of the West bar a few exceptions, games are intrinsically tied to popular culture and are yet to make their own identity in terms of what stories can be told exclusively through the medium. Now, you can argue that games were tailored made for Campbellian epics as you can see in Zelda and basically almost every RPG ever made, but those games still make up a rather small portion of the market, at least right now.

And gamers are currently on the same level, and I don't blame them. There's a time and a place for stuff that is confrontational like your Silent Hill 2s or Spec Opses, but applying that sort of language that you would use to discuss a narrative that deals with the deepest recesses of human morality to a game that is so removed from reality that you shoot paintball rounds at bullet sponges in a post-epidemic New York is just bad writing. It's not having an understanding of the audience inteded for this game, and it's on par with a critic who primarily watches foreign language documentaries scoring down a recent superhero flick because of its detachment from the real world. It's a valid opinion, as is the final judgement, but it's a missapplication of your duties as a journalist. Your primary duty is to the public, to be as objective and as unbiased as possible and not to treat these values as binary states but rather as ideals. Engaging with the story as the main focus in a review about a game that is effectively just there to make money in exchange for light entertainment is missing the trees for the woods. Most people aren't going to care, but if you do have genuine problems with the story, then discuss that separately and treat it as appropiately academic material.

I'm no authority on how to write reviews, but I know where this mindset comes from in the few times I have been writing recently. However, I avoid that pitfall by refocusing on what the game is meant to be and appropiately marking my own nitpicks with any thematic inconsistencies clearly in what I write. At the same time, I try to write in such a way that I try to entertain how or why people might like the things I dislike, or if they simply don't care about what's going on. To give an example, I remember how much I focused on trying to write something good about Receiver's story, but after a while I realised that ultimately people will play the game just for the mechanics and use the background story as a collectible for achievement hunting and as an arbitrary way to mark progress. It is irrelevant to the greater discussion at hand, which is, do I think people should spend their money on this?

And that's really the crux of the argument right now. Leading back into my earlier point of costs, the simple truth is that games are a luxury. It's all well and good to entertain how a game might be interesting if you consider it's story or other elements outside of the context of the game, but at the end of the day, it's a $60 purchase that promises to keep you engaged for x amount of hours, which means that it is effectively a value judgement. This is not anti-intellectual so much as it is a reality of the times, and the comments taking umbrage with this approach is something I can understand. I don't have a lot of money to spend on luxuries myself and what I don't want is a person in a position of authority, in that they have established themselves to have a good understanding of the medium and that they have unlimited access to games, yapping off for umpteen pages about a piece of entertainment like it's a novel, when at the end of the day, I'd just want to shoot stuff.

 

[Hair Jordan]

If you knew nothing about The Division but was looking to buy it, would you have found the review informative enough?

All concerns about a loaded question aside, I'd personally argue that no single review should bear the burden of being entirely responsible for forming one's view, when accessing media is concerned. It's usually best to get a second opinion.

So the answer is no - but it's a technicality.

 

[Hair Jordan]

Also, what criteria do you consider important when weighing in on the functionality of a review?

If I'm understanding you correctly, what I'd mainly be concerned with, with a critical piece like the OP's, is whether or not they are making valid arguments.

By that, I mean that their arguments are logical, internally consistent, and if they reference evidence, it's cited, and so on, and so forth. These are the things your English professor are going to be looking for, in other words.

From there, I'll contemplate whether or not I agree with the author, and consider some major counter-arguments, if necessary.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I think the problem with this write up is that it's a really interesting editorial with some real thought provoking points on the tools used in gaming and what they signify. As a review though, it fails on all fronts because it's only focused on a few aspects of the game. There is no objective viewpoint on how the game plays and how those elements juxtapose with the themes therein. All of the articles energy is focused on themes and symbolism and in terms of what we'd expect from a full "review" falls short for it.

The problem with it is that it's pseudo-intellectual drivel. The guy concludes that Ubi hates poor and black people because gangs do gang stuff and sanitation workers take their job a little too literally (very witty, Ubi) in the middle of a Flying Pork Flu outbreak that wiped out 95% of New York. Somehow, that means that janitors are just waiting for a chance to murder you and steal your shit. Obviously.

It's not as if every plague in games everything has SOMEONE pick up the napalm and said someone is a monster instead of a hero only because the protagonist inevitably discovers there's a perfect cure for the plague. Or people who take advantage of the plague to create their own command structure and advance their own interests.

Well ya there will be a villain, but who you pick for a villain and what their motivation writes the message of the story.

Yes and no. The relative moral-ambiguity of post-societal-collapse settings is basically always a major theme. The author of the article/review seems to think that the game revels in the fantasy of the unchecked power of the division, when in reality it raises questions as to how just its actions are.

Or, more eloquently put:

That article is magical because it condemns the game for silently creating a political narrative of waging war on the poor, while simultaneously leaving out anything that conflicts with the story the article is telling. Without going in depth, the two forces which make up the 'ultimate bad guy' in The Division are a multi-billion dollar PMC, and Division agents themselves, corrupted by the unchecked power they were given.

So while I wont comment on the broader issue, I can certainly get behind that article getting a negative reaction since it blatantly misleads its audience.

Or:

Yeah, stellar review right there. I really came away with a greater understanding of the game. I've played the game for over 20 hours, and there are many things which this writer lies about or just fails to understand. Your job as a Division agent is not to "kill the poor looters trying to survive", rather it is to find evidence of the bioterrorists responsible for the outbreak, and to eliminate other terrorist elements who are literally going around burning everyone alive. In the meantime, you are tasked with helping people receive food and aid - and you routinely pass by "looters" who are not considered threats. You also routinely give supplies to the needy.

Furthermore, the charges laid on the story that the Division is just some form of statist propaganda, glorifying totalitarian agencies is nonsense. The plot goes on to show that the Division is flawed, and has too much power - a topic routinely discussed throughout the game's narrative, challenging the notion of federal agencies with unlimited power.

This pretentious writer just comes off as a subversive, insufferable communist puke using an unrelated medium to espouse his destructive agenda. As does the inflammatory OP starting with the presumption that his way is the one way, and everyone else is just 'anti-intellectual' and 'doesn't want to understand'. Nice kafka trap, you'd definitely be given a top supervisory role in a fucking gulag.

What would be interesting to know is how the author of the article managed to miss this entirely. If he genuinely missed it I would find that amusing. If he's lying to himself and us so that he can go on the tangent he desired to go on, well... That's shitty.

I do believe I learned a lot more about the author than I did about the game from reading that. What do you think, Elijin/Nexus?

 

[Zombie Proof]

Also, what criteria do you consider important when weighing in on the functionality of a review?

If I'm understanding you correctly, what I'd mainly be concerned with, with a critical piece like the OP's, is whether or not they are making valid arguments.

By that, I mean that their arguments are logical, internally consistent, and if they reference evidence, it's cited, and so on, and so forth. These are the things your English professor are going to be looking for, in other words.

From there, I'll contemplate whether or not I agree with the author, and consider some major counter-arguments, if necessary.

Ugh, you sophists are so wriggly lol. Hey, at least I have fun reading all the words y'all write hahahaha.

Fair enough though.

 

[Gengisgame]

I don't think it is anti-intellectualism as much as it is anti-progressivism. There's a vocal minority of gamers that do not want their hobby to change, especially not in a way that would suggest that "SJWs" have had a say in how games are designed or perceived. Attacking someone for analyzing the ideological underpinnings of a game is not dissimilar from attacking someone for analyzing the content of a game from a feminist perspective. Some of the people attacking these takes on game criticism are (or at least like to consider themselves) quite intellectual, but they are opposed to anything they consider "politicization" of games, especially if it is in the name of progressivism.

This is false. The vocal minority is actually the people wishing to add "progressive" views to games as they themselves admit.

Best example is GTA, they want it changed, they want it changed to show that certain things should not be allowed. If they weren't the vocal minority then why would they wouldn't need to have popular products altered to push there views.

No one is anti-intellectual or anti-progressive in the same way this vocal minority is anti-(I'll say masculine, violence, sexual content aimed at men), your stuff just doesn't sell as well in the gaming market. To me these people are more childish and entitled than people who complain about there being too many shooters and not enough RPG's because they have the pretentious view that there tastes are morally superior.

 

[Ryallen]

What can I say that hasn't been said already? It seems to me that the readers of the review weren't looking for an analysis of the themes and plot of the game, but rather how well it functioned as an enjoyable experience. Yes, that included the story, but from what I understand, the author reviewed the game with little to no real concern on how anyone else would see the things that he saw. All he did was just talk about the moral implications of something that the mass media was going to pay little mind to. What he did was take the weakest part of a bridge and examine it thoroughly and declare that the entire bridge is unfit to be used by the public. Normally, this would be acceptable, as everything in a creation needs to work well. But all he did was examine the singular piece rather than the bridge as a whole, as a review should, before declaring it unfit completely, while the rest of the bridge was functioning and safe, albeit unexciting and ultimately not worth one's time, with the one part that he examined being the railings on the side. Nice to have, but ultimately not what people are there for. I don't think that gamers as a whole are anti-intellectual. Quite the opposite. Spec Ops: The Line is a big example of games that are intellectual and were successful. The problem is that he looked at the wrong thing, ignored everything else, and didn't bother to review the game under any guidelines other than his own as someone who had their sensibilities offended.

Look, I get what you are saying here, don't reduce a review of something on a small part of it and then value the whole thing, but the example you choose is rather ill-fited. It is perfectly valid to do that to a bridge, if a part of a bridge, especially the weakest part, is damaged, then this bridge is unfit to be used by the public. Because, you know, bridges can collapse when they have a weak spot. You don't have to examine the whole bridge when you find a structural weakness to declare it dangerous. So again, not the best choice of metaphor to suit your argument. This is more akin to rating a book on the font used for the text, without actually having read any word of it.

That's why, in the bridge metaphor in this case, I said that the story was the railing of the bridge. I may not have made that part clear.

Yes, but the problem still remains. You said "weakest part", which I interpeted as "structually weakest part". I guess you meant "the most unimportant part", but that too is one more reason why the bridge metaphor doesn't work in this case. There are no unimportant parts of a bridge, everything has to function correctly, or else lives could be in danger. Case in point, the railing of a bridge is very important too, unless you want to take a fall as soon as you lean on it.

Look, I don't want to start beef or something, I just wanted to point out that your choice of metaphor ultimately weakens your argument of "don't examine a small part and judge the whole on that", because a bridge is one of the cases where it IS not only valid, but in fact necessary to do just that. It is not that your argument has no merit, your choice of metaphor is just working against it. I just wanted to give you some advice, sorry if I came of as insulting.

No, I'm literally saying that I used the railing in this case. It wasn't implied, it's right there in the paragraph. Yeah, it wouldn't work normally, and again, I probably should have made it more clear that the story was the railing in this case, but I still said that the story was the railing. Reread the paragraph and you should see it.

 

[cleric of the order]

Op, if this is a semi academic examination of the division then why do people think it's a review?
Personally I don't want to reed some half-arse academic's "critique" as a review, when i go to a review i want a to come out with a rough understanding of what the game plays like and what it is.
You can call that anti-intellectualism but this place is not the hallowed halls of academia you see.
Gaming attracts quite a swath of people, despicably the under educated,folks like myself that aren't inserted in a critical theorist examination of a videogame and folks smarter and better educated than me that frankly wouldn't likely read this at all.
The pretense of some hackademic is especially not the concern of the poorer members of our hobby which have to choose the games they buy carefully, if they do. The empty proselytizing from the ivory tower does not help them, which is funny given their conclusions is the narrative fucks the poor as the only one fucking the poor is the idiot that just wasted their bandwidth and time where they could have come to some REAL conclusions about a prospective game.
Sitting here, I had to really ask who this is written for, and honestly i couldn't tell you.
This should be tucked away somewhere else because it is intellectual masturbation.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Ya know, if you were going to present a case for the gaming community being "anti-intellectual" then you should have included an actual piece representative of intellectualism, rather than this first year pseudo-analytical drek.

I mean, I get that this author is a closet sociopath and all, but it doesn't really help the argument.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Wait, is this actually true? I thought this was supposed to be a "serious" game, not a Monty Python sketch.

It is. I can assure you that in the actual game there's nothing fun about the cleaners and some of the more chilling collectibles are the ones displaying or covering Cleaners burning people to death. The Cleaners are a good example of how an idea might appear farcical at first glance but gets sold on presentation alone.