The problems with the supposedly "unbiased" review

[sageoftruth]

My take, some reviewers are too egotistical.
Many seem to be forgetting they're there to discuss the product not try to push or tell people to care about their own personal politics. Should I keep inserting getting more women into science or attempting global warming or world overpopulation into all my reviews ?

Just because truly objectivism is near impossible doesn't mean you can go "oh fuck it I won't bother" it's like saying don't strive to make a perfect game because it's impossible so why bother ?

Games are a big enough subject to be able to be talked about on their own without tacking on other subjects and doing both a dis-service.

That's a good point. Striving for objectivity is important, provided that's what the reviewer is shooting for. I'd never ask Yahtzee to change how he does his reviews, but I'd be pretty disappointed if TotalBiscuit suddenly decided "Screw it" and decided to imitate Yahtzee. I think having both kinds of reviewers is the best possible outcome.

Also I wouldn't point this out if it wasn't hilarious (apologies in advance) but you'll probably want to go to the Ayn Rand thread if you want to talk about true "objectivism" as you put it. Lol. No offense.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

That's not nitpicking, you clearly don't know what objective means. If something is "of poor quality", then that is relative is everything else. Now no one has actually experienced everything else, so they're basing it of on their own measurements, which are very different from person to person.

You're trying to turn this into an argument of semantics. The point is that there are objective measures (how the English language is structured) and things that can be measured (how a translation fits that structure). The infamous "People die when they are killed" line is an amusing, but poor example of a proper translation.

If a critic of classic literature were to play, say, the Last of Us without having played any other game ever, he'd probably remark on how poorly written and terribly structured it was. If some redneck that hadn't experienced anything more complicated than American Gladiators, they'd probably say it was too weird and boring.

How are these related to what I mentioned previously? Additionally, "I don't play many games" or "I don't really enjoy these kinds of games" is a simple method of ensuring that your audience is aware of what may potentially be a flawed analysis

Some people (like me) thought Inception was incredibly simplistic to a fault, while a lot of other people thought it was too complicated to a fault, while another group of people thought it was pretty good in that regard. No one there is right, you just compare it to similar experiences.

We're not discussing whether or not you liked a movie, we're discussing the methods for credible critique and product reviews. If someone likes DA2 but explains in depth what the pros and cons were, the reader can come to a reasonably accurate conclusion as to whether or not they will enjoy the product. If someone complains because they didn't like the voice acting, but doesn't really explain that reason or how it invalidates the actual gameplay/story, or decides the whole game is actually about destroying america and writes a scathing article condemning their own interpretation, then the reader is left largely uninformed.

Except a review is not a fucking message board. A review is there to that the reviewer can talk about their own personal experiences with the product. If a game, say, insinuated that gays were Satans hellspawn and deserve to die and it's your civic duty to kill them, I'd feel very bothered by that and it'd probably make my experience more negative.

If the reviewer insinuated that every game was about attacking the (insert group here) community, would you be more or less inclined to believe and promote them? If they started insinuating that the act of creating or controlling a character implied harm, would you deem them someone who can accurately and calmly discuss a game's strengths and flaws?

Remembder, just because some person thinks that a female character wearing high heels in a combat situation is incredibly offensive and terrible and ruined the game for them, why do you care? Their opinion obviously shouldn't apply or get through to you, sicne it didn't bother you. A review isn't a circlejerk where everyone agrees what was good about the game or not, it's nothing mroe than the reviewer writing down what they thought about it. "Star wars is for teh gheis lol" is still an actual review, though not one you'd probably care about. just because some reviews are longer and more proofread, doesn't mean their opinion is somehow more valid.

You do understand that if a large number of reviewers rate down a game for high heels, the developers can literally lose millions for one single aspect of a character model. I'm not suggesting that metacritic bonuses SHOULD exist, but it's important to realize they do

Additionally, we're not talking about someone's poorly written comment on the internet, we're talking about people who expect a certain level of respect and viewership. If they haven't the slightest respect for their audience, then they shouldn't have one. That's why people are fed up with Polygon/RPS/etc.

 

[Skull Bearer]

... which is why you should more than one review to see if the bad notes are shared by more than one person. If you all want bleating sheep parroting the same lines, you're doing the medium a lot of damage.

Hell, you've already done the medium a lot of damage. Gamergate's resulted in the loss of several developers and so much bad press it'll take years to correct. What a miserable lot.

 

[Shingeki no Gingerbeard]

A 100% unbiased anything in Journalism, or something approaching it? Yeah, not going to happen. The best you is try to be as impartial as possible and be upfront about yourself and your background so people know where your colors are coming from when they do show.

 

[Verlander]

It is possible for a translation to be horrible and not flow into english, particularly in Eastern European games, objective fact.

It is possible, but I'd question the "particularly in Eastern European games". They're not exactly a major offender of anything.

It is possible for a character to be bland and insipid, objective fact.

Bland and insipid are opinions.

It is impossible for a game to have bad writing because it offended you, subjective opinion.

If a game has not set out to offend you, then that is a pretty good indicator of bad writing.

It is impossible for a game to have bad character design because cleavage, subjective opinion.

If the character design is offputting or offensive to potential customers because of said cleavage, that is bad design. Objective fact.

It is impossible for a game to have a bad character simply because the character is a straight white male, subjective opinion.

Never been a problem.

I find it incredibly odd I actually had to explain the difference between a fact and an opinion, this is 2014.

I find it odd that you think that objective opinion is a more worthy critique of something. Games aren't parts of machinery to complete a singular task, they are experiences designed for people.

 

[spartan231490]

You missed the most important point. Games, in fact all art, is a subjective experience. An objective review is meaningless since were are not looking for an objective experience but a subjective one.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

It's the difference between "The writing is awful, whoever wrote it has no idea how english-speaking human beings actually speak to eachother, the translation made me cringe." and "The dialogue offended me and did not fit with my world view, therefore I'm going to mark it down."

...

It's the difference between "Whoever designed this character was a clown, seriously learn what colours compliment eachother and try again." and "Skimpy outfits, you say? Unnaceptable."

...

It's the difference between "They failed to give the main character one thing a character should have and that is character." and "I don't like the main character being a straight white male."

It sounds like you have an axe to grind. Perhaps we should be calling for more objective reviews of reviews? I can see your personal bias leaking in. A review can be useful to someone even if it doesn't fit with your worldview.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a reviewer complain about a specific game's protagonist being a straight white male.

OT: I pretty much agree exactly with what you're saying. All you really want is a review that's genuine. Any review that's worthwhile is going to be "tainted" by the reviewers opinion. Just find reviewers who have similar tastes to you, or similar qualifications for good writing, characters, gameplay, etc...

I seriously wish they censored out the word objectively on this site. I swear, the only people I see using it correctly on this site are telling other people that they're using it incorrectly

EDIT:

I'd like to enhance my earlier claims by saying theres a difference between Objective fact and objective opinion.

And objective fact is a blunt statement, an objective opinion is when you internalize information, look at the pros and cons and weigh them together. A subjective opinion is when you go into something half cocked and don't seperate what's happening from your own personal bias, "subjective fact" is what those fucking loons who think science reflects culture believe.

Nobody wants biased/ideologically enforced viewpoints and I can prove it. What if an anti gay marriage bible-thumper started writing game reviews and injected his bias into critique of The Sims?

What if inexplicably characters in the Sims could only marry inside their own race? Would that be something worth considering about the game?

If a game portrays things completely at odds with your worldview then you might not be nearly invested in it as otherwise. If you're on the fence about getting a game and you find out that you're going to be cringing every five minutes because of its content then that's a perfectly fine reason not to get the game.

If the reviewer comes from a completely different place from you in a particular regard, say you want to see skimpy costumes, then you can ignore that complaint from the reviewer.

 

[j4c0b1]

I'd like to enhance my earlier claims by saying theres a difference between Objective fact and objective opinion.

Theres no such thing as a objective opinion, opinions are inherently subjective. What one person dosn't notice or care about are in games are subjective. The only thing a objective review could tell you were technical specifiacations, ie average frame rate with a given system, resolution etc.

Even the genre off games are subjective, as they always involve opinion, as genres have formed by subjective opinions.

Nobody wants biased/ideologically enforced viewpoints and I can prove it. What if an anti gay marriage bible-thumper started writing game reviews and injected his bias into critique of The Sims?

That review would be just as valid as any other as its there honest opinion. You may not like reading things like that, but thats all reviewers should strive for, to be honest.

 

[RagingTiger]

a : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

I fail to see how this can be so hard to at least partially achieve, to put it simply, don't politicize your review (e.g. don't push a personal agenda), don't add deeper subliminal meanings to events in game (e.g. like saying Hitman is making me hate woman because I CAN not MUST kill them) and lastly give facts and/or examples to support a personal view point and make clear that it's a personal opinion.(e.g. don't say the story sucks because you felt it did, tells us why you think it sucks and what in particular made you think it does).

Too many people have the "all or nothing" mentality, if it can't be 100% objective we won't bother trying and conversely if it's not 100% I'm not going to accept it. I personally think that transparency is more important than objectivity, but I do think some objectivity is still needed.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

It is a bit funny - we always want to see the most fair and unbiased review, and yet there is no escaping bias.

One of the things I do is work PR for a sword company, and we do occasionally send out swords for review. Our requirement is that the review should be "fair and unbiased," and we define that as taking a "warts and all" approach. Part of this is because a good review that displays the failings of the sword helps us a great deal to refine that model.

But, when it comes to a game, it is an experience. You can be unbiased as far as trying to remove yourself from your own fandom, but any review you write will be informed by your own experiences and tastes. These are important, though - your readers will generally come to know you well enough to know when your own tastes and biases are similar to their own, and when they are different.

Ultimately, the way I prefer to look at these things is to figure out two things:

1. What is the game/movie/book trying to be (as opposed to what you may want it to be)? Is it trying to be a fast actioner, a hard hitting drama, etc.?

2. How well does it succeed in what it is trying to be?

I think that if you take those two points and build your review from that, you can filter out the biases that will get in the way of writing a quality review, while retaining the important and relative aspects of your own biases and tastes.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on it, for what they're worth.

 

[Flatfrog]

I'd also say that many of the people who are complained about in this context aren't even 'reviewers' in the sense most people would refer to it. Yahtzee is not a reviewer in that sense, he is a critic. He examines games according to his own standards of quality and gives personal opinions about them. Anita Sarkeesian is not a reviewer or a critic but an academic, putting a particular political view without any claims of objectivity at all. To judge them on the same basis is to miss the point.

 

[Vivi22]

I keep seeing, and hearing, people talk about the call for unbiased reviews. But really, there can be no such thing from any human being that has ever played a game or has any opinions on anything. At least if you want an honest review.

Yeah, let me stop you there: no one who ever talks about having unbiased reviews is talking about human beings leaving every bit of life experience and gaming experience they have at the door and reviewing a game with no preconceived notions of what it is or should be. Certainly no one that I've seen talking about having unbiased reviews anyway.

But that's not even remotely the problem we have in gaming media right now. The actual problem people want to do away with is the perception of a reviewer being biased, often because they rely on the companies who's games they review to pay their salary. Completely hypothetical example here: is a Gamestop review giving a new Halo game a 9.5/10 unbiased? Maybe. Is it going to look unbiased when the site is plastered with Halo ads, wallpaper, videos, etc. all advertising it's release and likely contributing a fair bit of revenue to the site to pay the employees? Nope, not even a little. Never even mind that now we have game companies even trying to effectively buy out Youtube personalities by refusing to give them pre-release code unless they agree to not say anything bad about the game.

That's the sort of bias people are actually talking about, so how about we save the rant against an argument no one ever made for another day shall we?

 

[shrekfan246]

an objective opinion is when you internalize information, look at the pros and cons and weigh them together.

I believe the word you're looking for is an "informed" opinion, actually.

i've kinda just stopped reading/listening/watching video game reviews for actual information. Now i mostly read/listen/watch them for fun/entertainment. i've always just went and looked up gameplay footage/LP's online to get a good grasp of the game and what it's about.

I still read/watch the occasional review or critique for information (Jim Sterling is the only "reviewer" I regularly follow, though I regularly watch Yahtzee and TotalBiscuit as well) but that's kinda where I'm at as well. If I'm interested in a game, I'm going to be watching gameplay of it before I decide to buy it or not. Actual gameplay, too, not that pre-packaged PR nonsense that publishers push out.

 

[shrekfan246]

an objective opinion is when you internalize information, look at the pros and cons and weigh them together.

I believe the word you're looking for is an "informed" opinion, actually.

What I meant to say is "an opinion formed in an objective mindset". I'm horrible with english.

I mean, I get what you're going for (I think), but I still think you actually mean "informed opinions", not "objective opinions".

I won't say it's impossible to view things from an "objective" standpoint, because I try to do it myself when I can, but an "objective opinion" is something of a contradiction in terms. Like, I hate Final Fantasy XIII. But I can recognize the things it does moderately well and can rationalize the reasons other people might like it. By that token, I can't really make a call on whether it's a "good" game or a "bad" game. But what I can do is explain why I dislike it, and why other people might not be affected by the same issues. I still wouldn't give it a positive review, were I a professional reviewer. That would be dishonest to myself.