The Unreliability of Modern Critics

[BloatedGuppy]

I agree with you that reviews are subjective. I believe that the point being made is the difference between a good critic and a bad critic. A good critic will review the product. A bad critic will make it about him/herself.

Honestly, I think this is extemporary language being employed to obfuscate the actual complaint, which is "I disagree with this critic". You cannot remove "yourself" from the process of analyzing media. You can't. In fact, that's the entire APPEAL of a critic. It's why we have more than one. So you can get the input of different voices, different perspectives. As long as a critique is intelligible, and salient, and well presented, it's a "good" critique. Whether or not one agrees with it is irrelevant to its "quality".

Honestly, I like to read a wide selections of reviews. A negative review sometimes have made want to see the movie.

If someone wants to be a shitty critic, they have a right to be one. However, people like this youtuber have a right to call out the shenanigans that shitty critics do.

What this youtuber is calling out is critics who have differing politics, or directions of analysis he does not prefer. In "calling them out", he is basically saying "Critics who analyze things from perspectives I find disagreeable are poor critics". It's a method via which intellectually insecure people who crave/need validation in their politics and perspectives lash out when that validation is not received. Start playing the no true scotsman game. A *real* critic would have offered *different* perspectives. Ones more like mine!

It's all very tiresome. Youtuber in question needs to grow the fuck up, find critics he likes reading, and stop imagining that he and his tastes are the warm center of the universe.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I agree with you that reviews are subjective. I believe that the point being made is the difference between a good critic and a bad critic. A good critic will review the product. A bad critic will make it about him/herself.

Honestly, I think this is extemporary language being employed to obfuscate the actual complaint, which is "I disagree with this critic". You cannot remove "yourself" from the process of analyzing media. You can't. In fact, that's the entire APPEAL of a critic. It's why we have more than one. So you can get the input of different voices, different perspectives. As long as a critique is intelligible, and salient, and well presented, it's a "good" critique. Whether or not one agrees with it is irrelevant to its "quality".

Honestly, I like to read a wide selections of reviews. A negative review sometimes have made want to see the movie.

If someone wants to be a shitty critic, they have a right to be one. However, people like this youtuber have a right to call out the shenanigans that shitty critics do.

What this youtuber is calling out is critics who have differing politics, or directions of analysis he does not prefer. In "calling them out", he is basically saying "Critics who analyze things from perspectives I find disagreeable are poor critics". It's a method via which intellectually insecure people who crave/need validation in their politics and perspectives lash out when that validation is not received. Start playing the no true scotsman game. A *real* critic would have offered *different* perspectives. Ones more like mine!

It's all very tiresome. Youtuber in question needs to grow the fuck up, find critics he likes reading, and stop imagining that he and his tastes are the warm center of the universe.

In the first half of your post, we are mostly in agreement. In the second half of your post, you are guilty as the youtube commentator claim as being. Would you feel the same about his youtube comment, if his target was gamergate and people who had a problem with the Ghostbusters reboot?

Speaking for myself, I would have a problem with critics who interjected their politics in their reviews. Even if, I agreed where they stood politically. Can you say the same? My point still stands. A good critic reviews the product. If I want to read an opinion piece about the writer's politics beliefs, I wouldn't mind reading that. I don't think product reviews are an appropriate place to be soapboxing about social issues.

 

[Zhukov]

WAAAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAhahahaahahahahahaahaaa...

Oh boy.

So I held my nose and watched the entire video. You should all thank me for my brave sacrifice.

It's some nasal little nobody Youtube kid whining himself inside-out about critics having the "wrong" opinions for the "wrong" reasons.

(Also, nearly half the video is about Gamergate which I'm not going to touch because I can't be fucked dealing with the execrable conversation that would inevitably follow.)

His entire argument consists of comparing user scores with critic scores and quoting reviews and articles he disagrees with in a silly voice. Which is slightly more bearable than his normal voice.

Rants on about critics being biased because they don't reflect user reviews while completely ignoring the tendency for user reviews to be plagued by hysterical idiots with a blatant axe to grind. Because of course he does.

Samtendo, we get that you're mad about critics saying DC's shit movies are shit and giving Warcraft a good thrashing. I'm sure it's nice to find someone who agrees with you. But this clown isn't the answer.

Oh, and that article he mocks at 8:45? Apart from the mention of censorship, that describes your behaviour pretty well.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

In the first half of your post, we are mostly in agreement. In the second half of your post, you are guilty as the youtube commentator claim as being. Would you feel the same about his youtube comment, if his target was gamergate and people who had a problem with the Ghostbusters reboot?

*I* had a problem with the Ghostbusters reboot.

I don't care what someone wants to argue about, as long as they argue intelligently.

Speaking for myself, I would have a problem with critics who interjected their politics in their reviews. Even if, I agreed where they stood politically. Can you say the same? My point still stands. A good critic reviews the product. If I want to read an opinion piece about the writer's politics beliefs, I wouldn't mind reading that. I don't think product reviews are an appropriate place to be soapboxing about social issues.

I've read a great many critical opinions over the years. Some have approached things from a "political" perspective, others have not. My valuation of their critiques never hinged on that single point, no. If a critic I enjoy reading or listening to has a strong feeling about the content of a game or a film and wants to share it in their review because it helped shape their opinion, they should have at it. If I disagree or felt it colored their perspective in such a way that their view of the product radically different from mine as a result, I would make my own assessment as to whether or not to continue on as part of their audience. Not that tough.

At no point would I feel motivated to pen an angry editorial about "out of touch" or "unreliable" critics because they were "out of touch" with my beliefs and preferences. That would make me a rather spectacular chode.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

WAAAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAhahahaahahahahahaahaaa...

Oh boy.

So I held my nose and watched the entire video. You should all thank me for my brave sacrifice.

It's some nasal little nobody Youtube kid whining himself inside-out about critics having the "wrong" opinions for the "wrong" reasons.

(Also, nearly half the video is about Gamergate which I'm not going to touch because I can't be fucked dealing with the execrable conversation that would inevitably follow.)

His entire argument consists of comparing user scores with critic scores and quoting reviews and articles he disagrees with in a silly voice. Which is slightly more bearable than his normal voice.

Rants on about critics being biased because they don't reflect user reviews while completely ignoring the tendency for user reviews to be plagued by hysterical idiots with a blatant axe to grind. Because of course he does.

Samtendo, we get that you're mad about critics saying DC's shit movies are shit and giving Warcraft a good thrashing. I'm sure it's nice to find someone who agrees with you. But this clown isn't the answer.

Oh, and that article he mocks at 8:45? Apart from the mention of censorship, that describes your behaviour pretty well.

Hey be nice. The kid is just passionate about Warcraft and Batman. Who amongst us can say we aren't too?!
Besides, it takes a long time to post so many videos in his responses, so props.

 

[The Philistine]

As a general rule, a critic's job is to reliably give their opinion with a reasonable degree of why and how they came to their conclusion about what they're reviewing. You can agree or disagree with critic, and certainly aren't obligated to follow them. Disagreeing with your opinion does not make a critic unreliable.

I can follow Moviebob with a fairly good idea of what movies he's going to love, which ones he's going to hate, and where to take his opinions with copious grains of salt. He loved Sausage Party, while I have zero interest in stoner comedy movies. That doesn't make him unreliable. He did a decent job explaining the general gist of the movie, where he thought it worked, and where he thought it didn't. Even though it doesn't confirm my opinion or make me want to watch the movie any more than I did at the start, it was a pretty reliable opinion.

A critic's job isn't to confirm fans' opinions. It's to inform through their own opinions with the reasonable expectation that their opinion is there for informative purposes only, not dogma to be followed unquestionably. If you don't like where a critic is coming from, find one you do like. They're all over the place.

Critics can have whatever opinions they want, it honestly not a big deal.
I just find it curious when critics praise/hate a movie for one thing, then turn around and hate/praise another movie for the same thing.
Case in point, and lets be polite and respectful here, MovieBob. His review of Suicide Squad was critical of the movie's many plotholes and threads that either made no sense or went no where.

Then in his Sausage Party review, he never brings up the plotholes like how sometimes its the food that's alive, and other times its the food containers that's alive. Here we have a utopia of puritanism, and yet no one seems to care that jars are filled with ground up grapes and strawberries. How is it okay to have living tomatoes, and also jars of tomato sauce(with pictures of said sauce on pasta no less) and yet no one knows food is meant to be eaten?! Also bread loafs? Is each individual slice alive, or the loaf as a whole? Or the packaging? At what point does the food become sentient? If we have a living bag of sugar, is each grain inside also alive?

I know its reading to much into things, but holes are holes.

But like I said, I don't really care what a critics gives a movie. I just like consistency of criteria.

I think it may have to come with how a plot hole affects the plot functionally. Doesn't the source of anthropomorphization affect anything with the plot in Sausage Party? Because some of the plot holes in Suicide Squad do affect the direction of the plot and characterization, in sometimes pretty hollow and negative ways. When you're willing to accept talking hot dogs, it's not a big leap to accept a talking mayonnaise jar unless there's some plot element that's supposed to explain things as only the hot dogs should be talking and somehow that element is what drives the plot in some way. In contrast, Waller shooting her subordinates because 'they don't have clearance' while they were clearly deep in that information already affects the tone of the film going from that point and how you're supposed to look at her as a character. There was no compatible suspension of disbelief, she just shot her subordinates to make sure the audience knew she would do just about anything to cover her tracks, and the discrepancy is pretty jarring if minor.

The line on what's a reasonable to suspend disbelief is subjective, but there's definitely differences on just how plot holes affect a movie.

 

[Parasondox]

You guys! You can have your own opinions and not let those who disagree with you, to stop you liking what you like. Yes I have seen snobby remakes about people have "bad taste", but guess what? If you like something and it makes you happy and kiddish, then fucking enjoy it. Anything can be seen as bad taste.

Remember the day where comics and video games were seen as bad taste and childish? Some still think that way but we are lucky today to have it in the mainstream limelight.

So please, stop trying to gain unneeded validation from "experts", don't get hurt by the things you love that are being criticised and get bitter towards those who dislike it and don't stop enjoying what you like to view and experience. It's your personal experience and enjoyment. No one else's. YOURS.

 

[Redd the Sock]

While everyone tries to mock this, and to a large degree should, there is an element of early warning to critics to be had. I don't watch critics for information anymore. Entertainment, yes, many can be rather funny. But by the time I have to wade through several, for an extended period to get a sense of them so as to know if their reviews are more based on their politics, their own fanboyism, their pet peeves, etc. it's usually easier to just drop the ten bucks down (I never get snacks) and take my chances based only on the trailers. Worst case scenario, I get some mental rifftrax in. I can see why others that still feel they need to get their money's worth similarly avoid the hassle and just look at the aggregate score.

As it is, criticism is a service sold to a consumer (paid by ad revenue), and like any product, if the consumer doesn't see value to them in it, they don't buy it. It isn't that there's a gulf between critic and user scores, it's that if the users see more value in the user's scores, then why will people pay critics to do what the internet is more than willing to do for free and gets more positive response? I get everyone want their job to be "this is my opinion on X" but if that opinion isn't seen as having worth, you don't get paid for it, and perceptions of being out of touch, or political and culturally biased, really hurts your worth.

 

[Sonmi]

I miss the times when critics where interesting and entertaining.

Hachi machi! When did things become so miserable!

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

After wasting 3 minutes of my life watching this, I refuse to waste a further 13 minutes on a thesis based on "I dislike it when biased critics refuse to reflect my own biaises."

It would also be more believable if the user used more than three examples of supposed critic-audience divide (Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters). In contrast, let's look at some other RT scores:

-Sausage Party: 82% vs. 62%
-War Dogs: 58% vs. 74%
-Ben Hur: 28% vs. 67%
-Bad Mums: 62% vs. 76%
-Jason Bourne: 57% vs. 62%
-Secret Life of Pets: 74% vs. 65%
-Florence Foster Jenkins: 86% vs. 76%
-Star Trek Beyond: 83% vs. 83%

Now, to cite the movies he mentioned:

-Suicide Squad: 26% vs. 68%
-Batman v Superman: 27% vs. 65%
-Ghostbusters: 73% vs. 57%

Even Ghostbusters seems to have normalized, though its user score is suspect given the controversy it stored. But apart from that, the movies he cites as the divide are comic-book based, where most other movies listed, with the exception of Ben-Hur, fall within a reasonable length of consensus. But hey, I guess the critics are only biaised against movies the poster likes. Bear in mind, I actually like Suicide Squad, but I don't feel the need to rationalize me being in the minority.

Oh, and he defends Gamergate, which is frankly hilarious on its own, but I've realized that I've wasted 13 minutes of my life anyway writing this so...

Bleh. ;p

Dude don't be stubborn and watch the whole video so that your response to it at least understand the bigger picture.

Hawki has put more effort into this thread then you have, and you started it. In fact, I think watching 3 minutes of this video was extremely generous.

I personally watched the video as long as I estimated it took you to post this - About 30 seconds. And judging by what I saw in those 30 seconds, I was outrageously generous.

As for the 'unreliability' of modern critics... Yah. To hell with that. There's a billion of them, going to have to give me something more specific then the entire field of critics if you want to discuss something like reliability.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

WAAAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAhahahaahahahahahaahaaa...

Oh boy.

So I held my nose and watched the entire video. You should all thank me for my brave sacrifice.

It's some nasal little nobody Youtube kid whining himself inside-out about critics having the "wrong" opinions for the "wrong" reasons.

(Also, nearly half the video is about Gamergate which I'm not going to touch because I can't be fucked dealing with the execrable conversation that would inevitably follow.)

His entire argument consists of comparing user scores with critic scores and quoting reviews and articles he disagrees with in a silly voice. Which is slightly more bearable than his normal voice.

Rants on about critics being biased because they don't reflect user reviews while completely ignoring the tendency for user reviews to be plagued by hysterical idiots with a blatant axe to grind. Because of course he does.

Samtendo, we get that you're mad about critics saying DC's shit movies are shit and giving Warcraft a good thrashing. I'm sure it's nice to find someone who agrees with you. But this clown isn't the answer.

Oh, and that article he mocks at 8:45? Apart from the mention of censorship, that describes your behaviour pretty well.

Just so you know I posted this without any form of "passion" or trying to validate my opinion as in (Wah these critics were harsh on my favorite movie, this guy is right listen to him validate my opinion) notice all I just said in my thread post is just "discuss" as in I want to hear what other people say about this certain youtuber's video. And people were already talking about this whole Rotten Tomatoes thing and I found this video so I thought, "what the hell I wanna see what other people's response to this guy's video"

Besides the fanboy in me as already satisfyed with the coming of the Justice League movie and Wonder Woman movie. And those are the 2 movies I wanted to see the most anyway than Batman v Superman which I already knew it was just "Justice League the setup movie"

 

[Hawki]

Dude don't be stubborn and watch the whole video so that your response to it at least understand the bigger picture.

Certain people with certain biases contribute to the rotten tomatoes scale.

He is saying that if it were not for these Biased agendas the scail would have been much fairer.

As in BvS could have been 50%

Okay, I'll play:

The video starts off suspect by the viewer bemoaning Suicide Squad getting a low RT score, and Ghostbusters getting a high score. Clearly something is wrong in the world in his mind. Now, he's free to like/dislike what he wants, but...

Oh good, he brings up the petition, which is also assinine. However, he brings up Batman v Superman getting similar audience/critic scores (see my above rankings for the scores). But that doesn't last long as he brings up The Mary Sue, a site based on feminism, giving a movie a review. Gasp? Surely they can't do that! Surely one having a given political/social bias should prevent anyone from reviewing movies!

Well, maybe. But by the same token, Suicide Squad also received reviews from Movie Bob (a comic book fanboy, negative), the Guardian (generally regarded as being left wing, positive), and various others. If we want a truly fair appraisal, you'd have to find people with no pre-investment in the DCEU, and with no leanings politically or socially. To which I say, "good luck with that." Also, the Mary Sue is one negative review out of 209. TWO-HUNDRED AND NINE. Are they all politically/socially biaised?

The reviewer then goes on to list 4 Ghostbusters reviews as an example, all of which reference the fan backlash against Ghostbusters. Gee, four reviews out of 210. TWO-HUNDRED AND TEN. It also bears mentioning that it would be hard to review Ghostbusters 2016 without referencing the fan backlash. Now, again, Ghostbusters was a hot button topic. But 4 reviews out of 210 isn't indicative of anything, and of the three reviews he cites, the first one doesn't even mention the fan backlash. He simply reads it out in a condescending voice. Now, reading the actual review itself, it does approach the film from a feminism angle, but that's the reviewers right. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are far more political films than Ghostbusters out there - even The Dark Knight Rises touches on issues such as Occupy Wall Street. Should critics with thoughts on OWS be barred from reviewing it?

Then Gamergate, because...ugh. This is getting off topic, but if one is criticizing Gamergate, it of course HAS to be collusion with a corrupt press, right? It couldn't be because Gamergate started out as a storm in a tea cup and has extended its tirade to anyone who dares criticize them, or games, resorting to death threats and whatnot, right? Not saying that there aren't people in Gamergate who genuinely believe they're fighting 'corruption,' but it's not a movement that is above critique.

Now we reach the three minute mark, where I gave up last time, and Jesus Christ am I close to giving up now. This guy referenced Gamergate negatively, reviewed GB positively, and SS negatvely? He has an agenda! Bar him from the site! He's only reviewing GB positively because it supports their "ideology!" Nevermind that the review itself actually brings up numerous points on the film outside feminism. Also, don't you think it's disingenuous to declare that someone only likes something because they believe in a certain creed?

Now, Ebert aside, we move on to some SS reviews. Reviews I don't agree with by the way, and it shows reviewers approaching the film from a political viewpoint. How many reviews, however, out of the total? Well, I didn't count, but as SS has 284 reviews on RT, and the reviewer lists less than ten...well, well, that's over 1% of all reviews being confirmed to have a political bias by his reckoning, so that's something.

He then labels corruption of the gaming press because metacritic scores don't match up. These scores include:

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture: 78 vs. 65
Gone Home: 8.6 vs 54
Dragon Age: Inquisition: 85 vs. 58
Call of Duty Ghosts: 86 vs 36
Black Ops III: 81 vs 46
No Man's Sky: 71 vs 49
Dragon Age II: 82 vs 44
Mass Effect 3: 89 vs 55

Now, we're already in suspect territory here - Call of Duty games have been metabombed since time immemorial. Also ignores that Mass Effect 3 had the ending controversy. So, that aside, we're in a 20-30% margain of consensus here with these examples, with the exception of Dragon Age II. That's a margain of consensus that's quite close to the RT scores, BTW. Also:

Witcher 3: 92 vs 91
Dark Souls III: 89 vs 85
Stardew Valley: 88 vs 85
Total War: Warhammer: 86 vs 74
Doom: 85 vs 83
Grim Dawn: 83 vs 85
The Technomancer: 56 vs 68
Batman: Telltale: 74 vs 64
Inside: 87 vs 84

All of these are much closer scores. These scores come from both AAA and Indie developers. But hey, I guess the press refused to take bribes this time, and were on the money, right?

Now, he brings up the boss office gross of both movies. A tactic that most would frown on, because box office gross isn't an indicator in of itself of a film's quality. If so, then Transformers would be the next Citizen Kane, and Blade Runner would be a terrible sci-fi film. Not saying you can't hold those opinions genuinely, but saying that "movie made a lot of money, ergo the movie is good" is an argument that will get you nowhere. An indicator of popularity, maybe? Yeah, pretty much. But popularity isn't the same as quality.

At this point, I have to go, and the user focuses mostly on Gamergate, which is a whole other cesspool I'd rather not wade into. But, the user does leave behind two key thoughts:

-Money is the core metric for success.

-A work should be evaluated for what it is, rather than what it isn't

Leaving out point 1, let's bring on point 2. In principle, I agree on point 2. However, declaring someone to not follow point 2 is nebulous. He brings up Dynasty Warriors, claiming that anyone who criticizes it for Oriental tropes is in breach of point 2. Gee, could it be that people genuinely believe in those points? Because if so, then tough luck - art isn't above critique. I haven't played enough of DW to agree with that claim. I have seen Ghostbusters 2016 to say that I don't see any real feminist theme, unless I squint. But other people may. That's fine. That's how art works. Gamergate, whatever its intentions, harkens back to an era where gameplay was the only thing that mattered, and that games shouldn't be evaluated based on anything else.

So, in conclusion, dear YouTuber, let me lay out the following:

-Everyone has their own degree of bias. Even you.

-If you want to prove that there's some great conspiracy in the film/game industries, you need far more examples, and need to address examples that don't follow the trend. This includes reviews.

-You're entitled to review games/films/whatever as you will. However, if games are an art form (and I believe they are), then they're entitled to be analyzed as an artform. That means factors beyond gameplay. Doesn't mean you have to agree with the conclusions drawn from them, but that they're being analyzed at all is fair game.

And to answer Sam, "As in BvS could have been 50%," to that I say, "who cares?"

If you like BvS, fine. Enjoy it. Love it. Lord knows there's lots of movies I love that have a net negative RT score. But claiming that people don't like it because of a bias is assinine.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Dude don't be stubborn and watch the whole video so that your response to it at least understand the bigger picture.

Certain people with certain biases contribute to the rotten tomatoes scale.

He is saying that if it were not for these Biased agendas the scail would have been much fairer.

As in BvS could have been 50%

Okay, I'll play:

The video starts off suspect by the viewer bemoaning Suicide Squad getting a low RT score, and Ghostbusters getting a high score. Clearly something is wrong in the world in his mind. Now, he's free to like/dislike what he wants, but...

Oh good, he brings up the petition, which is also assinine. However, he brings up Batman v Superman getting similar audience/critic scores (see my above rankings for the scores). But that doesn't last long as he brings up The Mary Sue, a site based on feminism, giving a movie a review. Gasp? Surely they can't do that! Surely one having a given political/social bias should prevent anyone from reviewing movies!

Well, maybe. But by the same token, Suicide Squad also received reviews from Movie Bob (a comic book fanboy, negative), the Guardian (generally regarded as being left wing, positive), and various others. If we want a truly fair appraisal, you'd have to find people with no pre-investment in the DCEU, and with no leanings politically or socially. To which I say, "good luck with that." Also, the Mary Sue is one negative review out of 209. TWO-HUNDRED AND NINE. Are they all politically/socially biaised?

The reviewer then goes on to list 4 Ghostbusters reviews as an example, all of which reference the fan backlash against Ghostbusters. Gee, four reviews out of 210. TWO-HUNDRED AND TEN. It also bears mentioning that it would be hard to review Ghostbusters 2016 without referencing the fan backlash. Now, again, Ghostbusters was a hot button topic. But 4 reviews out of 210 isn't indicative of anything, and of the three reviews he cites, the first one doesn't even mention the fan backlash. He simply reads it out in a condescending voice. Now, reading the actual review itself, it does approach the film from a feminism angle, but that's the reviewers right. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are far more political films than Ghostbusters out there - even The Dark Knight Rises touches on issues such as Occupy Wall Street. Should critics with thoughts on OWS be barred from reviewing it?

Then Gamergate, because...ugh. This is getting off topic, but if one is criticizing Gamergate, it of course HAS to be collusion with a corrupt press, right? It couldn't be because Gamergate started out as a storm in a tea cup and has extended its tirade to anyone who dares criticize them, or games, resorting to death threats and whatnot, right? Not saying that there aren't people in Gamergate who genuinely believe they're fighting 'corruption,' but it's not a movement that is above critique.

Now we reach the three minute mark, where I gave up last time, and Jesus Christ am I close to giving up now. This guy referenced Gamergate negatively, reviewed GB positively, and SS negatvely? He has an agenda! Bar him from the site! He's only reviewing GB positively because it supports their "ideology!" Nevermind that the review itself actually brings up numerous points on the film outside feminism. Also, don't you think it's disingenuous to declare that someone only likes something because they believe in a certain creed?

Now, Ebert aside, we move on to some SS reviews. Reviews I don't agree with by the way, and it shows reviewers approaching the film from a political viewpoint. How many reviews, however, out of the total? Well, I didn't count, but as SS has 284 reviews on RT, and the reviewer lists less than ten...well, well, that's over 1% of all reviews being confirmed to have a political bias by his reckoning, so that's something.

He then labels corruption of the gaming press because metacritic scores don't match up. These scores include:

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture: 78 vs. 65
Gone Home: 8.6 vs 54
Dragon Age: Inquisition: 85 vs. 58
Call of Duty Ghosts: 86 vs 36
Black Ops III: 81 vs 46
No Man's Sky: 71 vs 49
Dragon Age II: 82 vs 44
Mass Effect 3: 89 vs 55

Now, we're already in suspect territory here - Call of Duty games have been metabombed since time immemorial. Also ignores that Mass Effect 3 had the ending controversy. So, that aside, we're in a 20-30% margain of consensus here with these examples, with the exception of Dragon Age II. That's a margain of consensus that's quite close to the RT scores, BTW. Also:

Witcher 3: 92 vs 91
Dark Souls III: 89 vs 85
Stardew Valley: 88 vs 85
Total War: Warhammer: 86 vs 74
Doom: 85 vs 83
Grim Dawn: 83 vs 85
The Technomancer: 56 vs 68
Batman: Telltale: 74 vs 64
Inside: 87 vs 84

All of these are much closer scores. These scores come from both AAA and Indie developers. But hey, I guess the press refused to take bribes this time, and were on the money, right?

Now, he brings up the boss office gross of both movies. A tactic that most would frown on, because box office gross isn't an indicator in of itself of a film's quality. If so, then Transformers would be the next Citizen Kane, and Blade Runner would be a terrible sci-fi film. Not saying you can't hold those opinions genuinely, but saying that "movie made a lot of money, ergo the movie is good" is an argument that will get you nowhere. An indicator of popularity, maybe? Yeah, pretty much. But popularity isn't the same as quality.

At this point, I have to go, and the user focuses mostly on Gamergate, which is a whole other cesspool I'd rather not wade into. But, the user does leave behind two key thoughts:

-Money is the core metric for success.

-A work should be evaluated for what it is, rather than what it isn't

Leaving out point 1, let's bring on point 2. In principle, I agree on point 2. However, declaring someone to not follow point 2 is nebulous. He brings up Dynasty Warriors, claiming that anyone who criticizes it for Oriental tropes is in breach of point 2. Gee, could it be that people genuinely believe in those points? Because if so, then tough luck - art isn't above critique. I haven't played enough of DW to agree with that claim. I have seen Ghostbusters 2016 to say that I don't see any real feminist theme, unless I squint. But other people may. That's fine. That's how art works. Gamergate, whatever its intentions, harkens back to an era where gameplay was the only thing that mattered, and that games shouldn't be evaluated based on anything else.

So, in conclusion, dear YouTuber, let me lay out the following:

-Everyone has their own degree of bias. Even you.

-If you want to prove that there's some great conspiracy in the film/game industries, you need far more examples, and need to address examples that don't follow the trend. This includes reviews.

-You're entitled to review games/films/whatever as you will. However, if games are an art form (and I believe they are), then they're entitled to be analyzed as an artform. That means factors beyond gameplay. Doesn't mean you have to agree with the conclusions drawn from them, but that they're being analyzed at all is fair game.

And to answer Sam, "As in BvS could have been 50%," to that I say, "who cares?"

If you like BvS, fine. Enjoy it. Love it. Lord knows there's lots of movies I love that have a net negative RT score. But claiming that people don't like it because of a bias is assinine.

To add more to the recent post I just made.

I also posted this video because if there is one thing I hate as of now, its being in an Echo Chamber.

I watch these videos and all I see is just people talking to themselves with no other people to challenge them. I made this thread to see people challenge the content of this video because sometimes some youtubers can be see blind in their own opinions without challeging it.

 

[Kyrian007]

After wasting 3 minutes of my life watching this, I refuse to waste a further 13 minutes on a thesis based on "I dislike it when biased critics refuse to reflect my own biaises."

It would also be more believable if the user used more than three examples of supposed critic-audience divide (Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters). In contrast, let's look at some other RT scores:

-Sausage Party: 82% vs. 62%
-War Dogs: 58% vs. 74%
-Ben Hur: 28% vs. 67%
-Bad Mums: 62% vs. 76%
-Jason Bourne: 57% vs. 62%
-Secret Life of Pets: 74% vs. 65%
-Florence Foster Jenkins: 86% vs. 76%
-Star Trek Beyond: 83% vs. 83%

Now, to cite the movies he mentioned:

-Suicide Squad: 26% vs. 68%
-Batman v Superman: 27% vs. 65%
-Ghostbusters: 73% vs. 57%

Even Ghostbusters seems to have normalized, though its user score is suspect given the controversy it stored. But apart from that, the movies he cites as the divide are comic-book based, where most other movies listed, with the exception of Ben-Hur, fall within a reasonable length of consensus. But hey, I guess the critics are only biaised against movies the poster likes. Bear in mind, I actually like Suicide Squad, but I don't feel the need to rationalize me being in the minority.

Oh, and he defends Gamergate, which is frankly hilarious on its own, but I've realized that I've wasted 13 minutes of my life anyway writing this so...

Bleh. ;p

Yup.

This doesn't have anything to do with reviewers, new or old. This is about entitlement culture. "X critic doesn't like what I like! He must be teh bias, whaaaaaauuggghhhhh! Imma tell the internet."

Basically, an adult finds a couple of reviewers whom he agrees with for the most part and generally listens to them and gives aggregate reviews a glance to see which way the wind blows. And then makes up their own mind about what entertainment to consume... then forms their OWN opinion about it and therefore only values the review as a thermometer for determining how accurate that reviewer's opinion matches their own.

And a child sees a negative review of something they determined they were going to fanboy all over even before its release and decides to shitpost anyone who dares dislike something they like.

And a delusional paranoid starts seeing complex "conspiracies" aimed at them. And will draw huge, drawn out and complex lines of connection between the shadowy "they" and whatever "they" that they already hate and fear.

But never fear. Children grow up eventually (usually) and paranoids seem more numerous than they are because they scream the loudest while being ignored (which is what most people do to them) and utilize many sock puppets in an effort to scream louder.

As far as the DECU is concerned... Here's what happened to me. I watched Man of Steel on day 1 without seeing reviews to avoid spoilers. It was shit, I nearly walked out of the movie. I watched reviewers I generally agree with totally take a dump on the movie, and I resolve to listen to them before wasting money on any further DCEU products. BvS comes out, those reviewers say it is even worse than MoS. I do eventually watch it, but I wait until I can borrow the DVD because I don't wish to give WB any money. And the reviewers were right... again, it was even worse. SS gets terrible reviews... this time I'm not going to bother at all. Not because the reviewer says so, but because the movies' production team can't create anything worthwhile enough to impress people who's opinions I value.

So from my perspective, the critics are usually right and aggregate scores are a decent base indication of quality. And the specific reviewers whom I pay attention to have tastes that pretty well parallel mine. And on the occasion when their or the aggregate scores disagree with my own opinion (usually when I hate a movie or game or show MORE than the reviews) I don't start screaming about reviewers being "wrong"... I don't start inventing complex conspiracies about how "they're all against me." I just make a mental note of it. If it happens a lot I may re-evaluate how much that reviewer's opinions parallel mine. That's it. No shitpost screaming to the internet. No threats or doxxing. I think that's the "mature" way to handle the situation. But of course, perhaps I'm wrong.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Completely agree, modern critics are not at all reliable. Why? Because they have opinions and opinions are subjective. What we need are objective reviews. Reviews that don't take personal tastes, political opinions, or any other biases into account. Doesn't that sound great? In fact, Jim did a wonderfully objective Final Fantasy XIII review and I think movie critics could learn a thing or two from him.

No, that does not sound great, it sounds dreadful. I would much rather read reviews by humans with opinions, bias and humor than ones written by computers. I like how I can go to 6 different sites and have 6 different opinions on which were the best and worst movies. I like being able to get different perspectives depending on whose perspective that is. Reviews, articles, and reporting should be just as varied as he people who are writing them. The differences are important to help bridge understanding of how many people can view the same event and have many different perspectives of that event. I prefer for people to call it as they see it, it helps expand understanding of the world we live in.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Mmm. So I watched the video, or about...four minutes of the video. It's not an easy video to endure.

His general point - to be generous - seems to be that Rotten Tomatoes includes, amongst its 300-or-so certified publications, some publications which have a political bias leaning one way or another.

I can understand that criticism, and I can give it a certain degree of credit, but I think it's ultimately unfounded. For starters, political bias works all ways - only if there was some clear favouritism on the part of the RT editors would I say that the presence of political bias in some publications indicates the same political bias in all publications. To ascertain that you'd need to go over all three hundred certified reviewers and then apply some kind of...political bias test, where we divine the political prejudices of individual reviewers through some form of magic, presumably, because I have no fucking idea how you'd do it otherwise. And without a crystal ball to gaze into, any conclusion one way or another can only be reached through assumption - a process fraught by the same prejudice we're trying to cure.

But still, it's an interesting question. It then gets kind of smothered in some obnoxious pseudo-rebuttals of those critics who the video's maker has a personal distaste for. Then it starts talking Gamergate, and I kind of missed the whole Gamergate thing, so I don't really even know what it means to be...pro-Gamergate? A Gamergater? I don't know. The entire controversy is, to me, like an invisible monster hurtling through the jungle; I can only see the effects of its passage, not the shape of the thing itself.

Whatever. The Gamergate bullshit is ultimately tangential - in fact, it actually adds to the guy's question in ways he probably didn't intend. Say this guy's reviews ended up on Rotten Tomatoes. He's pretty clearly got some political hang-ups that would likely affect his review. How reliable is his review?

The actual answer, naturally, is "fuck you, go watch his review and decide for yourself," because everyone has their own standards for assessing whether or not a film critic is trustworthy or full of shit.

How does Rotten Tomatoes account for that? It doesn't, because Rotten Tomatoes is a fucking godawful aggregator and no-one should use its scores as a metric for indicating anything. The ultimate solution is: fuck Rotten Tomatoes, and fuck its stupid Tomatometer what doesn't mean shit right in its Tomatomouth.

(I have a bias against Rotten Tomatoes. Can you tell?)

Edit: For what it's worth, it seems like he hated BvS, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TlMTYyHypQ] and his actual review [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwxlZ-t3ec] of Suicide Squad is very mixed. So this isn't a case of someone annoyed that the films got slammed; he slammed them himself too.

x 2 Edit Combo: Having skimmed through a few of his other videos, he seems like...a mostly reasonable guy who has a special hate-boner for the Mary Sue. As soon as the word "misandry" gets brought up, he kind of starts foaming at the mouth.

And that's fine; I'm not a special fan of the Mary Sue myself, and I certainly think that internet news has something to gain from producing clickbait that plays on the gender war that we all seem so fond of recently. I don't think it's the sundered seventh seal as told of in Revelations, but hey - everyone has a pet peeve. Mine is Rotten Tomatoes!

 

[Hawki]

Completely agree, modern critics are not at all reliable. Why? Because they have opinions and opinions are subjective. What we need are objective reviews. Reviews that don't take personal tastes, political opinions, or any other biases into account. Doesn't that sound great? In fact, Jim did a wonderfully objective Final Fantasy XIII review and I think movie critics could learn a thing or two from him.

No, that does not sound great, it sounds dreadful. I would much rather read reviews by humans with opinions, bias and humor than ones written by computers. I like how I can go to 6 different sites and have 6 different opinions on which were the best and worst movies. I like being able to get different perspectives depending on whose perspective that is. Reviews, articles, and reporting should be just as varied as he people who are writing them. The differences are important to help bridge understanding of how many people can view the same event and have many different perspectives of that event. I prefer for people to call it as they see it, it helps expand understanding of the world we live in.

I think the captain was being sarcastic...

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Completely agree, modern critics are not at all reliable. Why? Because they have opinions and opinions are subjective. What we need are objective reviews. Reviews that don't take personal tastes, political opinions, or any other biases into account. Doesn't that sound great? In fact, Jim did a wonderfully objective Final Fantasy XIII review and I think movie critics could learn a thing or two from him.

No, that does not sound great, it sounds dreadful. I would much rather read reviews by humans with opinions, bias and humor than ones written by computers. I like how I can go to 6 different sites and have 6 different opinions on which were the best and worst movies. I like being able to get different perspectives depending on whose perspective that is. Reviews, articles, and reporting should be just as varied as he people who are writing them. The differences are important to help bridge understanding of how many people can view the same event and have many different perspectives of that event. I prefer for people to call it as they see it, it helps expand understanding of the world we live in.

I think the captain was being sarcastic...

I know it was. How can you post a Jimquisition video and actually endorse unbiased media? XD

I also think people should get freebies for product reviews so we can get great perspective reviews such as this:

http://gizmodo.com/5904836/kohler-spent-1500-for-me-to-take-a-bath-in-wisconsin

Some of the best reviews I have ever read were from people who were bribed to review their products.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Unreliable? They're reliably useless, at least when taken all together, as a shapeless malicious lovecraftian entity that hates things.
It helps to be cautious with the things that get critical acclaim though, and it also helps to be curious about things they really pan.
And it really helps to remember that they are mostly idiots.

Like, Silent Hill has metascore 30 vs user score 80. Why is there such a divide? The obvious explanation: they're idiots.
Warcraft has metascore 32 vs user score 83. Why? Idiots.
Silent Hill: Revelation 3D has metascore 15 vs User score 50. Why? They're idiots. It clearly does not deserve a 50.
Deadpool 65 vs 82? Idiots.
Prometheus 65 vs 65? WEIRD. (I really liked it, but I'm accustomed to the idea that simpler minds cannot handle the helmet moment).
Resident Evil 33 vs 66.
Saw 46 vs 80.
Fight Club 66 vs 90.
There was never a correlation between things I like and dislike and what critics think.
And if I study the user score more, there is no correlation either. Because "The Limits of Control" has the user score of 63 and I hated every minute of it!
So why even check with them? I don't. I don't watch movies often, and I mostly watch them when there's a bunch of subtle clues telling me that maybe I should. It usually works.

As for the games critics, there's two I do trust and that's because I know their biases really well.
When lumped together into a single number, games critics are as useless as the movie ones.

Games critics, just like movie critics are fine. It is just a matter of finding critics you enjoy with similar tastes as you have. If they have similar tastes, they will like the games you do and dislike the games you do and same you time and money. Just like with everything else it is just a matter of taste.