What does it mean to be "objective"?

[AwkwardTurtle]

Okay yes, I could totally look at a dictionary and it would tell me.

Objective - not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts

However, my question is related to the idea of game reviewing/giving your general thoughts and opinions on a game. I don't know if I'm just crazy or if other people just like to throw around the word objective to try and make something seem more valid than it actually is, but it drives me insane when I see someone say that a reviewer wasn't being objective.

In my understanding the general purpose of a review is to give your opinion of a game and backing it up with reasons. The act of trying to justify your opinion seems to be main difference between simply stating your opinion. However this doesn't make your opinion any more objective than another person's opinion. It's still just an opinion. Now this isn't to say that all opinions are equally valid of course. I believe that this would be the cause of our perception of a good review and a bad review. Some opinions are better justified and in our eyes seem more valid than others, and those are the opinions we're going to trust. It's as simple as that. There is nothing objective about game reviewing (to me), yet people constantly demand that a reviewer "remain" objective.

I don't know maybe this is just semantics, but it really does bother me. Is there some reason that I am unaware of as to why people insist upon trying to apply the word objective to game reviews?

TL;DR Why do people seem to have the idea that a game review should be objective when it's essentially just the opinion of a person?

 

[Full]

If you look at it a certain way, yeah, it is just an opinion. However, a review is not simply a checklist of likes and dislikes from the reviewers own experience with evidence. You need to give criticism to the developer that a certain aspect needs improving/fixing, to become the best game it can be. Personal qualms with an art style or genre should not get in the way. I really, don't know how to actually execute this with words.

Er, it's really hard to explain, once you start thinking about it.

 

[DioWallachia]

TL;DR Why do people seem to have the idea that a game review should be objective when it's essentially just the opinion of a person?

Because that would make that reviewer the equivalent of a normal person that has no profesional knowledge of whatever is talking about?

Its clear that one would want objective observations on the reviewers SPECIALLY when most of them just speak generic words like "An action pack thrill ride" without adressing WHY.

There is nothing wrong with what basically is asking for the profesionals to DO their jobs. Or else, their job will be Turd Polishing. Here is a SHINING example:

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well people do like to stuff some buzz words into their arguments so they appear to be part of the cool gang.

But on the subject of what is what let's put down some contrast:
- a completely objective review would state nothing but irrefutable facts of the product
- "just an opinion" would offer exclusively personal views without a single reference to facts
In both cases that would make for a horrid review, you simply couldn't tell what the whole package is.

What a reviewer should ideally do is offer the most accurate description of the product in all it's aspects, this can't be done with just facts and it can't be done with just opinions, it hasto be a tight knitting of both and it is a damn hard thing to do because we squishy hummies only ever comprehend the world in a personal biased fashion.

 

[DoPo]

Yes, a review is an opinion but it generally differs from an actual opinion. Hence why we use different words. It's one thing to say "Blah and blah is just cool and I love it" and another to say "Here are some features of blah, overall it is good". Yes, it's not totally objective but it's trying, by mixing objective facts (the features) with subjective things (the reviewer thinking it's good) or perhaps it's even more objective (the features are all improvements over the original, for example, so it's not just an opinion it's better).

Simply put, an opinion of a game and a review of a game would differ in how useful would they be to the wider public. I can say I liked Heroes 6, and if you know me and trust my judgement, then you might be inclined to believe me that it's good. But I wouldn't expect this to be useful to everybody out there. A review of the game should look at it from several angles, so you, me, a bunch of other people, would all find something useful in it - we might all decide it sucks, or that it's the best, or (more probable) we can end up with different views on the matter, a review should still allow us this.

 

[WoW Killer]

Impartial is probably a better word when talking of reviews. There is an objective side to games, but it's rather dry stuff like technical features, performance, bugs, which aren't usually the main considerations when talking about the quality of a game (unless it's completely broken I guess). Usually we're interested in whether or not a game is fun, and that is very much a subjective thing.

What a reviewer needs to be is impartial, which is to say they need to consider different sorts of gamers and what they might enjoy. A reviewer needs to leave behind their own tastes, to an extent anyway, and think about who would want this game and what they would think of it.

 

[Joccaren]

In most cases its people wanting the reviewer not to go:
"Its got great, fast paced gameplay that you'll love"
and instead say something like:
"The game plays at a very fast rate, and good reaction speeds are required to be good at the game. The mechanics are simple and 3 shots from your basic gun will down an enemy, with your basic gun shooting around 6 bullets a second. Accurassy is very low without using iron sights or a scope, and most of your shots will miss, however with iron sights or a scope your aim is almost perfectly accurate, rapidly dropping once you start to fire."
for a basic FPS.

And really, you can tell why. The first statement means nothing. Its saying the reviewer is being payed off or really liked the fast paced shooting. However, what type of shooting is it? Is it CoD hyperfast spunkgargleweewee shooting as described above, or is it Halo CE/Quake/Unreal style shooting at a slightly faster pace. The former I'm not interested in. The latter I could be convinced to buy.
Sadly, a lot of reviews are relatively short and don't go into details on the gameplay of the game like this. You get a vague sense of how the reviewer experienced it "Gameplay is a little clunky, but overall it works", but you never actually know how it was clunky, or whether its clunkiness would have mattered to you, until you buy and play the game, whilst a more informative and 'objective', as people will call it, review style would give you a better idea and allow you to steer away from some games or run towards others thanks to having a better idea of what's going on in the game.

 

[Tdoodle]

It depends, if I'm looking at something like Metacritic I quite like the reviews to be objective because I always look at scores as weighing the good with the bad and marking it based on that, but if I'm actually reading through a review I'd rather they just gave their opinion on it. Impartial is fine, but generally if I'm reading a review it's usually from someone whose opinions I know and respect anyway so I can live without.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I agree with you. Reviews can't be objective. Which is why the idea of attending art school has always been ridiculous to me, unless it's something functional like architecture which you can assess based on things like the building being able to stand up. The only things you can possibly assess in a game objectively are the playability (bugs, whether the damn thing works) and MAYBE whether it actually does what it intends to do, however I can't be bothered thinking of an example of the latter right now.

 

[StriderShinryu]

In my understanding the general purpose of a review is to give your opinion of a game and backing it up with reasons.

This is pretty much it to me.

Point by point disection of the technical aspects of a game not only makes for a boring review, but it completely ignores the very important factor in quality of a game that is how it actually plays/feels to play. Games are a very unique entertainment medium stuck halfway between presentation and interaction, and reviews need to respect that. There are techical aspects of a game to be commented on and judged. There are artistic aspects (or not, depending on the game) that can be valued. There are aspects of interaction that need to be commented on. Etc. Reviews need to not only address all of these concerns but must provide reasoning for the reviewers opinion. If a review can't back up it's observations with examples and reasons, then it's a terrible review.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Objectivity and gaming (as well as art in general) don't have much to do with each other. Quality is a value that each person perceives differently. The key with reviews I think is to offer your opinion, and try to logically support it. That's the best one can do when trying to advise others on quality.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

In this context, it means to make judgments based solely on the facts or merits presented and aren't in any way based on any prior biases. Which is pretty much impossibly for any human beings to do.