GDC09: Highlights from the Game Critics Rant
by Justin McElroy 
{ Mar 27th 2009 at 6:30PM }
Before we begin, keep in mind that we are cherry picking here, and there's a lot of context you miss out on by not being on site. Hopefully, we're at least able to give you a flavor of what was going on.
First up was former journo N'Gai Croal, who pleaded for the use of more accurate language to describe gamers that did away with terms like "hardcore" and "casual," referencing Mitch Krpata's "New Taxonomy of Gamers" series.
Next was MTV's Stephen Totilo, who asked game journalists to improve their writing, specifically banning overused or just unclear words like "compelling", "visceral", "very" and all adverbs.
Leigh Alexander, news director for Gamasutra, followed Totilo, complaining about the "three-way ecosystem of negativity" between devs, writers and the audience. Alexander made a passionate plea for less obfuscation from publishers and PR about the development process, saying "If you just told us the truth to begin with, we wouldn't have this problem. We don't want to get you wrong."
Journalist and author Heather Chaplin asked for game developers to grow up, saying that the idea that video games should be excused for their immaturity was a fallacy. In her words, "It's not that the media is an adolescent, it's you that are stunted adolecents. You're a bunch of guys who should be men who know that they're really children."
Developers got their own turn to speak, including Ubisoft's always colorful Clint Hocking. He had a stern warning for big name devs that weren't taking a lesson from the outside-the-box thinking of indie studios. "If you really care about making AAA games then you had better take this seriously because it's not a f***ing joke," he said. "These guys have learned more from us than we have from them and they're kicking our asses."
Noted Wii fan and Maxis staffer Chris Hecker was a little more targeted at journalists in his talk, "Do Your Job Well, Please," asking them for additional care and consideration before they post their work.
Bringing up the rear was G4's Adam Sessler who blasted Metacritic for reinterpreting other sites' scores to fit their own scale, as well as the publishers that use those scales to determine bonuses, firings, etc. His talk, appropriately, was titled "F**k Metacritic" (asterisks not included).
... Woo, that was a lot of ranting. Now, can everyone please just hug?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Judd @ Mar 27th 2009 6:42PM
Wow, Adam Sessler acting tough? I didn't know you had it in ye.
Alexisonfire @ Mar 27th 2009 8:03PM
Then I guess you missed probably one of the greatest moments of this year.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172626
Sessler had my respect after that. X-play itself? Not so much.
Misfit Toy @ Mar 28th 2009 11:09AM
Yeah, I subscribe to his weekly podcast (Sessler's Soapbox). He can really 'get real' about stuff. Its good to hear.
Donald @ Mar 27th 2009 6:47PM
Sess wins.
Flawless victory.
Danjer @ Mar 27th 2009 6:50PM
Adam Sessler is the freakin' man.
Markez @ Mar 27th 2009 7:08PM
Agreed. F**k Metacritic for providing morons with fodder to always trot out the "according to Metacritc, xyz console has x number of games that rate 90 or higher, whereas blah blah blah kill me."
Dante G @ Mar 27th 2009 6:58PM
Metacritic is a good reference to have before buying the games, but reading the actual reviews is much better. Some reviewers just slap 50's and 60's to games sequels just because they're not original... or not as good as the first. What if I never played the first, is the game any good by itself??? would somebody be objective? Would you please think of the children?
cxm @ Mar 27th 2009 10:20PM
This is the main problem with reviews in general. There's no standardization, so reviewers are free to do whatever they want which, unfortunately, is rate a game based on unfair standards instead of reviewing the game based on its own merits.
If a game has an awesome first go and the sequel is just as good but doesn't tread any new ground, does it deserve to be penalized for only being as good as the previous incarnation? Of course not. If a game is decent, but the publishers were idiots and charged more for it than they should, should the GAME be penalized? Hell no. If a game does something in a way that the reviewer felt wasn't how "they would do it", should its score be docked?
Too many reviewers forget what their job is and that isn't to spew out their opinions about the game with their own personal baggage strapped on.
Courtney @ Mar 27th 2009 7:10PM
Ya know, Adam, there is a solution. And it's ridiculously simple. Others have figured it out. It cuts Metacritic out and empowers your own audience. Figured it out yet? Need a hint?
Stop fucking using scores. Have some respect for your audience and let them arrive at their own conclusions based on your reporting without bottle feeding them how many stars, points or letters a game is worth.
Markez @ Mar 27th 2009 7:15PM
Hmmmm.... I'll give you a:
74
Mr Khan @ Mar 27th 2009 7:17PM
(plants tongue squarely in cheek)
but think of the developers? How would they know what to do if they didn't have these very comprehensive and extraordinarily useful numbers to go by? And how would the publishers be able to rate themselves against one another?
Tiptup300 @ Mar 27th 2009 7:21PM
Your comment gets a 2/3
Mike @ Mar 27th 2009 9:46PM
The problem Courtney is not the sites and reviewers that use the scores. It's the consumers that demand a score. You wouldn't believe the number of game reviewers that would rather not use a score. BTW, your comment gets a B+.
Misfit Toy @ Mar 28th 2009 11:12AM
I give this thread a Pi out of 5.
Courtney @ Mar 28th 2009 11:32AM
Mike, but people only expect/demand it because there is a history of providing reviews. We were trained by the games journalists to expect them. I think that could be broken and that there is a significant chunk of readers who would be fine without scores.
Do you need scores to attract a readership? Do you think that the few print magazines that remain are surviving because they give an arbitrary score to games?
Look at the blogs. Joystiq doesn't give scores. Kotaku doesn't give scores. I think both of these sites are doing just fine and people seem to enjoy their reviews. So if a readership can adapt and enjoy reviews without a score, and sites do fine with their traffic without giving a score, why keep feeding the metacritic engine?
Judd @ Mar 28th 2009 11:41AM
Misfit Toy, that is total bullshit.
How could you say that this thread gets a 3.14159? Clearly it's deserving of at least a 3.1416. I guess it's only threads on the Playstation Fanboy site that's good enough to get a 3.1416.
In fact, I'm going to write an angry letter to that other critic who gave this thread a 3.1415 for lowering this thread's average.
Dr. Joe @ Mar 30th 2009 3:20PM
I spoke to him directly after the rant session, and this very point came up. The problem with this approach is that removal of numeric scores would wreck their net traffic, which is something -his- bosses won't go for. As nice as it would be if everyone just read the reviews and drew their own conclusions, too many people are relying strictly on the numbers. One site stops using them, readers just start going to another site that still does.
It's a crap situation.
nikescar @ Mar 27th 2009 7:11PM
I wish I could have been there. Sounds like it was entertaining.
And Adam really has no reason to be upset with Metacritic. It's a good resource just like RottenTomatoes. They both provide links to the critics where you can read the reviews for yourself. I'd be interested to know what his proposed "fix" is for Metacritic.
cxm @ Mar 27th 2009 10:30PM
metacritic is awful if you look at it closely enough.
Reviews from any source are included which include sites that amount to little more than some random dude spouting his opinion without any real regard to the fact that reviews have some sort of responsibility tied to them. But hey, it's a "review", so it's still "valid".
Also, metacritic misses a ton of reviews, which means some negative/positive reviews aren't being factored into the final score at all, so with the inclusion of the random dude 'reviews' skews a game's score rediculously to the positive or negative realm.
Add to that the fact that number scores aren't standardized which means one site's 6 is another site's 9, and you end up with a system that's so broken you have to wonder how anyone could take the number scores with any sort of seriousness.
Mr Khan @ Mar 27th 2009 7:14PM
I quite like this one, i must say. Rants against the often-pitiful status of gaming journalism
Crusty Magic @ Mar 27th 2009 7:22PM
I like Adam, but he doesn't really have room to bash Metacritic.
Last time I checked X-Play still uses a score based rating system do they not?
Markez @ Mar 27th 2009 7:28PM
I'd imagine it's not necessarily something that's up to him. Everybody still generally wants a rating system.
Plus, I seem to recall on one of his soapbox bits that he did complain about their rating system to some degree.
nikescar @ Mar 27th 2009 7:29PM
He was talking about the conversion Metacritic does of ratings systems into the far more reasonable "out of 100" system. Is it Metacritic's fault they may be a bit off when converting "3 scrawny, receding red-headed, middle-aged dudes out of 5"?
BTW, does anyone watch that totally useless game review show or has it been canceled yet?
Crusty Magic @ Mar 27th 2009 7:31PM
I stopped watching it when it went from Extended Play to X-Play.
Extended Play was actually informative and fun to watch.
Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Mar 27th 2009 7:37PM
The controversy is there because some sites use rating systems like X/5 etc. and on Metacritic it shows up in 20 point increments(20,40,60,80,100). It is logical and the only way to do it, yet some people argue that a 3-star game getting 60 doesn't do it justice and the score is lost in conversion because that doesn't look good since we've all got used to the fact that even remotely playable games get at least 65.
Crusty Magic @ Mar 27th 2009 7:45PM
That makes sense, but if Adam feels so strongly about that couldn't X-Play's reviews be requested to be taken off from the site if he feels that way? Or just have X-Plays review system be changed in response to aggregation?
cxm @ Mar 27th 2009 10:35PM
having x-play remove their scores from the metacritic formula doesn't change the fact that the scores shown on metacritic are seriously skewed in one way or the other. Decent games appear to be getting low scores because the conversion is rediculously simplistic, and unfortunately, a large portion of the gaming population take those scores seriously.
Compound that with teh fact that some game companies determine a development team's bonuses on reaching specific metacritic score milestones, and you have a lot of people being screwed over because of the stupid system.
nikescar @ Mar 28th 2009 12:02AM
I don't get your point. What responsibility does Metacritic have to find a perfect way to convert these scores (a lot of which are nonsense), find all the reviews posted on the net, weed out "some dude" or anything else? Like you said in the other post "you have to wonder how anyone could take the number scores with any sort of seriousness". It's just a tool to congregate people's opinions about games and get some consensus on its quality.
The real problems are obvious and you even pointed them out. Companies are to blame for using a non-scientific system to divvy out the cash and no nothings need to read the actual reviews (playing a demo wouldn't hurt either) to decide whether or not they want to buy something.
If you have a better way to provide this valuable tool maybe it's time to jump into Dreamweaver and get that site up and running.
Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Mar 27th 2009 7:24PM
Metacritic scores are fine and everybody would perceive them as fine if the industry wasn't so stuck up it's own ass with the four-point scale.
I know that Adam's idea of "fixing" Metacritic for sites like 1up would be making F a 50/100 through to A+ which would be 100/100 but from any point of view that isn't too scared of backlash to use 50% as an average, this would be fucking retarded.
ShockMister @ Mar 27th 2009 7:31PM
publishers will stop caring about the score a game gets when we stop caring
look at what happened to 1up when they changed to a letter system the first thing people did was work out how to convert it back.
stop reviewers using any rating system. If you’re that interested in a game chances are you are going to buy it regardless of its score.
basically dump scores that are pointless, you shouldn’t judge what could be 3 years worth of work with a number.
I’d prefer something along the lines of a list of pros, cons and suggested fixes as a rap up to a review. I seem to be the minority though
j.howlett @ Mar 27th 2009 7:56PM
i agree about the metacritic thing, i only use reviews as advice because i eventually make up my own mind. my reactions to reviews are if i agree it's brilliant and reinforces my opinion if i disagree the reviewer is an idiot what do they know. i've had fun and really liked some poorly reviewed games and have been frustrated, bored, and hated some well reviewed games
Duoae @ Mar 27th 2009 8:08PM
I love how N'Gai's calling for a moratorium on Hardcore and Casual terms. I've seen so many people call for an end to their use but we need a way to differentiate between people who are dedicated games consumers and people who browse.... just as there's a difference between people who buy Jimmy Choos(?) and Chanelle perfume and those who use Walmart pumps and roll-on Addidas.
They may be generalisations but they are based on facts and consuming habits (both financial and time-wise) of the users of the products. They are useful and until someone comes up with a better system i wish people would recognise that there's no getting around it.
After working for the general press (in a non-journalistic role) i find Leigh's comments exceptionally naive. Even when the truth is given, it's either misused or unused. In the world of today there's an ever-increasing tendency to exaggerate to be able to get any notice our time-limited attention spans. In fact, many outlets prey on 'getting people wrong' to get them their pageviews.
Mr Khan @ Mar 27th 2009 9:42PM
The problem with the terminologies is that they've been abused by gaming journalism to the point where they're basically code words for "PCPSPS360" and "Nintendo." Stripped of all meaning, they've come down simply to marketing nothings, so new terms are needed, since the old ones have been hopelessly bastardized
Duoae @ Mar 28th 2009 7:18AM
Care to come up with some new definitions? I've seen many people try but so far none of them are able to do it. I'd also argue that the it's not the journalists or the media that have abuse the terms but the fans.... i don't remember the last time i read a polarised article (from a professional outlet) that reinforced the casual market and hardcore stereotypes. It's usually in comment threads like this one where the fanboys call out the casual audience of the Wii etc. (which is hard to argue against since i'd say a larger portion of the Wii's userbase is of a more casual nature than either the 360 or PS3)
I also don't like calling someone who plays boggle 24/7 a hardcore gamer. You don't call someone who reads the same book (say LoTR) over and over again a well-read person, do you? To me, hardcore tends to mean someone who is well-versed in all aspects of gaming AND spends a large portion of their free time thinking, talking, reading and writing about games as well as playing them. Someone who's casual about playing games will play them in their free time but won't consume the culture or ideas surrounding the medium and it isn't necessarily the person's main hobby either.
I think you can apply that to any hobby and medium, from films to flying kites.
Bowser Rogozhin @ Mar 28th 2009 9:55AM
Maybe we should stray away from artificial segmentation, definitions if you prefer. It encourages lazy thought and lazier stereotypes.
Duoae @ Mar 28th 2009 11:12AM
And lumping everyone in together is, IMO, more useless when it comes to addressing a specific audience or part of that audience. I feel that method is even lazier.
Bowser Rogozhin @ Mar 28th 2009 11:27AM
How did you gather 'lumping everyone in together' from my comment about artificial segmentation? Isn't lumping everyone together...a form of artificial segmentation? You're still thinking in terms of lazy stereotypes. Think harder and stop being lazy, Mr Lazy Pants.
Duoae @ Mar 28th 2009 12:55PM
On the contrary.... the opposite of cataloging and defining is non-definition and all-encompassing - hence lumping everyone in together. It's not lazy for me to look at it that way. What would you call 'making everyone equal' if it's not lumping everyone together?
Bowser Rogozhin @ Mar 28th 2009 1:08PM
"the opposite of cataloging and defining is non-definition and all-encompassing"
Non-definition is all-encompassing? Moar like Mo' Assumptions Mo' Lazy Thought, amirite?
"What would you call 'making everyone equal' if it's not lumping everyone together?"
Looking at every single person as an individual with their own contradictions, likes and dislikes. There's no shorthand for it unfortunately, and it certainly cannot be broken down into subjective nonsense such as hardcore and casual. In fact, there is no innate reason to catalogue tastes, unless you're a marketeer or bureaucrat, but then you'd be dead inside.
Duoae @ Mar 28th 2009 5:37PM
In fact, there is no innate reason to catalogue tastes, unless you're a marketeer or bureaucrat, but then you'd be dead inside.
Then you'd better hope you never work in any industry that requires profiling or cataloging or defining. (Which is practically every industry with the exception of a few specific jobs: perhaps being a writer or farmer where someone else does the target market and stuff for you) It's not assumption and lazy thought... many hours go into trying to work out what kind of people play what types of games - you're really not seeing that or you're just trying to be funny and obtuse.
Humans innately categorise everything they do and interact with in their lives - it's a basic psychological function i still fail to see how it's lazy. You can't assess 100,000 or more individuals on their own merits when you're polling them on their usage habits it just doesn't work.
The Dark Wayne @ Mar 27th 2009 8:16PM
I wish there was a panel where regular people criticized game reviewers
Jambi_Bum @ Mar 27th 2009 8:39PM
That's a really good idea. There should be some sort of intelligence factor/grammar filter though. That way you get actual well thought out discussions instead of just "why didz u bash my favorite gamez~!!!". God I'm horrible at leet speak.
mr mobius @ Mar 27th 2009 8:30PM
http://insultswordfighting.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-taxonomy-of-gamers-table-of.html
As mentioned in the post, incorporating this into a review summary would be a brilliant step forward.
It's a very helpful system and I'm glad Joystiq brought this to my attention.
colorsinmono @ Mar 27th 2009 9:19PM
OH HAI IMY NAME IS Heather Chaplin
I LISTEN TO LE TIGRE
Nmaster @ Mar 27th 2009 11:29PM
Gawd I want some video damnit...
Bowser Rogozhin @ Mar 28th 2009 7:05AM
This should have been a daily feature, or should be (depending on whether the conference is still ongoing).
Snake Robot Podium @ Mar 28th 2009 9:06AM
Heather Chaplin directed her comment at devs, but the same stereotype goes for the gamers themselves. Yes, we could use some mature games, but there is something to be said for "for us, by us" mentality. The age-old question, whose job is it to elevate the medium, producers or consumers?
Eleniel @ Mar 28th 2009 9:29AM
You are absolutely right. Both definitely have a role and can affect change. But I think it is especially critics' job to not accept immature bullshit, and call it out. With the state of game journalism and ALSO the overall online gaming community, I have very little hope, though, so appealing to the devs might be more effective.
Covnam @ Mar 28th 2009 1:13PM
Anyone know if there is there a transcript or video of this panel? I'd be really interested in seeing the whole thing.