Society: Game Critics

The Performances of the Critics

The video game industry is very similar to a theatrical performance, to the built up, right down to the performances of the audience. The Prologue is like the elements that are proceeding to the play is like a developer introducing a new game to the mass public. The play itself is to entertain the audience in turn is the real performance and is very similar to video games. Developers make games to generate a good performance out of the audience. Once the game is in the mass public's eyes it doesn't end there. Just like theatre the play begins in the minds of the creator(s) and ends in the repository minds / memories of the gamers'. As any theatre teacher will say, "The stage is just the focal point where the transmission takes place in the form of communication known as theatrical performance." Like in theatre some games remain in our minds for days, months, or years to come. It's when we ask ourselves did this game changed, moved, or disappointed me. Did the developers just do their jobs to fit the criteria of a game to just call it a day, or did they try their best to immerse you into the experience. Is the game as fun as Halo, as epic as Metal Gear Solid, or as exciting as God of War? I'll be talking about the different types of critics, what I think critics should consider, and my whole opinion of the world of critics today.

In any industry there is professional criticism and there is amateur criticism. The differences between these two critics is that one specializes in journalism while the other seen as a pastime than a profession. The professionals will be in newspapers, editors on gaming sites, and are scholars of some sort. They went through the education to get where they're now otherwise you're considered an amateur. I did not take journalism so therefore I'm an amateur like many other gamers on this site. At the same time you can be a professional critic, but not an informed gamer. I don't mean that you have to spend hours upon hours playing video games, but at least have a sense of how the industry works.

When going into a game I think critics should consider being observant, informed, sensitive, demanding, and articulate. Being observant is having an opened mind and is going into the game as if it's a clean slate for the developer. It'll be one thing going into a game just to say to yourself I have to sit through this garbage, you'll be surprised of the results. Being an informed critic is more on the professional side of things for the fact that not everyone will buy every single game available.

How many amateurs played every single PlayStation 2 game so that they can compare it to others? Being a sensitive critic is questing, not self-satisfied; kind, not self-absorbed; and overall understands we all need helping hands in this never-ending adventure of development. Being a demanding critic is holding the developers to its highest standards in other words don't expect a 20 person crew to create a Killzone 2 / Halo 3 killer. Lastly an articulate critic is to express one's thoughts with precision, clarity, and grace. Simply saying "I hate this" or "I love this" is just expressing ones opinion. Robert Cohen says, "Articulation means the careful building of ideas through a presentation of evidence, logic argument, the use of helpful analogy and example, and a style of expression neither pedantically turgid nor idiosyncratically anarchic." Basically criticism should be a pleasant read and not suffocating readers with prejudices or egotistical showing of the critic.

Now what I think of the industry it is hits and misses because you'll see good critics than you'll have your others. Even though this is the criteria for theatre it fits perfectly with any form of medium. An example I enjoyed reading X-Play's review of Haze more than IGN's review because of the logic behind X-Play's points over IGN's. In IGN's review it seems like they hated the game for being similar to Halo, while X-Play was stating it had poor design choices with broken controls. Of course Game Spot has their fair share of this with games having too much things to do. In the end I do feel like most critics in the gaming industry can't articulate themselves properly. With users obviously your expectations must go down a couple of notches because they're amateurs. At the same time I sometimes look at user reviews and it's more of an opinion piece than a review. Keep note that when writing anything there will always be some form of bias because you have an opinion, no matter how subjective you try to be. When someone is called "bias" it means they lack articulation or display favouritism (elitism) in their writing. In the gaming society "elitism" is a usually a bias fanatic. With amateur reviews you'll get the fanatics of the series and the new comers. The fanatics of the series will be more of an informed critic since they've been following the series knowing what has upgraded. The newcomers will tell you how friendly the game is to newcomers of course.

In the end we're all critics and I find most professionals make such "interesting" comments. You'll see some editors not being sensitive when it comes to specific platforms / versions and most of all not articulating their criticism properly. I love Reviews on the Run not because they follow this criteria but because you know their personality through each review. Since there is only two people reviewing games you're not going to like all kinds of genres that makes it entertaining. Don't get me wrong they still don't always articulate themselves properly and will say I preferred it on the XBOX 360 more, yet at the same time you know it's just their personality. They usually don't state preferences as statements and Victor Lucas tries to be the ideal critic and that's what I love about the show. Plus I love X-Play for actually using their whole scale 1-5 unlike some sites I know.

This is what I think of the industry based on the different kinds of critics, to what I think critics should follow, and to my opinion of critics today. In the end I don't really trust one particular critic completely and think everyone should do the same. There are more aspects I would love to talk about, but I think I already lost 70% of readers by the length of the blog. One would be senationalism in journalism, now that's something to think about, lol.

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